Larry Lee started his own blog, which is a good thing, because he understands Alabama politics and cares deeply about improving public education.
In this post, he follows the money that preceded the legislature’s approval of charter schools.
He writes:
Even an amateur swami with a cloudy crystal ball could have told us how the recent vote to approve charter schools in Alabama would play out. In fact, he didn’t even have to look at his ball, they could have looked at 2014 campaign financial disclosures instead.
There they would have found a trail of contributions of thousands and thousands of dollars from charter supporters to friendly legislators.
This bill passed the Senate 22-12 the first time it was voted on. One senator did not vote, eight Democrats voted against it, as did the one Independent and three Republicans. All yes votes were Republican.
Interesting that in the deep South, the Democrats know what “school choice” will lead to. Segregation.
Where did the money come from?
The “Big Three” donors supporting charters last year were Bob Riley’s Alabama 2014 PAC, the Business Council of Alabama’s Progress PAC (run by Billy Canary) and Speaker Mike Hubbard’s Storm PAC. (These three have also been strong supporters of the Alabama Accountability Act.)
Together, they spent $5.1 million dollars in 2014 in hopes of having friendly politicians in place. Obviously their plan worked well. This money came from an assortment of sources. While BCA depends on their Alabama members for support, the Riley and Hubbard PACs cast a wider net and got checks from across the country. Companies such a Pfizer, General Electric, Anheuser Busch, Cemex and International Paper donated. As did pay day lenders and charter supporters like StudentsFirst and K12….
Let’s take a closer look at how the pot was split in the Senate.
None of the eight Democrats or the lone Independent who voted against charters got a penny from Riley, Hubbard or BCA. The Republican who did not vote got $1,000 and the three Republicans who voted “nay” got a total of $77,000, mostly from BCA.
Of the 22 Republican “yea” votes, one who few thought would win, got nothing. Of the remaining 21, six had either no opposition or token opposition. They only received $8,000 total. The remaining 15 got $987,815 in all, an average of $65,854 each. However, some were more equal than others as five got more than $100,000 each.
In addition to contributions from the “Big Three,” StudentsFirst, a Sacramento, CA group with 10 lobbyists in Alabama, spent $61,958. And the Alabama Federation for Children, which was solely supported by checks from millionaires in California, Michigan and Arkansas spent $101,748. Evidently “Alabama values” include California millionaires.
In all, the 15 senators who had substantial challenges got $1,142,522 from the charter supporters just mentioned for an average of $76,168.
Follow the money. It’s rightwing money to privatize public education.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The same thing has been happening in TN too. Students First money went to a lot of “friendly” TN legislators and most of them sit on the education committees and if you look at the bills they support and don’t support you will see how well those contributions from SF paid off. I think if all states took a deep look you would find the same thing. All trails lead back to MONEY and promises of lucrative committee assignments and chairman seats. I am surprised that KY has survived and wonder how long it will be before they cave to the Charter movement.
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Cross posted at http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Larry-Lee-Follow-the-Char-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Diane-Ravitch_FACT_Follow-The-Money_Legislators-150506-68.html#comment544004
Submitted on Wednesday, May 6, 2015 at 9:05:01 AM
with the comment below,(taken from this site) which has embedded links at the the above address.
The corruption attending the charter movement is monumental.
If you are searching for the truth in all the talk, talk and lies:So much more if you put Charters in the Search field at the Ravitch Blog.
For example:
1- The National Education Policy Center regularly reviews research findings, in effect, acting as an independent peer review board.
In this case, its reviewer challenges the latest CREDO report on urban charters: New review explains CREDO charter school research flaws, raises concerns about misunderstandings of effect sizes
William J. Mathis, (802) 383-0058, wmathis@sover.net
Andrew Maul, (805) 893-7770, amaul@education.ucsb.edu
URL for this press release: http://tinyurl.com/mbse6m7
2- A look at Ohio: This is part 3 of Stephen Dyer’s series about charter schools in Ohio. What he has learned from state data is that charter schools perform worse than public schools and take money from children in public schools in every district.
Diane Ravitch points out that :The Center for Popular Democracy released a bombshell report on the financial consequences of charter deregulation and lack of public oversight. It is called “The Tip of the Iceberg: Charter School Vulnerabilities to Waste, Fraud, and Abuse.”
“When public money is handed over to private corporations or individuals to operate schools, there must be regular monitoring of and audits. Absent financial monitoring, the result is predictable: waste, fraud, mismanagement, and financial abuse. Does this help education? No, it enriches people who are either in the education business for the money or incompetent to manage the finances of a school.”
3- Look at Florida: Ah, the Brave New World of free-market schooling! The for-profit corporation Imagine Schools just sold its campus in east Manatee, Florida, for $6.6 million. The school will continue to operate there; it has a capacity of 650, and an enrollment of 500 students.
4-The Los Angeles Times reported that the charter school chain co-founded by Rodriguez (who is its treasurer) is embroiled in financial scandal.
5- “Peter Greene writes that Maryland’s new Republican Governor, Larry Hogan, wrote charter legislation to make more charters with minimal regulation, accountability or transparency. The Democratic-controlled legislature had qualms about unleashing free-market charters. It substantially watered down Hogan’s bill. The pro-privatization Center for Education Reform was very upset.
” Even better, the legislature eliminated Hogan’s wish to authorize online charter schools in Maryland. This is a top priority for ALEC, as it allows for-profit corporations like K12 (which is active in ALEC) to make big money while producing poor results for students. Studies by CREDO in Pennsylvania (comparing public schools, charter schools, and virtual charter schools, of which the last was the worst) and by the National Education Policy Center, as well as investigations by the Bloomberg News, the New York Times and the Washington Post have found online charters to have terrible outcomes (low test scores, low graduation rates, high dropout rates). Yet every one of the privatization organizations quoted in this article bemoans the legislature’s failure to siphon money off to the for-profit, low-performing sector of virtual charters.
and the public is clueless.
Tell people about the NPE and the Ravitch blog, if they want to know what is really going on to end public education
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