Steven Singer hits the nail on the head: there is no difference between DFER and DeVos!
He writes:
“Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) put out a new video about what they think it means to be an education progressive.
“And by the political action committee’s definition, Betsy DeVos may be the most “progressive” education secretary ever.
“She champions “public charter schools.” Just like them!
“She is in favor of evaluating teachers on student test scores. Just like them!
“She is a booster for “holding schools accountable” through the use of standardized tests. Just like them!
“And she loves putting public tax dollars into private hands to run schools “more efficiently” by disbanding school boards, closing public debate and choosing exactly which students get to attend privatized schools. Just like… you get the idea.
“But perhaps the most striking similarity between DeVos and DFER is their methodologies.
“DFER announced it again was going to flood Democratic races with tons of campaign cash to bolster candidates who agreed with them. That’s exactly how DeVos gets things done, too!
“She gives politicians bribes to do her bidding! The only difference is she pays her money mostly to Republicans while DFER pays off Democrats. But if both DeVos and DFER are paying to get would-be lawmakers to enact the same policies, what is the difference!?
“Seriously, what is the difference between Betsy DeVos and Democrats for Education Reform?”
Singer concludes that faux progressive groups like DFER, who are indistinguishable from Republicans, are causing many people to abandon the party.
“Why do some progressives vote third party? Because of groups like DFER.
“Voters think something like – if this charter school advocacy group represents what Democrats are all about, I can’t vote Democrat. I need a new party. Hence the surge of Green and other third party votes that is blamed for hurting Democratic candidates.”
DFER and DeVos! Made for each other!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
RINO/DINO. Left is right, up is down. It’s so mixed up right now and the “labels” are all misleading. We need a big DO OVER. It seems we have all these little cults of personalities that try to hang onto the big groups when convenient.
There is only one political party, the party of money.
Diane This is a good example of the development of “fellow travelers” in the fascist march to power. This is bookmarked by the recent exposure of Republican ambitions for the court, their hiding of Kavanaugh documents from the American people, and their “timing” being covered by lies about Congress NOT trying to end the Manafort/Russian investigation by Mueller–as recently exposed on Rachel Maddow via actual tapes of GOP meetings that were closed to the press. (This tape was almost as good as the Mitt Romney tape.)
Lying to the public, and messing with the truth, are fascist givens and are cogent points in Arendt’s book; but then she writes about “fellow” organizations:
“The fellow-traveler organizations surround the totalitarian movements with a mist of normality and respectability that fools the membership about the true character of the outside world as much as it does the outside world about the true character of the movement. The front organization functions both ways as the facade of the totalitarian movement to the nontotalitarian world, and as the facade of this world to the inner hierarchy of the movement. . . .” (pg. 366-68/”The Origins of Totalitarianism”).
(Worth repeating. The whole quote was in a previous note here.) CBK
“An open letter to the Hannah Center at Bard College…it was a mistake to invite a German far right politician to your conference.”
Almost 60 professors signed the letter, which was published in the Chronicle of Higher Ed. in 2017.
IMO, Bard College lacks an institutional soul which cheapens its degrees and demeans its former, current and future faculty and staff. Why doesn’t Bard College show the academic integrity of mandating that the Arendt Center which carries its name, identify funders at its site?
Linda,
I tweeted to @BardCollege to ask why they oppose pensions for working people. And whether the paper were sponsored by Koch or Arnold. No answer yet.
IMO, there’s institutional resistance at Bard to being accountable for the impact of it’s activities on the American people.
Love the way DFER throws in Rosa Parks and Albert Shanker into this video – as if they would have supported them and vice versa.
Perhaps that is the most frightening thing about DFER: so many of its members have no clue how very far they are from actually helping those they top-down control and invade.
ciedie aech We can call it what we like, Arendt’s insidious fascism, or Orwellian double-speak; but anyone who wants to be discerning can no longer take the name of something as if it were really the actual substance of it. “Democratic,” for instance, does not necessarily mean democratic and may mean its exact opposite, with soft-sell mediator-liars in-between. Those who are up to no good don’t use bombs so much any more. They rather take apart civil society, i’s good intentions and organizations, slowly, from the inside, and by using naivete and authenticity to work against itself. We cannot let it exhaust us, which
is one of its methods. CBK
ciedie aech Addendum to my prior note: Putin and his rich acolytes are professional at it–even people in the US who only want to enrich themselves and get power (like that banker who wanted to head the Department of the Army and so gave loans to Manaport) probably don’t think of themselves as anti-democratic (in the broad sense); but they are easily co-opted (useful idiots) by their own thoughtless greed. (That’s why the emoluments clause is so important in the Constitution. Jefferson studied world history.)
I tweeted Bard College to ask why they oppose pensions for working people.
dianeravitch We all are called to be detectives . . . CBK
I’ll write to Bard’s President again, years after my first letter. Thank you for yours, Diane.
Evidently, 60 professors writing in concert to oppose Arendt’s invitation to a far-right German politician to speak, matters not, at Bard College.
One man at the top remains silent, which allows another man’s agenda to flourish, an agenda advantaged by the borrowed institution’s reputation.
Something similar happened at the University of Pennsylvania, recently.
Diane . . . and at George Mason University in Virginia–just outside the beltway. CBK
UnKochMyCampus.org exposed GMU, “The Federalist Society takes over GMU’s Public Law School”. University endowments should be taxed and all legacy admission colleges should be banned from receiving tax dollars.
Diane Our own bunch of oligarchs seem to think that the Constitution, with its reference to WE the People, and OF/FOR/BY The People, is basically a Democratic (big D) political document, and as big-D, is OPPOSED to a Republican political document (also big R), rather than a POLITICAL FOUNDATION for both political parties.
That makes oligarchical people like DeVos and the Kochs, and all who TAKE from this constitutional democracy, and who live within the boundaries of its goodness of its freedoms, its infrastructure, and its many opportunities–it makes them devine themselves into thinking they owe it nothing.
The DeVos Yacht-tax thing was a real eye-roller example of that devining. CBK
“Branding Party”
They weaponize the language
Our adjectives and nouns
A real baloney sandwich
That’s made by Party clowns
The Paul Weyrich training manual posted at Theocracy Watch details the plans of the self-congratulatory “blessed” evangelicals like DeVos and Jay Sekulow, which are carried out by Putin-owned Trump and Koch-owned Pence to enrich the 0.1%. In their opinion, it’s is divinely ordained for them to enslave Americans.
Both groups use their money as a weapon against the needs of the poor and working classes. The take away is we need to overturn Citizens United through a constitutional amendment, if necessary. As long as unlimited amounts of money can be spent on politics, only the interests of the 1% will be served, and they will drown out the voices of every day citizens. There is little hope for democratic rule of law in such an unhealthy climate.
Singer could ask the same question of the “liberal” Center for American Progress which recommends charter schools and no education tax increases (without increases, cuts since 2008 can’t be addressed). Singer could ask Randi Weingartner to explain her role with the founder and director of CAP, during Hillary’s campaign. CAP and Randi could explain CAP board member and Bain Capital co-founder
and co-chair of City Year, an organization partnered with Success Academy, Jonathan Lavine’s position in a “liberal” organization.
“The only difference is she pays her money mostly to Republicans while DFER pays off Democrats. ”
“D(if)FER(ence)?”
Betsy pays the GOP
But Dems DFER to DINOs
The D(if)FER(ence) is small, you see
Like size of horns on rhinos 🦏
Thank you, Dr. Singer. NO DFER for me. NO GOP for me.