This is becoming an increasingly familiar–and alarming –story. Charter advocates are pouring large amounts of money–more than $200,000–into local school board races, in districts where few are residents. They are targeting candidates who dare to question the expansion of charters.
In Santa Clara County, incumbent Anna Song is under attack by the charter lobby, which is throwing large sums into a campaign to defeat her.
The article in the Mercury News says:
The most aggressive campaign appears to be aimed at Anna Song, who is running for her fourth term on the county Board of Education.
The Santa Clara County Schools Political Action Committee has raised nearly $200,000 from Jan. 1 through Oct. 20, and financed auto-dial calls plus four mailers slamming Song and three supporting her challenger, trustee David Neighbors.
“It’s an outrageous amount of money to take out one school board member,” said Song, who’s running for a seat that represents areas served by the Santa Clara, Milpitas and the Berryessa school districts.
Neighbors, who has benefited from $76,000 worth of PAC mailers and auto-calls for his candidacy and against Song, said about the PAC, “I don’t know much about it.”
Created at the suggestion of the California Charter Schools Association, the PAC is run by Santa Clara County political consultants Jay Rosenthal and Jude Barry.
Through Oct. 20, Neighbors raised $23,539.
The articles goes on to note that this PAC spending dwarfs the usual spending on local school board races:
The PAC is also sending mailers to re-elect Grace Mah, who’s running for the county school board to represent areas within the Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos and Sunnyvale school districts. Her opponent, Dave Cortright, is an outspoken opponent of Bullis Charter School in Los Altos.
The PAC dwarfs spending in county school board elections, where serious candidates typically have spent closer to $30,000. “What they’re doing could be very significant,” said Terry Christensen, professor emeritus at San Jose State and a specialist in state and local politics. Because so little is typically spent in a county school board race he said, “it wouldn’t take much to have an influence.”
Among the big donations to the PACs are $75,000 from the California Charter Schools Association Advocates; $50,000 from Netflix CEO Reed Hastings; $50,000 from Gap heir John J. Fisher; $40,000 from Emerson Collective, the nonprofit run by Steve Jobs’ widow Laurene Powell Jobs; and $10,000 from Rocketship charter schools board member Timothy Ranzetta.
Song had the audacity to vote against opening 20 Rocketship charters in her district, which would drain students and funding from the public schools. This is Rocketship’s answer: go along or get out of the way.
Cortright, who has raised $1,000, dared to oppose the Bullis charter school in Los Altos, which is known as the publicly funded private school for the children of the super-rich.
Diane…any chance you’d consider highlight this article?
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/dont-be-charter-fooled/Content?oid=15148305
Wow! Great article! Will they ever run out of money?
NIce take on the big $$$$ for school board races.
“Had donors given money directly to support high-performing schools, they would have had a more beneficial impact, Song said.”
Based on this article, I’m guessing it won’t be too long before private schools in affluent areas become “public” charter schools. Just a thought and prediction, I hope won’t come true.
Hey now, don’t give em any ideas!!
For more info on Bullis Charter School (and what concerned parents are doing to fight back) see: http://bullisCharterScam.org .
The article didn’t mentioned some of the other dirty tricks being pulled such as the barrage of smear stories in local papers, including one against Anna Song’s husband.
@Mark — Leaders of the school have bragged that they will be doing exactly that. Their marketing, they promised, will be targeted at private school attendees (the ones who can afford their $5000/child “tuition”).
This one charter school is ripping apart the top-ranked school district in California, hitting them with one lawsuit after another… It’s terrible… Mrs. Jobs should be ashamed.
Reed Hastings’ charter school, Pacific Collegiate, did just that. It was created by private school parents, teachers and administrators 12 years ago. It began with a donation from Hastings, whose own children attended private schools while he was the president of the state board of education.
Song is a hero. She dared to point put that she is unimpressed with test scores from Bullis, a school that skims super wealthy high achieving kids.
The Bullis kids had a great field trip recently. To Chengdu CHINA.
The rich are different than you and me.