Marshall Tuck, running against educator Tom Torlakson, got a late infusion of huge campaign contributions.
Former Mayor Michael Blomberg sent $250,000.
Eli Broad sent two checks totaling $1,000,000.
Alice L. Walton of the Walmart family sent two gifts totaling $450,000.
Carrie Penner (of the same Walton family) sent $500,000.
Doris Fisher of the family that owns The Gap sent two gifts totaling $950,000.
Arthur Rock, a member of TFA’s board, sent $250,000.
Laurene Powell Jobs sent two checks totaling $500,000.
There are many other very large contributions, plus earlier contributions made by many of the same people.
The reformers really, really, really want to elect Tuck.
Think of the expansion of privatization!
Think of having a charter advocate running the State Department of Education. Their guy!!
Do the voters know about this? Are they informed? Will they allow the billionaires to buy this job?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on Lloyd Lofthouse and commented:
Guess who donated more than $3 million+ to buy California’s public schools for corporations through the election of Marshall Tuck.
Vote Torlakson for Public Schools, or, Wall Streeter, Tuck for Charters
Now that the billionaires such as Eli Broad and the Walton Family, and their cohorts working to privatize America’s public schools, have zeroed in on this self appointed education expert, Marshall Tuck, and have poured multi millions of dollars into his campaign for California Superintendent of Public Instruction (reportedly up to $8 Million, see link below), it behooves us to examine closely his bragging and his mendacious statements about his credentials.
With fraternity boyish looks, he dashes around the state and announces himself as the man who will save our public schools. He uses paid actors in his TV ads who present themselves as real parents and students, in his rush to misinform voters about his work history and his views.
In reality, Tuck is all about charter schools, as an owner, and as shown on his resume with his few years of administration at Green Dot, and then his few years with PLAS (Partnership with Los Angeles Schools). If one is judged by the company they keep, he is to be avoided by any thinking person, particularly voters.
At Green Dot, he connected with the infamous parent trigger instigator who is funded by the Walton Family Foundation and Eli Broad, the notorious Ben Austin of Parent Revolution, who continues to try to invade inner city public schools to convert them to charters to please and enrich his Walton/Broad bosses. The more charters that California taxpayers support, the greater cash rewards the charter operators take to the bank. At parent trigger venue, Desert Trails School in Adelanto, the CEO (Principal) salary is $200,000 while the teachers earn only $36,000, and the turnover of teachers since the charter imposition has been a serious detriment to students.
California now has the most charters in the nation, close to 2,000, and LAUSD district has the most of any city, close to 300. However, despite Tuck’s claims that his Green Dot charters all were wildly successful, this is not the case. An example is Inglewood Amino which Tuck claims had few dropouts, but the stats show a dropout rate of 65%. Also, he brags all were college ready, when in fact only 2% achieved readiness for higher ed.
Tuck also eliminated all Charter ethnic studies curriculum which further angered parents of the many different cultures that make up LAUSD. During his PLAS episode, he angered Latino parents to the degree that they called for MALDEF help in pressing a law suit against him and the organization for eliminating dual language learning. The cause of action included racial prejudice. Most sources cited in the links below indicate Tuck’s preference for upper class, white, students. His Charters do not reflect a preponderance of inner city children, but rather they appear to be segregated.
His high tech plan of Model N failed to produce adequate software so that it could not be implemented. This costly Tuck error was paid for by the public. He claims that he had Parent Engagement, Effective Teachers, Curriculum, and Technology all covered, but the facts show otherwise, and his public pontificating seems filled with empty education hyperbole. He has virtually no background in high tech nor in education. Rather, his academic resume shows he studied business and was a Wall Street trained investor/broker at Salomon Brothers before he decided to turn to Charter School entrepreneurship.
Tuck left Green Dot with a financial cloud over his head, and when PLAS got rid of him, this jobless Wall Street plutocrat with a shady past decided to run for State Superintendent. Although he fell double digit points behind the incumbent Tom Torlakson, in the primary, he was a close enough challenger that now they will again vie for the office in the November 4 election.
His donors include (see link below), Broad, the Waltons, Mrs Steve Jobs, and others who all want universal American public education to be privatized for free market profit. His close allies include the unscrupulous Michelle Rhee and her basket ball player husband who is now mayor of Sacramento, Kevin Johnson, who are owners of a chain of charter schools, and are mentored and supported by Eli Broad and David Welch, and the Waltons. Donor David Welch who pressed the Vergara case to both do away with teacher tenure, and to break the backs of the teachers unions has also helped to institute similar cases in NYC and other cities around the nation. Also, Tuck’s supporters include the Charter School Association. The vast amounts of outsider Wall Street cash donated to the campaign results in endless phony commercials every few minutes on every TV station.
Too much money, too few principles! Tuck is clearly anti people of color, anti public schools, anti teachers, anti unions, and against any system that does not offer huge free market education profits to investors.
Beware!
It is imperative that California voters vote for Tom Torlakson, a real teacher, and the incumbent, as California Superintendent of Public Instruction.
http://cal-access.sos.ca.gov/Campaign/Committees/Detail.aspx?id=1372328&session=2013&view=received
http://thewire.k12newsnetwork.com/2014/10/21/marshall-tuck-betrays-latino-and-african-american-parents/
http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2014/10/smoking-gun-wall-street-banker-marshall.html
Ellen Lubic, Director, Joining Forces for Education
Public Policy Educator
Educational Researcher
Joiningforces4ed@aol.com
Democracy cannot exist when vast wealth buys elections, silences opposition, and installs officials friendly to billionaires. Big money has always dominated American political life, interfering with democracy, equality, ecology, and peace, but in the last few decades our society has morphed into a grotesque scale of private corporate power over public needs. The aggressive corporate use of secret, under-the-radar cash to pull both parties to the right along with the teacher unions, mass media, and foundations tied to them, while silencing liberal and progressive opposition, is creating a more dangerous and cruel society here and world abroad. More and more children will be homeless and hungry, more and more college grads will not find work or wages equal to their achievements, more and more families will not be able to make ends meet. All of us able to oppose this dreadful direction should follow the lead of Diane, Karen Lewis, Barbara Madeloni, Bob Peterson, Anthony Cody, Mercedes Schneider, Mark Naison and others who sound the alarm and speak truth to power. The billionaires deranging our society will not stop unless we stop them.
And you think this is a problem caused by the “right”? It’s liberalism pure and simple. There are capitalists in the democrat party. They just mask their cronyism as philanthropy so the masses, the ‘common’ folk, think they are really for the little guy. What a bunch of hogwash. You are being used just like the rest of us, by people with POWER. They don’t care about anyone but themselves.
Ira didn’t state that the conservatives are the problem. He said the entire education conversation has drifted into the “profit over people” realm, you know, the Regan-era conservative camp banner? Conservative thinking is based on principles which put publicly funded services at risk of either being slashed or fed to the capitalist dogs, the said demise which Ira is highlighting.
It’s not right for a liberal OR conservative billionaire to decide for the little guy or the common folk. If you want to blame someone, blame the conservatives on the supreme court that believe that money is free speech. Now that’s hogwash. ie Refuse given to hogs.
Remember when Americans joke about the elections in the Soviet Union?
There is Much More at stake in California than public education.
Does big money always win?? Stay tuned…..
Can you imagine sweeping all those loose bills into a very big bag and dropping them off with NPE to do its best work in the most needy of school and teacher communities. That’s my daydream for today.
Do not forget that Tuck’s KIPP schools have been a darling of USDE.
Since 2010 the KIPP franchise has been gifted with $ 81,713,127. in tax dollars for expansion.
The most recent grant (2014) for $30.5 million includes expansions in LA.
So, count USDE as another philandering philanthropist explicitly supporting the agenda of Tuck and definitely on the side of billionaires who want Tuck in office so that California schools are made private and are free to propagate the ideologies of their sponsors.
we need a constitutional amendment: All state governors shall be required to resign and file for re-election in any year in which nationally standardized testing results indicate insufficient improvement in public education in their states.
yes…that is a terrible idea, but it did feel good to vent.
🙂
Speaking of AMENDMENTS THAT WOULD CHANGE EVERYTHING SO THAT THE “TUCKS” will have to scramble for money…
http://billmoyers.com/2014/07/12/the-senate-judiciary-committee-just-backed-an-amendment-to-overturn-‘citizens-united’/
“Sixteen American states and roughly 600 communities have formally told Congress that the Constitution must be amended to make it clear that corporations are not people, money is not speech and citizens and their elected representatives have a right to organize elections that are defined by votes rather than dollars.
“Once dismissed even by many reformers as an appropriate yet impossible initiative, the movement for a “Money Out/Voters In” amendment to the Constitution has grown so strong — and been proven to be so necessary — that it has now achieved what most organizers of amendment movements only imagine.
“On Thursday, the US Senate Judiciary Committee voted 10-8 to endorse an amendment that would undo the damage done to democracy by a series of High Court decisions — and to restore reasonable limits on financial contributions and expenditures intended to influence elections.
“Judiciary Committee chair Patrick Leahy, a former prosecutor and the senior member of the Senate, framed the vote with a declaration that “I have served in the Senate for nearly 40 years and as chairman of the Judiciary Committee for nearly 10. I have always believed that amending our Constitution must be subject to the highest measure of scrutiny. It is something that should only be done as a last resort. But when the voices of hardworking Americans continue to be drowned out by the moneyed few, and when legislative efforts to right this wrong are repeatedly filibustered by Republicans, more serious action must be taken.”
‘Leahy’s position was echoed by committee Democrats who joined him in backing an amendment that declares:
SECTION 1: To advance democratic self-government and political equality, and to protect the integrity of government and the electoral process, Congress and the States may regulate and set reasonable limits on the raising and spending of money by candidates and others to influence elections.
SECTION 2. Congress and the States shall have power to implement and enforce this article by appropriate legislation, and may distinguish between natural persons and corporations or other artificial entities created by law, including by prohibiting such entities from spending money to influence elections.
SECTION 3. Nothing in this article shall be construed to grant Congress or the States the power to abridge the freedom of the press.
“That’s more cautious language than many activists would like to see. And it may be that, as the amendment movement grows in strength, and as the congressional debate evolves, a final amendment will feature more specific language regarding all the issues that arise when the courts and Congress extend special rights to corporations.
I was only able to send Tuck, who has been endorsed by every major newspaper in California, $45.00 from my teacher pension. I hope it helps elect him, rather than the other candidate who gives out honorary doctorates to power-hungry administrators.
Colleges give honorary degrees, not state officials. Don’t worry, the Universities have given several to the likes of your reformy heroes such as Deasy, Carter, and others. Who is power hungry? Check the mirror and remember, the people you support would and might gladly do away with your pension. Tuck would certainly support that idea.
Is the Oklahoma off shore drilling tycoon who donated $400,000 to the Wall Street banker on this list? One wonders why he is investing in overthrowing a professional educator and privatizing California schools. Maybe he wants to build some off shore charters in the Pacific.
Here’s a very “progressive” charter school management company that just cut teacher pay 5.5% in order to wring more cash out of their charter chain.
This is how they talk about their “charter family”:
“The parent company “in no way” wants to “strap the school,” Helean said.
Helean described the national chain and its charter schools as a family. The North Port school is “the teenager. They made the decisions, so they have to live by those decisions,” she said.”
This smarmy salesperson has decided that this (supposedly) public school she’s managing (for a hefty profit) is a disobedient teenager so of course the front-line employees must be punished with a pay cut. You can bet your life that none of the execs at the charter chain are taking a pay cut.
Yuck. It’s stomach-turning. How stupid do lawmakers have to be to fall for this blatant profiteering? Are they absolute morons? My 6th grader wouldn’t fall for this “we’re a FAMILY!” garbage.
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20141025/ARTICLE/141029784/2055/NEWS?p=3&tc=pg
One thing missing in Tuck’s claim of success with PLAS and Green Dot, besides the fact that it’s not the truth, is that both received millions in donations from the usual suspects. So, even if you could prove dramatic success at these schools, it would only prove that extra money, if used to lower class size, hire experienced teachers and provide a wide range of services, actually does have a positive effect on learning.
So, why isn’t that happening at all public schools???? Don’t all children deserve the same level of funding?
KQED radio had a story on the race today. It characterized the teacher’s union as “arguably the most powerful special interest in the state” and mentioned its 2 million dollar contribution to Torlakson, but said nothing about the $8+ million that Tuck has received! Ugh. Same old narrative: teacher’s union = big bad ugly gorilla. The narrative needs to change. Corporate power outguns the union at least 4:1 in this race!!! I am going to write an angry letter to KQED. Please join me.
Thanks, Ponderosa. KQED has an easy- to -use form. I wrote to them, I hope they receive thousands of complaints that point out that teachers live, spend and pay taxes in local communities, unlike out-of-state plutocrats. I’ve noticed journalists always identify union spending but, never the opposition side’s contributors. It’s as if, the opposition is bankrolled by fairy godmothers. I’m curious about the blind spot. Is it editorial or the reporters’ biases.
Check out this commercial for Marshall Tuck:
Mary Najera
This woman, Mary Najera, was a paid staffer with Parent Revolution for years, making a six-figure, or high five-figure salary, paid to privatize schools… not some poor minority parent telling a tear-jerker story about her impoverished son…
Ms, Najera ha since moved on to staff at the Extera Charter School Corporation—allied with Parent Revolution—where she’s still a paid corporate shill making a six-figure (or high five-figure) salary to, again, promote privatization of our schools, where schools will no longer be accountable or transparent to the public via democratically-elected school boards, and will not educate all the public.
Parent Revolution is an astroturf front group—a school privatization super-PAC, if you will—funded by billionaires who want to privatize our schools, and thus, they’re backing Marshall Tuck. If you got to its website, it looks like a grassroots assemblage of poor minorities pulling together, when, in its inception, Parent Revolutions was started by the Green Dot Charter Corporation to give the appearance of parent demand for privatization WHEN THERE IS NONE. Over the years, Parent Revolution has gotten over $100 million dollars from the usual suspects—Eli Broad, Bil Gates, the Walton Family, Michael Bloomberg… the same out-of-state moneyed forces now backing Marshall Tuck.
Education activist Robert D. Skeels accurately portrays Ms. Najera as “a hostile takeover specialist” in privatizing schools.
http://rdsathene.blogspot.com/2011/04/readers-speak-out-on-ben-austin-parent.html
I just spoke to a teacher at the traditional public school, Lorena Street School, where one of the Extera Charter Schools (allied with Parent Revolution) was forcibly co-located on their campus. Despite a directive from the LAUSD board barring Exteran and her from doing so, Ms. Najera has actively attempted, with limited success, to poach students from Lorena Street, and move to Extera. The teacher I just spoke to claims that when the Extera and Lorena St. students both walk through the same entrance, Ms. Najera hands out candy ONLY to the Extera kids, and tell the Lorena St. kids, that they’ll get candy, too…. if they leave Lorena St, and move to Extera.
Sweet Jesus!
Like everything else about Marshall Tuck and his campaign, this above video featuring Ms. Najera is phonier than a Chinese redhead.
Oh, you want proof that this woman is a phony? Check out Mary Najera’s double talk outside a phony, public “community forum” meeting staged by Parent Revolution a few years ago with an appearance by then-Mayor Villaraigosa, a privatization ally. She makes the contradictory claim that the meeting is open to the public, followed by the claim that attendance is RSVP-only, then backtracking again, insisting that “it’s not private.”
Can’t you get your lies straight, Mary?
starting at 00:37
——————–
NAJERA: “It’s open to the public.”
PARENT: (off-screen) “This is NOT open to the public.”
NAJERA: “It’s not open to the public.”
PARENT: (off-screen) “It’s not open to the public?”
NAJERA: “NO… it’s RSVP.”
PARENT: (off-screen) “So it’s private?”
NAJERA: “No, it’s not private.”
————————————-
Watch the whole thing, and you see how inclusive Parent Revolution—and by extension, Marshall Tuck—actually is towards minority parents wanting a voice.
Marshall Tuck is dumping huge $ 10 million worth of lies during the last seven days of the campaign.
Torlakson just sent out this email:
——————————-
“Tom Torlakson for State Superintendent of Public Instruction2014
“Friends,
“It’s the oldest trick in the cynic’s political playbook: wait until the last week, then fill the airwaves with misleading attack ads.
“The school privatizers and anti-pension forces know they can’t win an honest debate about the future of our schools. They know a Wall Street investment banker with no teaching credential and no professional classroom experience isn’t qualified for the job of state superintendent.
“That’s why they’re spending nearly $8 million to defeat me. Don’t let them buy this election and sell out our schools. Click here to donate $50 or more right now:
https://tomtorlakson.nationbuilder.com/donate_to_tom
“The time to act is now. Cast your absentee ballot – and mail it in today. Take the pledge to support our campaign and our schools – and encourage your family and friends to support me as well.
If we stand together for the future of public education, their cynical tactics will backfire. Join me, and the teachers, parents, school employees, and more than 100 education leaders across California who support me. Help us in this last week by donating $50 right now.
“Because every school is worth investing in, but not one is for sale.
“Tom Torlakson Signature
“Contribute to Tom
https://tomtorlakson.nationbuilder.com/donate_to_tom
“Follow Tom on Facebook Follow Tom on Twitter
Paid for by Tom Torlakson for State Superintendent of Public Instruction 2014, ID #1333916
“Tom Torlakson for State Superintendent of Public Instruction 2014 · CA, United States
———————————–
If you want to volunteer,
http://www.tomtorlakson.com/volunteer
And here’s Torlakson’s official campaign website:
http://www.tomtorlakson.com/
Here’s Torlakson’s plan for great schools”
http://www.tomtorlakson.com/blueprint
What an ignorant observation from somebody who claims to be interested in improving education. doesn’t your narrow mind see that electing a tool like Torlakson spurs interest in privatisation of K-12 education? Parents in California have been horrified by the decline in standards that so-called “educators” like Torlakson, manipulated by powerful unions that are more interested in lining their pockets and helping kids, have driven with their agenda to preserve the status quo. having closely observed both candidates the difference is night and day. As Tuck says, if you think things are fine the way they are then vote for the incumbent. California schools rank 45th in math and readingand its way overdue for a change. that’s so many wealthy supporters, people who are educated and successful in business, back Tuckis a clear sign but arlook I must go