The Billionaire Boys Club and their allies are dumping campaign cash into races in Illinois.
Money is arriving from the hedge fund managers and other super-rich who take a keen interest in privatization and in removing any due process from teachers. Democrats for a education Reform and Stand for Children, both with strong ties to the privatization movement, are very interested in picking the winners in Illinois.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Remember now, this is Illinois, whoever wins, eventually goes to jail.
a time-honored tradition!
Guess I’m in the mood to protest this morning. There are ways to call out these fat cats that might just be a little different than our usual approach. They all have headquarters, offices and events just begging for a little “Occupy” attention. It is always good to Go Green, isn’t it? And at the dollar store, it is usually pretty easy to find tubes of Green Slime, Green Goo, Green Play Paper Dollars. Some of us don’t mind smearing DIY green goop all over our costume and then attaching lots of play dollar bills just to make the point as we picket the location, the speech, or the event that is clearly pro destruction of the U.S. public school system. This is our democracy so let’s see who really gets to “pick a winner”. Scratched off instant lottery tickets might also be a valuable prop in this dramatic play corner activity. Follow your imagination.
love the way you think, Kathy!
Being from Illinois, I just blasted this everywhere on Facebook, Twitter and local groups.
“The Los Angeles philanthropist “supports Gov. Quinn because Illinois, and specifically Chicago, needs pension reform and education reform,” a Broad spokeswoman said.”
Seems like a waste of money to me. What is the difference between the two candidates on “education reform and pension reform”? Rauner doesn’t have a “D” after his name?
Eli Broad wins either way.
I would just like to remind everyone that ed reformers are not political. They abhor “politics”. Unlike those nasty union people, who are always “playing politics” which puts kids SECOND. Ed reformer political machinations are pure and unsullied. Their politics puts kids FIRST, because they say so, repeatedly.
I don’t know why they aren’t dumping more money on Rauner. He is a major charter supporter. He even has one named after himself.
2Old2teach, Rauner is fabulously wealthy. Je doesn’t need financial help.
I know. I suppose they know Rauner is one of them, but buying Quinn supports their long term goals. Democrats might have to act like they don’t support Rauner if he became governor. With Quinn, a Democratic legislature can act against their constituency but still claim they are serving the people.
Both Quinn and Rauner are enemies of education. I’ll bet our IFT endorses Quinn for gov, and the rest of the Rheeformerist tools running for office. Our union reps are too willing to feed and serve the hand that slaps them.
We need more Karen Lewises!
The key to this kind of politics is, indeed, humor: progressives win by laughing bad guys out, and THEN winning in court, best over how those bad guys lie. Fools win once, crooks win again and again, but the real bad guys need a more strategic opposition. Read Alinsky to beat the crooks who betrayed his tactics for their own greed.
I don’t think we can rely much on winning in court anymore. The courts have been packed with pro-oligarch judges for the last decade or so and the Supreme Court is captive to arch-conservative, pro-business reactionaries that have declared corporations people and money speech.
Here in Florida our VAM lawsuit saw a lengthy decision against us from a judge who agreed with everything we said: the system is unfair, it demeans teachers, it is no supported by research and actual practice, no fair-minded person would willingly submit to such a system, etc. He then found for the state saying despite all the major problems with the law the legislature probably didn’t have any malicious intent when they passed the totally unfair and destructive law therefore it will stand as legal.
We will see more and more cases like this where bought and sold judges find in favor for the corporate reformers and oligarchs, just as the Roberts Court finds overwhelmingly in favor of their interests despite precedent and accepted jurisprudence.
We need to find other means of affecting change, taking Ghandi and the Montgomery bus boycott as our inspiration rather than relying on fairness, tradition, and level playing fields, which no longer apply in the USA.
Chris, you need more history. It’s no less fair than slavery. And the imbalance it causes is…unbalanced, and will collapse. The task is to accelerate that collapse, as well as to create a credible alternative when it occurs. That’s how we got public education in the first place: reinvent it.
And, by the way, technology is no small part of that re-invention, particularly if you build on what kids do already (Montessorian, that!) to help them do what they’ll do as adults…better. Some of that may not be easy, particularly in states like Florida that have been “owned” by badguys for a long time (do not ignore either slavery or Cuban isolation, Puerto Rican discrimination, or any of many other retributive systems). Again, read Alinsky, since he “Americanized” Ghandi and framed that bus boycott. One of my best friends has been Elaine Noble, the first elected Lesbian anywhere for any office, who now lives in your state, and with whom I worked under Saul Alinsky’s widow, teaching the way you’d like to teach. It is still quite feasible, if a lot more subversive in your state. Look at “Teaching is a Subversive Activity” the Weingartner/Postman book of the 70’s, and available as a pdf download if you just google it!
Litigation is the lowest and last strategy. Way before that is making them appear the fools and thieves they are. Then it’s a matter of criminal law enforcement – the slavery games to which some of the Charters contribute are, after all, against the law. Then it’s a matter of politics, to nail the crooks who bought your schools. And only after that can you go after “compensation.” But you need more strategy than just an echo of the ’60’s. And you need some signal models of what ought to be. You’ll probably find most of those models outside of Florida, given your local history of exploitation. Look around, and look back.
joebeckman, thank you for mansplaining that I “need more history” and telling me what I “need” to do. I am familiar with Alinksy. I have actually read “Teaching Is a Subversive Activity”.
You were the one that stated “and THEN winning in court” which I pointed out is not going to be as easy as it was back in the day. You seem to have missed my point that the courts are no longer what they once were.
Alinsky did great things but today’s world is different. Yes, technology can and will play a role today but what role is not yet clear.
You still have not addressed how we are to deal with the corrupted judiciary put in place by Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II, that dominates the US court system.
There is not guarantee that just because reformers are laughed at and ridiculed that justice will prevail. You may disagree with that assertion but you certainly haven’t proven it wrong or offered an alternative if it does prove true.
I agree with much of what you say. Let’s work together instead of using insults and talking down to one another, OK?
OK Chris, but register that I did recognize the problems with litigation: don’t fight liabilities, fight using the criminal code, since, ironically, crooks almost inevitably break both the civil law and the criminal law. It’s usually much tougher to get to those criminal cases, however, and, to get there, you often have got to go through hell. Programs in “Restorative Justice” eventually get back what the thieves steal, but it takes a long time. (Check out, for a Civil Rights example, Northeastern’s, here http://www.northeastern.edu/law/academics/institutes/crrjustice.html.) But realize that there are many such centers – just google them. Relying only on civil law is exactly why and where progressives get lost today. Clarify the crime and you can win the case, and have the added pleasure of sending the crooks to jail or taking back what they’ve already spent!
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/06/rahm-emanuel-dc-hero-chicago-goat-107511.html
“In Washington, he’s the star of the CNN series “Chicagoland” — a careful keeper of his image whose office helped coordinate the show. In the real Chicago, a city known for its mobster history, his tough-guy veneer just isn’t as intimidating.
When Emanuel exited the Beltway in late 2010 to run for Chicago mayor, he had the tacit backing of a current president and the overt support of a former one. He won the race to succeed Richard M. Daley, and expectations ran high that Washington’s supreme enforcer was just the person to tame the Wild Midwest.
Now, just nine months out from the next election, Emanuel is unexpectedly vulnerable, with an approval rating that is perilously low. The comedown for the Illinois native, who terrified staffers and donors over more than a decade in Washington, has been striking. So has been the contrast between how he’s regarded in D.C., New York and Los Angeles — as opposed to some wards of Chicago.
A Chicago Sun-Times poll released last month showed that Emanuel would draw just 29 percent of the vote if the election were held then. His 8 percent showing in the survey among black voters, a crucial voting bloc for him last time, creates a truck-size hole for another candidate to drive through.”
I’m hoping the bully persona is losing its luster with voters. Christie, Cuomo and now Emanuel. Maybe using public schools and public employees as political punching bags to promote a broader agenda isn’t a sure-fire election strategy anymore for our out-of-touch political class.
One can hope.
I just posted this comment on Diane’s article by Waldron….But seeing the Eli Broad link here, showing this egomaniacal billionaire smiling with LA Mayor Garcetti who so many teachers worked to get elected…really galled me. So here it is again.
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The operant sentence of Waldron seems to be…
“while teachers are under continual pressure…to be accountable, there is very little accountability for parents, community, or the district office.”
At LAUSD, the Eli Broad puppet, Superintendent, MR. Deasy, runs the elected BoE and the District, and he is able to game the system so he not held accountable for anything. He can fire legally appointed oversight committee members such as Magruder, and he gets the BoE to rubber stamp this, and he can shut down investigation of the seemingly inept, possibly fraudulent, decisions he made like wasting $1 BILLION dollars of taxpayer money on his iPad fiasco, and the Board rolls over to have him scratch their bellies.
“Whatever Deasy wants, Deasy gets, and now little boy, Deasy wants charters.” (substituting Deasy for “Lola wants you” as in Damn Yankees).
We are living in a time where it seems that ‘might makes right.’
Julie Tran says teachers must strike….I add to that the public must become revolutionaries and must take to the streets to turn things around in every American community. It is only the community coming out in vast numbers that will capture the attention of media and of the world.
OCCUPY LAUSD!
OCCUPY American school districts! Save public education.
The reason Quinn chose Vallas now becomes clear. I have been saying for a while that the only rational explanation for this choice was as a defensive move against all the deformer cash and ad buys that were to be brought to bear upon the Illinois governors race. Selecting Vallas short circuits the Quinn-is-anti-child/anti-civil-rights propaganda the deformers would have leveled at him if he had decided to oppose the deformer agenda, outright or not. All that money is now flowing to state level races so the deformers are well positioned to gain influence. As an already embattled candidate, it remains to be seen if Quinns choice of Vallas as a rear guard action allows him to win re-election and what his actual education policy will be if he does.
FYI on the governors race, Rauner is pushing term limits for state legislators as a way of diminishing the power and power structures of the state legislature and thereby increasing his own should he become governor. This also throws open the door for the continued influence of money on all policy via the preselection of those who can run for office by those who fund their election campaigns. That is just the tip of the iceberg of the danger of term limits. As if Americans need any more reason to not show up to vote. They are already apathetic and the idea that legislators will not last “forever” will just feed their lack of involvement.
Another danger exists due to term limits causing the loss of institutional knowledge and ability within legislative bodies. Just think of the churn of TFA. When there is no or diminished institutional knowledge, the doors are wide open for ALEC and similar entities to step into the void. If having TFA testing proctors is bad in our schools, just imagine the effect of a similar situation in our government, one that we already see much evidence for. There are far better albeit more difficult ways to fix our political system and destroy the influence of money upon it than the suicidal idea of term limits.
Interesting analysis. My thinking on term limits was still pre-citizens united. With money so influential in politics now, you are right to point out the new dangers we face.