A state investigation revealed the identities of donors to a secret fund to oppose an initiative that would increase funding to public schools and to support an initiative to weaken the unions’ political influence.
Among the donors to the $11 million secret fund was billionaire Eli Broad. He publicly supported Governor Jerry Brown’s measure to raise taxes to help the state’s struggling public schools at the same time that he put $1 million into the fund to defeat the new tax.
Broad similarly has pretended to be a friend to unions, but was a contributor to the fund–organized in part by the far-right Koch brothers–that would have limited the ability of unions to raise political cash.
The billionaires failed. The tax increase passed, and the effort to curb union spending was defeated.
If the bill limiting union spending had passed, only the super-rich would be able to give large campaign contributions but those who represent working people would be stripped of any opportunity to fund candidates or issues they cared about.
Other donors to the secret fund were investor Charles Schwab and the Fisher family, owners of the Gap and a major funder of KIPP.
Eli Broad and other donors to this fund went to great lengths to hide their antipathy to public schools and unions.
When I spoke in Sacramento two years ago, I spent two hours with Governor Brown and he told me he had to be diplomatic and nice to Michelle Rhee to keep Eli Broad’s support for his tax increase. He was fooled.
The tax increase was needed because former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger had cut the public schools’ budget by about $15 billion while setting aside capital funds for charter schools and giving charter advocates a majority of seats on the state board of education. At that time, charters enrolled about 4% of the students in California.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
And now he is supporting a candidate to challenge the California State Superintendent of Schools, Tom Torlakson! The new candidate is a Green Dot person. If you want more info, let me know.
Teri Sorey Irvine, CA
“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.” –Martin Luther King, Jr.
Don’t believe a word that any oligarch says, regardless of party affiliation:
“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” ~John Kenneth Galbraith
Which means they think like three year olds in that area.
More study of Philosophy is needed in this country.
Can we retroactively prepare today’s leaders for their roles in the 21st Century??? A Common Core Philosophy Standards crash course perhaps?
“San Francisco investor Schwab gave more than $6.2 million to the same group. Broad gave $1 million despite his stated support for higher taxes on the wealthy.”
It’s so funny, because all this political skullduggery among the 1% is becoming the BEST argument for higher taxes on the wealthy.
Maybe they’ll stop buying our politicians. They obviously have too much money 🙂
I believe that Charles Schwab is dyslexic, which he discovered when his own son was diagnosed. Given thay public schools are more likely to provide services, you would think he would think twice before funding efforts to weaken public education.
Gee, 2old, ya think? Now that Pear$on has purchase the testing company that produces the diagnostic assessments for dyslexia AND ADHD, even MORE kids might be diagnosed!
However, appropriate services (sorry!) are unlikely–how many “highly qualified” TFAers do you think will be trained in Orton-Gillingham or Wilson?!
So this is where education IS the civil rights issue of our day. Public School and those who use it, support it and work for it are treated like second class citizens. Automatically. We are at the back of the bus.
And for some it is as ingrained, reflexive and second nature as old fashioned racism.
Did it ever occur to them that the money they “save” in taxes is instead spent on “donations” to these evil causes? It doesn’t make much sense to me.
He loves to move behind the scenes, doesn’t he?
The lid has been blown off Broad for so long, but before now the press wouldn’t touch it. I’ve been waiting since 2009 for Randi Weingarten to apologize to the AFT membership for her years of collaboration with him. He rarely discloses his hand, but this Gotham Schools story let a sliver of daylight in: “Eli Broad describes close ties to Klein, Weingarten, Duncan”
My favorite quote:
““We’re often accused of having too much influence in education,” Broad said. “I’m not sure how you’d restrict that.” While foundations and nonprofits are barred by law from getting involved in politics, they might expand their reach by spinning off organizations with a different tax status that allows them to back political candidates and lobby for pieces of legislation, Broad said. He said the Klein-chaired Education Equality Project is considering doing just that.”
http://gothamschools.org/2009/03/11/eli-broad-describes-close-ties-to-klein-weingarten-duncan/
“Who is Eli Broad and why is he trying to destroy public education?”
http://www.defendpubliceducation.net/
Eli Broad and the Broad Foundation?
They’re the one’s, according to their 2009 annual report, “investing” in Randi Weingarten and the AFT.
The next time Ms. Weingarten helicopters into an urban school district to negotiate a tenure, seniority and public school-killing contract, remember who she really works for.
Shouldn’t we have a list of Broad-sponsored superintendents and principals, and shouldn’t they be questioned about their knowledge and views on this issue?
Mike Miles in Dallas is a Broad grad. Unions are not happy with him (such as unions are in Texas).
Who else?
Available on The BroadReport for graduates up to 2012, maybe on Broad sites
Everything that man touches turns to trash.
It’s long overdue to start drastically raising taxes on billionaires.
Yes. Eli Broad is a fraud.
Isn’t it comforting to know that super wealthy people work in such a sleazy way to undermine people who actually work for a living. Broad and others have been doing this nonsense in many states. Right now in the state of Michigan there is an Emergency Manager appointed by Rick Snyder, a tea party governor. The Governor has a “NERD” fund. The “NERD” fund is used to pay for the EM’s housing, etc. The NERD fund is completely secret. The Governor claimed under oath that he had no idea who was contributing to this fund. Yeah right. Can you believe this sleazy activity is going on in what is supposed to be a transparent democracy? I hope someone finds evidence that the Governor knows who the donors are and he is convicted of perjury. Both parties, especially the Democrats, have been polluted by the super wealthy bullies ruining democracy.
Why is anyone surprised at this development? It serves the needs of the free market to “diversify.” That’s what he’s doing here.
I couldn’t help but read the last word (California) on this post like Arnold says it (I love accents; it’s the musician in me.
But, I think there are two truths that are evident:
1. Public School and associating one’s self with it if you are to be anything but a patronized teacher carries a stigma that only the strongest (a la Dr. Ravitch) rise above. Those who have not achieved that strength need to be challenged to do so more!!!
2. Money makes sluts of the moral. I think to be in a position of power means you have to have the resistance to money that a married man would have if beautiful women were flowing him around all day. There has to be a conviction to not get involved. But to stay focused on one’s charge as a representative of others. Money is a tool. And it can dry tears. But the question is whose tears is it drying? And why? And how? And for how long? Many leaders anymore (most?) are forgetting this.
Following him. (Autocorrect).
Re the Fisher family. Today Robert Gammon of the East Bay Express gives the lowdown on their donations in “Oakland A’s Owners Should’ve Been Fined.”
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/oakland-as-owners-shouldve-been-fined/Content?oid=3750751
Excerpt:
“The Fisher family, which owns the A’s and the Gap, pumped $9 million into a shadowy nonprofit that was at the center of an illegal campaign scheme…
“The Fishers are longtime donors to Governor Brown’s political campaigns and to his Oakland charter schools. In addition, the governor’s wife, Anne Gust Brown, is a former longtime top executive at the Gap.
“Ironically, the scheme in question involved the Fishers secretly funding an unsuccessful attempt to defeat Governor Brown’s 2012 tax measure, Proposition 30. Their donations also bankrolled Proposition 32, which sought to weaken the political influence of organized labor in California. Brown, like most Democrats, publicly opposed Prop 32…
“However, a longtime state ethics expert questions that conclusion. Robert Stern, who authored California’s campaign finance reform law in the 1970s and is a former executive director of the FPPC, called the dark money scheme ‘a real subterfuge.’ Stern also contended that evidence in the case indicates that the Fishers and other donors knew ‘what the money was going to be used for.’
“Indeed, they must have known. According to the FPPC’s investigation, Tony Russo, a longtime California Republican operative who was part of an effort to pass Prop 32 and defeat Prop 30, hatched the funding scheme last year. Russo was working for Americans for Job Security at the time, and he approached the Fishers and other large donors and gave them two options: donate directly to a campaign to pass Prop 32 and defeat Prop 30, or contribute secretly to the Virginia-based nonprofit group. Russo told the donors that if they gave directly to the campaign, then their names and the amounts they contributed would have to be revealed under California’s disclosure laws. But if they donated to Americans for Job Security, they could keep their identities secret, because under election laws, nonprofit organizations do not have to reveal their funders…”
The financial firm, TIAA, whose motto is, serving the greater good, published a “research” paper in Oct. that undermines public pensions. The co-author is the Arnold Foundation. Arnold was an Enron trader who avoided prosecution. No surprise, TIAA papers on public pensions are posted at State Budget Solutions which until last week identified itself as a partnership with the Koch-backed Franklin Center and ALEC.