Ted Mitchell is CEO of the NewSchools Venture Fund, one of the best funded and most aggressive organizations promoting charter school chains and for-profit ventures in public education.
He is a key figure in the corporate reform movement to transform public education and transfer public funds to private management, as well as to spur entrepreneurial activity and the involvement of the for-profit sector in public education.
President Obama has nominated him to be Undersecretary of Education, the second most powerful job in the department.
As this article suggests, the choice of Ted Mitchell sends a clear signal about the priorities of President Obama.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
An anti-public school figure in charge of all public schools in the country. Mind blowing.
I teach in the Los Angeles Unified School District, where the superintendent, “Doctor” John Deasy, appears committed to the destruction of public education and the fortunes of charter schools. So it just seems par for the course to me in this increasingly Bizarro country of ours.
@Deborah.. this is Mitchell’s bio taken from his organization! I do not see any time at all spent in a k-12 public school classroom at all but then this is no surprise.. he is a combo of ivory tower, seems mostly to be all business and appears to promote internet oriented learning (see Khan Academy and the teaching channel in there). Shame on Obama… SHAME! He will focus on privatizing via charter expansion with cost reduction through internet learning – this is my guess. Here is the bio:
“Ted Mitchell is CEO of the NewSchools Venture Fund which invests philanthropic capital to support entrepreneurs seeking to radically transform education in America. Since its founding in 1998 NewSchools has put more than $200 million to work supporting education innovation and student success.
In addition, Ted has long been a leader in education reform in California and nationally. From 2008 through 2010, he served as president of the California State Board of Education. Prior to taking the helm at NewSchools in 2005, Ted was president of Occidental College, vice chancellor and dean of the School of Education and Information Studies at the UCLA, and professor and chair of the Department of Education at Dartmouth College. In addition, he serves on the board of directors of Khan Academy, New Leaders, The Teaching Channel, Education Elements and The McClatchy Company. Dr. Mitchell received his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. from Stanford University”
This is a sad day for America.
How does this nomination process work? Does the Senate vote on it?
In other words, if I want to protest this, should I call the White House, my Senators, or someone else?
(Or maybe, if political engagement is futile, I should just follow my instinct to open the window and yell, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!”)
Oh no, our republic is dead. It has been bought by Wall St. etc.
Close – it never was alive: it was, at first, owned by business men, major landowners, and slave owners, and then owned by the industrialists, and finally by wall street.
According to this article, he needs to be confirmed by the Senate.
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/12/higher-education-nominees-100551.html
Very disappointing and disheartening to hear.
Crooks.
In response, we should not vote for any Dimocrats in the upcoming election. No one. Send a message to the neoliberals. Bush’s policies seem benign compared to Obama. Do we all need t-shirts saying “Obama hates Teachers and public school students and parents”? The mainstream media surely will be silent. We must speak.
I’m not voting for them.
Nibus Look to NC for a far worse policy. Vote on issues and past practice.
The Democratic Party has largely abandoned Public Education and the idea of career educators.
Voting for Democrats like Andrew Cuomo and Cory Booker (Hillary too) merely because the Republicans might be even worse is foolish.
It has been said,” if you are thirsty enough, you will drink dirty water.”
ONLY fear of losing elections will motivate the Neo Liberals.
I’d rather see a foolish tea party candidate win election than send another Cuomo type get reelcted.
Opt Out!
I think that voters should look at the policy ideas of each individual candidates, and vote accordingly. That is, some Democrats are good and some are bad, with regards to this subject.
Sad vindication of my no vote for Obama. I feel powerless – anyone else?
Yes, the White House is clueless and for sale. What qualifications does this man have? I wonder if Republicans are still calling for the Dept of Ed. to be shut down? No way! This is a dream come true.
Romney would have been even worse on this matter. Of course, I’m assuming you voted for Romney and not a third-party candidate. Feel free to correct me.
Disappointing but not surprising, as Obama is a product of private schooling for the most part.
Pick all he wants, Obama and all those politicians lower on the totem pole (Congress representatives, senators, state assemply people and state senators, county executives, mayors, judges, etc . . . All of the pols lower in the food chain will be watched and closely monitored by we the body politic and body citizenry who vote and give those people their careers, their paychecks, and their benefit packages.
Let them support this virulent president and his wife, both of whom clearly do not like education as a public trust, public school teachers, and teacher unions.
Let them support Mr. and Mrs. President Parasitic E-bola Virus and all their viral crony capitalists, and they who act accordingly will over time no longer be able to act upon anything because they will have been voted out of office . . . . .
We voters still have a democratic machinery in place, and we still vote. We still operate the levers of that voting machinery.
We are watching and analyzing microscopically the data on voting records . . .
We are beginning to slowly wake up and act.
We don’t forget anything . . .
Give us the NSA, the CIA, the FBI. Give us the police and the National Guard.
We are still a democracy . . . .
Frederick Hess, director of education policy studies at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, says that Mitchell, whom he has known for 15 years, is highly qualified to be Under Secretary of Education.
“Ted Mitchell is an incredibly smart and even-tempered guy,” Hess tells Capital & Main. “He’s got a ton of relevant experience. He’s thoughtful and he likes to listen, he is somebody very used to people disagreeing and giving them a fair hearing. I think it’s a terrific choice. It’s very much consistent with the open-minded approach the administration is taking.”
Such nonsense. There’s only one view in that administration. They all sound exactly the same, down the language and the word choice. What’s the big debate among reformers? Whether to re-brand vouchers as “scholarships”? How many public schools to close, undermine or abandon, and how fast? For profit or non profit charters? There’s no debate at all. Democrats, Republicans and media, all joining together, all in agreement.
I think it’s incredibly generous that Mr. Hess assures the folks out here in the cheap seats that think tanks, foundations and CEO’s are promising a “fair hearing” for our local public schools. I wasn’t aware we had reached the stage where public schools were on trial. Gosh, I sure hope we don’t lose. My 5th grader will be pretty upset to find out the continued existence of his publicly-run school is now up for debate at DC roundtable discussions.
Chiara Duggan: Excellent points.
A very small point: they’ve already done some rebranding. For example, sometimes they call vouchers “opportunity scholarships.” Gives you that warm and tingly feeling all over, doesn’t it? Just like “choice”—which you nailed with the phrase “choice not voice.”
But some of their hype has now committed a Rhee Flee and gone to the Graveyard of Counter-Productive Slogans.
Notice that the leading charterites/privatizers have dropped that old crowd-pleasing “we want poor parents to have the same choices as rich parents.”
I guess they dropped that one after some of us started using those new-fangled inventions like computers and the world wide web and we were able to access the websites of Harpeth Hall [Michelle Rhee] and Lakeside School [Bill Gates] and Delbarton School [Chris Christie] and Sidwell Friends [Barack Obama] and U of Chicago Lab Schools [Rahm Emanuel] and the like and discovered—
That the education the leaders of the “new civil rights movement” of our time ensure for THEIR OWN CHILDREN is stunningly different from what they are mandating for OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN. Seems their hype and their behavior don’t match.
That doesn’t sit well with a lot of us. Even those old Greek guys couldn’t stomach such sanctimonious dissemblers:
“Hateful to me as are the gates of Hell, Is he who, hiding one thing in his heart, Utters another.” [Homer]
$tudent $ucce$$, anyone?
😎
Well all, it is time for anyone who has not connected the dots as to who or better yet, what our president is, to put the picture together. He is a right wing plutocrat, with fascistic leanings. His intent is to wipe the floor with the middle class, leaving no stone unturned. The sure fire long term way to do that is to destroy the great playing field leveler, public education.
This is the guy who wants to cut Social Security and Medicare. Yes, make the first generation to contribute to Medicare their entire working lives pay more for those benefits and cut the benefits.
It is important to see the whole picture of where Obama is taking this nation.
You’re right. And if Bush were doing the same thing, there would be howls of outrage. Obama is no friend of the poor and working classes. He is a future plutocrat only looking out for himself. After all, he’ll be relatively young when he leaves the White House. May he be haunted for the rest of his life by all the damage he has done to those who believed in him the most. Of course, the venal, self-centered Obama won’t be troubled by any of this.
Obama is far from a “right-wing plutocrat, with fascistic leanings”. I imagine your words are emotion-based. A right-wing plutocrat doesn’t expand Medicaid or call for a higher minimum wage. A fascist doesn’t criticize anti-voting legislation or support LGBT equality. Let’s have some balance in our thinking, OK?
The reality is much more complex, and it has just about everything to do with who has the money to fund political campaigns. Obama, like any politician running for President, had to find the least objectionable (to him) corporate backers to suck up to in order to raise election funds. And for Democrats right now, a part of that “least objectionable” group is the education industry. For Republicans, it would be defense contractors (notice those big wars under Bush?).
The ultimate solution is either severely limiting corporate funds in elections or requiring full public funding. This would somewhat remove the need for candidates and elected politicians to cater this much to industry against the public interest.
Metro…you speakj rational truth. Campaign funding is killing any kind of democratic elections. Citizen’s United is the true devil along with its’ sponsors, SCOTUS. Also agree about the need for balance in some of these comments. However, the largest donors to Obama’s campaigns were Wall Street firms and individuals, particularly Goldman Sachs.
Clear signal??? Was there ever any doubt after his appointment of Duncan and RttT? As I’ve stated before on this blog, the madness will begin to ebb with the end of Obama’s term.
Time for a BAT swarm! ^0^
“The tax return shows that the organization generated $23.1 million in revenue and distributed $17.6 million in grants to a range of organizations that included charter schools, The KIPP Foundation, The New Teacher Project, and Teach for America.
NewSchools, which spent $1 million on lobbying each year from 2008 through 2010, says its mission is to “transform public education through powerful ideas and passionate entrepreneurs so that all children—especially those in underserved communities—have the opportunity to succeed.”The organization’s benefactors have included the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which gave NewSchools a $3.2 million grant this past July to “support the development of new teacher preparation programs and training tools that will improve academic outcomes for students.”
Yes, it’s an incredibly diverse group of “thought leaders”, except they all cycle in and out of the same three foundations and then revolve in and out of government, and they all support and hire and promote one another.
“Rigor!” “Critical thinking!” What an absolute crock.
http://diverseeducation.com/article/57272/
So disappointed in Obama, not sure candidate of 2016 will be much better, that’s the problem. There should be a nomination process just to draw attention to the irony of this appointment.
Hoe Biden is grooming for a run against Hillary.
Sorry…meant Joe.
Just made my day right before hitting the hay.
Ay, ay, ay!
Talk about regulatory capture.
But then again I didn’t vote for the Obomber as if one looked at all and listened to what he said, he laid his neoliberal self out for those who weren’t bamboozled by the rhetoric.
Michael Brocoum, The point is that the madness extends far beyond the destruction of public education. As Reagan set the ball rolling for the undoing of unions, along with a general stagnation of quality of life for working Americans, Obama is tending the garden that will continue to produce for the plutocrats long after he has left office. The moneyed class in this nation is winning, while the rest of us are losing ground by the minute.
Check out how Delta has just changed their frequent flyer program, aimed at the very wealthy.
As Buffalo Springfield said, there’s something happening here. Everybody look what’s going down. This ain’t just about education.
I just wrote to both of my U.S. Senators, asking them to block this nomination. I have little hope. If this is what the Democrats are doing to us, just imagine what the other side will do…after they destroy all the unions and dismantle the public pension system.
We need to write to Ted Cruz. He will filibuster anyone nominated by Obama.
Even Ted Cruz has his uses.
Bad news for all proponents of public education. He has been at the forefront of education “reform” for years in California. Schwartzenegger appointed head of the Board of Education. Has Occidental College connection with Obama. Think Broad, Ouchi (UCLA School of Business), Richard Riordan L.A. mayor before Villaraigosa and another eduformer billionaire), Gates–all Californians. I’m truly disgusted.
I’m sure he’ll sail through the Senate, because there’s bipartisan consensus that we have to monetize and private K-12 public schools.
There’s only three other times in my adult memory where there was bipartisan and media consensus like this, and they are:
1. NAFTA, 2. deregulating the financial and lending sector, and 3. invading Iraq.
All three were disasters. Democrats and Republicans got along so well there they all marched together, right off a cliff.
“Bipartisan” is over-rated. It’s just as likely to mean “tragically stupid and lemming-like” as it is to mean “good policy we all agree on”.
Don’t give up. Several senators are up for reelection this year and many are considered vulnerable:
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/01/2014-top-senate-races-101664.html
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/12/12/senate_seats_that_could_flip_parties_in_2014.html
http://www.270towin.com/2014-senate-election/
ALEC is the core of it all.
And Charlotte, this helps in understanding the waffling of LAUSD BoE member Steve Zimmer who went to Occidental, as did Obama, both products of Mitchell’s school.
Meanwhile, President Obama cannot stop praising New Mexico’s Koch funded -governor whenever he has an opportunity. Governor Martinez has spent the last three years dismantling public education and implementing the Florida model to “reform” public education. AFT-NM just came out yesterday with the endorsement of State Senator Howie Morales for Governor in 2014. Morales, a former educator has been endorsed by none other than Diane Ravitch and it looks like Obama may just come out with an endorsement of anti-public education candidate, Martinez. Disgraceful.
Embarrassingly posted the wrong link to Obama praising New Mexico’s anti-public education governor. Here is the correct link:
http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/video-obama-praises-new-mexico-s-gov-susana-martinez/youtube_978969ac-9e81-11e3-abe9-001a4bcf6878.html?mode=jqm
I’m sure you’ve noticed this, but there are two place names that ed reformers repeat robotically, again and again- DC and Tennessee.
I think they’re contractually obligated to write “DC and Tennessee” in every one of these marketing missives.
Its true on the DOE website. To read that site one would think there is one city and one state in this country, DC and Tennessee.
Duncan takes it to one step further. He promotes specific, named charter chains, in DC and Tennessee.
As a teacher in TN, it pains me every time I hear some ed reformer herald the state–a TFA ed commish with TFA underlings, low per-pupil funding, “right to work” state, value-added mania, heavy Gates influence, charter expansion and increasing number of state-run schools, undermining of tenure, etc. What we accomplish as educators happens in spite of the state’s ed policies.
I am really sorry now that I voted for Obama twice and contributed money twice. He has been an absolute disaster for education in the US.
I can’t believe I donated money also. We’re %$*@#$.
So Rick Perry had it right when he said he would, as President, defund the Dept. of Education, the Dept. Of Energy, and uh the uh the Dept. Of uh, oops I forget what the third one is.
Sad to say but that would be an improvement over perpetuating an agency that serves the corporations instead of the people (I know, corporations are people according to Mitt Romney and SCOTUS).
All kidding aside, can we expect any better from a future Clinton administration?
And where are the NEA and AFT on this. Apparently we are powerless anymore when it comes to setting the education agenda.
Vote for Jill Stein.
I voted Jill Stein also. I know a retired teacher who voted for Roseanne Barr because she was so disgusted by the choices on the ballot. We have to face it, though, that many teachers will make the same mistake in 2016 and vote Democrat again regardless of what anti-public education candidate they run. Heck, they can run Arne Duncan and many teachers would vote for him. All the Democrats have to say are the words “lesser of two evils.” Works every time.
People need to wake up and realize that the Democratic Party won’t change as long as they can count on their base to vote for them no matter how much harm they do to labor, education, the environment, etc. The only thing that will make them reconsider their course will be if people refuse to vote for them.
I have voted for Democrats my whole life. I donated to Obama’s campaigns with the hope his intentions would lead to a better America. But…..for every election forward, I will proudly pull the lever for the candidate whose actions clearly support public education, no matter the political party. The democratic party has most definitely lost the absolute allegiance I once gave, directly because of Obama’s destructive educational policies. And I would guess, there are many of us, old Democrats, who are slowly waking up and won’t make the same mistake again. The education of “other people’s children” is clearly not the same quality education Obama’s own children receive. I am disgusted with this appointment. And like another mentioned, It is indeed, a sad day in America.
Also, can ed reformers drop the nonsense with the “status quo” and “entrenched interests”?
They run the federal government and half the states. They have so many foundations and lobbying groups and paid political hacks I can’t even keep the names straight. They have some of the wealthiest people in the country pouring money into charter schools and they even have their own cadre of celebrity promoters. That’s not even counting the media people who openly promote this.
They are an entrenched interest.
This is the best post i’ve read about Obama’s ability to garner support in the absence of any real reason to support him. It is part of an article in Harper’s.
Reed says that the presidencies of Democrats Bill Clinton and Barack Obama too often acquiesced to the demands of Wall Street and the right. Of Clinton’s White House years, he clams, “It is difficult to imagine that a Republican administration could have been much more successful in advancing Reaganism’s agenda.” And President Obama “has always been no more than an unexceptional neo-liberal Democrat with an exceptional knack for self-presentation persuasive to those who want to believe, and with solid connections and considerable good will from the corporate and financial sectors… his appeal has always been about the persona he projects — the extent to which he encourages people to feel good about their politics, the political future, and themselves through feeling good about him — than about any concrete vision or political program he has advanced. And that persona has always been bound up in and continues to play off complex and contradictory representations of race in American politics.”
Clinton gave us NAFTA in 1996, and then welfare reform which gave California and the nation Welfare to Work laws, CalWORKS…a disaster that created more poor families living on Skid Rows all over America. He then colluded with Phil Gramm, and with his favorite economic deregulator advisors, Summers and Rubin, to kill Glass-Steagall and impose on us Gramm, Leach, Bliley….and then the world wide economic freefall which made most of us tumble from middle class to working poor. And then Obama proudly shows the nation one day after his election, his favorite economists and advisors Summers and Rubin.
So who can ever again believe that we have a 2 party system. We have only one party called Wall Street. Their toadies who run for President and for Congress all come out of office millionaires since they voted to legally allow themselves to use insider trading information to make their fortunes. And they suckle at the teats of the lobbyists of the billionaires we are fighting, who see education only as one more method for vast profit.
It all stinks. And Hillary and Bill have her positioned to be the Dem candidate. Does Biden have a chance as the buffoon in the race?
Clinton and Obama have been the two best Republican presidents.
We all voted for the change and hope crap. Look what happened to us.
Biden’s brother Frank owns a charter school chain in Florida that provides him with an income of over 1 million p/year. Our political leaders are all in the same boat paid for by the billionaire boys club. Don’t know how this problem gets solved but if we continue down this path at some point there will be civil unrest.
While I’ve loved a great deal of what Obama has done… A move like this suggests he’s a DINO…democrat in name only.
Obama is the face of the Democratic Party today. What we have are two rival gangs vying with one another over which will get the biggest paycheck from the oligarchs. Obama is the tool of a handful of plutocrats, and he is very consciously overseeing the beginning of the dismantling of the public education system in the United States.
I think it should be clear by now that the forces against public education are just one part of the forces driving the commercialization of everything. We can no longer trust corporate journalism to give us the information we need to know and if they get their way the same will apply to corporate education. These forces are indifferent to Democrat or Republican — they will use any means and any party to get what they want — it’s all about leveraging money into power.
It is called ALEC.
It is informative to read today’s Phila. Public School Notebook (theNotebook.org)where you learn that (1) several of the schools closed this year in the retrenchment ordered by Broad Superintendent Hite are being sold (the buildings) to Charter companies and (2) that Special ed teachers in Philly have been assigned classes and caseloads way in excess of the student numbers permitted under state regulations with the tacit approval of the district. All of this in the city whose voters gave Obama the votes needed to win Pennsylvania in 2008 and 2012.
Meanwhile in the Philly suburbs where I teach and numerous districts are negotiating contracts, school boards are using the threat of charter school applications to beat down union wage and benefit demands.
This is apparently all okay with Obama and his New Democrats, but not with Progressives who, I hope, will find a way to forge a viable third-party alternative for the 99% in 2016.
Well I guess Obama is setting up his next job now…or maybe just some jobs for his daughters as TFA’ers.
I can also guess that the democrats don’t care if they win on the backs of the teacher’s union ever again, eh?
Will someone tell me why NEA endorsed Obama’s second term? This is ugly!
The NEA, formerly an organization representing the rights and interests of teachers (i.e., a teachers’ labor union) has been re-envisioned as a propaganda ministry of the Common Core Curriculum Commissariat and Ministry of Truth (C^4 MiniTru). Did you not get the memo from DVR?
This sounds like a conflict of interest. How can one preside over public education while being actively involved in privatizing it? However, I keep remembering VP Dick Cheney and his connection with Halliburton.
Let’s hope that the Senate won’t approve this choice.
http://billmoyers.com/episode/the-deep-state-hiding-in-plain-sight/
A venture fund CEO? I guess that was the logical choice.
Millions and millions of Gates Money just walked into the Department of Education???
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/search#q/k=newschools%20venture&sort=rec
Private public schools is a contradiction in terms. It is a sneaky way to get pseudo science and religion into the curriculum supported by school taxes. For profit privatized schools are no more desirable than privatized prisons. The school boards of these individual charter schools are for profit. The cut anything that reduces the profits, including experienced teachers. This move by Obama, whose daughters go to the best private schools, shows his carelessness for the greater good of our public school systems all over America.
This appointment should surprise few here. Most of us have long noticed that liberals in Democratic politics have been usurped by neo-liberals, so we really have two right wing parties. And, for middle income and lower income people, “Two rights make a wrong.”
See: The Surrender of America’s Liberals
http://billmoyers.com/segment/the-surrender-of-americas-liberals/
The Education Deformers seem, simultaneously, to be attempting to attain two conflicting goals:
1. The creation of autonomous, alternative private schools free to innovate because they are free of government controls
2. The creation in the public school arena of a top-down, invariant Common Core Curriculum Commissariat and Ministry of Truth to micromanage curricula, pedagogical approaches, and evaluation and assessment in order to ensure national markets for education monopolies
The essential contradiction is fascinating. Are the former to be for the children of the elite and the latter for the proles? One wonders.
President Obama and Arne Duncan are enemies of public education. They are doing everything in their power to kill it.
They are public education enemies numbers 1 and 2.
And they are at the helm. God help us.
Obama/Duncan are enemies of public education for the same reason no banksters/wallstreeters have been indicted for the near destruction of the world economy: money!
Diane….what is Obama’s message. It is not clear to many and for people to react the way we need them to react you have to spell it out. Coming from me won’t mean as much as it would coming from you. This is the worst news. While people are being diverted to fight against Common Core the real battle against the destruction of our public schools, our teachers, elimination of school boards and local/parental control is marching forward
Only the color blinded can miss the fact that Barack and Michelle Obama are as much a part of the “Who is John Galt” study circle group from Chicago’s Hyde Park and the other worshippers of “Atlas Shrugged” and the rest of that Eugenics stuff. The ugly history back to the 1920s and 1930s has just become current events.
Complaints? Do:homething//www.senate.gov/reference/common/faq/How_to_contact_senators.htm
Is there a petition somewhere to stop his appointment?
Is there anything we can do to fight this??? Not happy it this, at all………….
This is horrible. What kind of pressure can be put on the administration to stop this push for privatization of our educational system?
The wherewithal to pressure Obama exists. Unfortunately it exists with the NEA and the UFT/AFT that have accepted Gates money rendering the leadership beholden to the deformers. This blog should be pressuring the union leadership as the vehicle that could make a difference with approximately 4 million members. Imagine if the 4 million members were actively explaining to parents how the wealthy are seeking to further enrich themselves by the privatization of public education.
Link?
Again, contact your Congressional delegation. Here’s part of a response from Bernie Sanders.
“As you may know, I have always opposed the view that charter schools are the answer to our nation’s education challenges. The research on this issue is overwhelmingly clear: only a small minority of charter schools perform better than their public school counterparts, while a substantial proportion actually perform worse. In addition, charter schools drain resources from financially struggling school districts, forcing many to reduce services and/or raise taxes. I have been deeply troubled by Secretary Duncan’s focus on expanding the use of charter schools, and do not believe Vermont’s students, teachers, parents and communities would benefit from having charter schools in our state.
“On October 29, 2013, President Obama nominated Ted Mitchell to be the Undersecretary of Education, where he would oversee the Department’s myriad higher education programs. I am closely monitoring this nomination and have engaged both with the Department and with Mr. Mitchell directly. Please be assured I will keep your thoughts in mind if this nomination comes before the Senate for confirmation.”
You bought him.
You who, Harlan? There are people of every political persuasion on this blog, united by their opposition to education deform.
Reblogged this on 21st Century Theater.
What a bill of goods we bought when voters decided to elect and re-elect THIS President.
Shame on us…….
“Duplicitor”-in-Chief!
What will be President Obama and Arne Duncan’s legacies?
They will be remembered as the guys who did the dirty work to destroy the system of public education in the United States.
What a thing to be remembered for.
Shame on them.