Jack Covey is a teacher in Los Angeles and a frequent commenter on this blog. He recently watched a video of the keynote address of Jed Wallace, the CEO and President of the California Charter School Association. And he got very angry. He wrote the following comment following the video. After an hour, it had disappeared.
CCSA President and CEO Jed Wallace gives the Charter Conference Keynote
CCSA CEO Jed Wakkace started blathering about how his future lawyer teenage daughter and he were bemoaning the lack of “reasonable equality” in charter schools which co-locate on public school campuses.
He was trying to make this some kind of heart-warming charter-school-promoting story… and I went off in the COMMENTS section:
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(first to COMMENT … see how long this stays before being removed)
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Jed,
Your daughter and you are kvetching about wanting “reasonably equivalent facilities” for your CCSSA charter schools, yet you simultaneously seem to be against “reasonable equality” in other aspects of education.
To wit, parents whose children have been booted out (err… counseled out) of CCSA charter schools sued these charter school officials —- CCSA members, of course —- because, when giving them the boot, the school officials did not afford those students the same due process rights as those in the traditional public schools. They wanted a judge to compel California charter schools to make charter school students “reasonably equivalent” with public school students when it comes to due process in expulsions.
And what did CCSA’s lawyers do?
They argued in court that charter schools were “private entities” and, as such, had no legal obligation to provide any due process to students, making them the analogous equivalent of the “at will” teachers who teach at charter schools. If the charter school people don’t like you for whatever reason (extra cost, being troublesome in some way, low test scores, Special Ed., immigrant who’s brand new to learning English, homeless, foster care, etc.) .. you’re gone, baby, gone… and there’s nothing that the parent or the child can do about it.
Why don’t you chew on that sad legal and educational reality with your future lawyer daughter that you’re bragging so much about about in your speech?
Jed, if and when you and your daughter question your consciences in the dark hours of the night, and consider this specious charter school policy, will your daughter think or believe that you and the CCSA are the “good guys’, or that your are on “the side of the angels” when you and your CCSA legal team makes such a repellent legal argument?
In response to this, in Sacramento, a law was being considered that would compel charter schools to provide their students the same legal rights to a due process that their counterparts in the traditional public schools enjoy.
What did you and CCSA do?
True to form, you flooded the relevant politicians with lobbyists in an all-hands-on-deck maneuver to kill, or at least block this legislation, and it worked. It’s been temporarily tabled. … so as a result, you can throw as many kids in the metaphorical trash all you like, and not have to answer for it.
Way to go! You guys are all about the kids!
Regarding those students who are dumped by charter schools like so much trash, where do you think they end up? At the traditional public schools that you and the CCSA love to malign so much. I’m teaching three of these charter school dumpees myself right now, including one who, along with a her mother and siblings, lives a nomadic existence going from shelter to shelter… and you know what, Jed?
She shows up to my class every day feeling the little security she has in life, knowing full well that neither I nor my principal are going to kick her to curb when the issues and circumstances of her life manifest themselves — in being late for school, or in her acting out with bad behavior or her low test scores… or whatever.
In other words, when it comes to my moral obligations as an educator, I can sleep at night.
How about you?
How about your fellow charter school CEO’s in that audience?
How about those teachers who work in your charters and who do not fulfill these same moral obligations to students in the manner that my fellow public school teachers and I do?
Indeed, how DO YOU charter honchos sleep at night?
Oh, I know… on a bed full of money (I stole that from Don Draper — “Babylon” — SEASON ONE, MAD MEN).
Regarding this dual standard for due process that charters school officials’ claim for their schools, I recommend this article by Dr. Preston Green (posted on Jennifer “Edushyster” Berkshire’s blog) :
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PRESTON GREEN: “Charter advocates claims that charter schools are public schools because they are open to all, do not charge tuition, and do not have special entrance requirements.
“But what about student rights? State and federal courts have issued rulings suggesting that students attending California charter schools do not have the same due process rights as those enjoyed by public-school students.
“In Scott B. v. Board of Trustees of Orange County High School of Arts, a state appellate court found that charter schools were exempt from due process procedures that applied to public-school expulsions. In reaching this conclusion, the court observed that the state education code generally exempted charter schools from rules that applied to traditional public schools, and the expulsion statute was one of those rules.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It would seem that since public money is being syphoned off for these schools, then they would have to adhere to the same due process. Charter schools are a sham and anyone I speak to who have worked in one has supported that belief.
A sham, a hoax, a shell game. Now you see the money, now you don’t.
Preston Green..
They just have special rules for NOT getting thrown out !
His comment “disappeared”?
The ideological predecessors of corporate education reform used to [rightfully, but they were far from alone] ruthlessly skewer the now-vanished Soviet Union for “disappearing” people and comments and situations.
And although I don’t usually bring up Groucho’s lesser namesake, I think we would have to rephrase his nineteenth century observation to explain how the leading rheephormsters’ default setting is to double down on worst practices of all kinds.
The original reads: “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.” [Karl]
Rephrase as: “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as rheephorm.”
😱
P.S. And I remind viewers of this blog of the “Dirty War” and the desaparecidos [“the disappeared”] in Argentina during a military dictatorship. Rheehphormsters have a long and checkered past.
As you expand on here, dear Krazy one, it is no surprise that Jack;s comments disappeared…and your “Dirty War” comparison is apt. This kind of Koch/Goerring behavior has been going on for some time.
When the news and the facts can not only be monitored, but can be wiped clean, eradicated, we can see how far we have come on this slippery slope to fascism.
It is how the mass media operates as well…with Murdoch and the few other emperors of all media outlets controlling all public exposure to news and oped info.
Here is an article that expands on how the Kochs limit and conceal what we all read and absorb. This is another death knell for democracy, and shows how far along the US has come in this spiral into fascism.
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On The Supreme Court, The Republican Senate Kneels Before Its Koch Masters
By Dartagnan
Friday Mar 18, 2016 · 6:26 AM PDT
22 10/ 10 Comments 4146 Shares Tweet
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No one elected them. But they own the Republican Party.
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If it wasn’t clear before, by now there should be no doubt. The attempt to block President Obama’s appointment of the next Supreme Court Justice is being spearheaded for the most part by two Billionaires who have never held elective office or performed a day of public service in their lives.
The Republican-controlled Senate has consciously and deliberately abdicated its Constitutional duty—a duty each member of the Republican-controlled Judiciary Committee responsible for the confirmation process swore an oath to uphold upon attaining office—having been ordered to do so by its largest political donors, most prominently the “dark money” political action network of oil, gas and energy magnates Charles and David Koch.
Jane Mayer, writing for the New Yorker:
The Kochs are intent…on preventing President Obama from appointing a Supreme Court Justice who could be at odds with their views. There are multiple ties between the Koch network and two dark-money “social-welfare” groups that have already mobilized against any Supreme Court nominee that Obama might choose—America Rising Squared, which is digging for dirt on potential nominees, and the Judicial Crisis Network, which has started airing ads aimed at intimidating Democrats who would push for confirmation hearings.
There is nothing more powerful in politics than money, and no one has used it to warp our political process more than Charles and David Koch. They know that they stand to lose hundreds of millions—even billions, if the Supreme Court upholds this President’s—or any future Democratic President’s– attempts to regulate or curtail their industries’ fossil fuel pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, all accelerating the planet’s warming at an unheard-of rate of speed. The ideological orientation of the next Justice means more to the Koch brothers’ bottom line than most Americans could imagine in their wildest dreams. And the recipients of their dark money, the Republican Party, and every Republican member of the House and Senate, knows it as well.
In this case it’s apparent that every Republican Senator — each of whom lives in abject fear of a primary challenge funded by the Kochs — has decided to cravenly kneel before these unelected billionaires and allow them to assume control of the entire process, effectively ceding all duty and responsibility they owe by virtue of their office to the American public, and instead giving the Kochs and their ilk free rein to intrude and manipulate our government for their interests alone. From the Washington Post:
[W]here the Senate itself would typically take the lead role in vetting a Supreme Court nominee, there are no plans this time for the Judiciary Committee to hire its usual complement of additional staffers to conduct such checks. Beth Levine, a spokeswoman for the panel’s Republicans, confirmed Wednesday there are no plans to hire additional investigators to probe Garland.
That has given outside groups a central role in the coming fight, especially on the Republican side. Most prominent among them is the Judicial Crisis Network, which has coordinated the conservative response to the Scalia vacancy and has pledged to run millions of dollars in television ads to derail Obama’s nominee.
The group issued talking points Tuesday that said Garland would support “a laundry list of extreme liberal priorities, like gutting the Second Amendment, legalizing partial-birth abortion, and unleashing unaccountable bureaucratic agencies like the EPA and the IRS.”
The “Judicial Crisis Network” is a secretive right-wing organization which exists primarily to defeat judges that it perceives are unfriendly to the interests of its funders. It is the brainchild of lawyer Ann Corkery and a California real estate magnate named Robin Arkley II, the President and CEO of Security National Corp. With the substantial assistance of Charles and David Koch around the time of the 2008 election, it has drastically expanded its influence, particularly in state judicial elections, and has operated as a primary channel for Republican “dark money:”
To fill its own coffers, JCN has increasingly relied on funding—to the tune of nearly $4 million, according to IRS documents—from another non-disclosing group, the Wellspring Committee, that’s run by Corkery and was founded seven years ago with the help of conservative donors in the network led by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch.
Corkery’s organization overlaps with other conservative Billionaires not directly responsive to the Kochs (such as hedge fund manager Paul Singer and little-known Pennsylvania “philanthropist,” John Templeton), but there is no doubt that the JCN owes its existence in large part to Koch largesse:
Corkery had a breakthrough year in 2008. Koch operatives gave her the reins to their fledgling Wellspring Committee, a dark money conduit that began pumping funds to other dark money Koch-backed groups like Americans for Prosperity. At the same time, Corkery served as a finance vice chair for Mitt Romney’s 2008 presidential campaign.
The other Koch-tied organization that Mayer mentions–one that Americans would not know or recognize– is “America Rising Squared.” This is an “Opposition Research” organization that exists primarily to “dig up dirt” and smear any judicial nominee who is perceived to be unfriendly to “conservative,” i.e, corporate interests. America Rising Squared was formed by a longtime aide to John McCain named Brian Rogers.
America Rising Squared, a GOP-aligned opposition research organization, has been working with the Judicial Crisis Network and the Republican National Committee to investigate potential nominees. Brian Rogers, the firm’s executive director, said Wednesday that he had about a dozen researchers digging into Garland’s background; some will be deployed across the country to vet the judge.
Here are the joint talking points issued on Tuesday by these two Koch-tied groups, which are being carefully parroted by Republican Senators asked about their opposition to the the appointment of Judge Merrick Garland, the President’s proposed appointee. The Kochs’ (and other billionaires affiliated with these groups) strategy is to portray Garland as an “anti-gun zealot.” For example, the groups urge Republicans to say that Judge Garland will “gut the Second Amendment”. And here is just one of their puppets, Republican Senator from Wisconsin, Ron Johnson, yesterday:
I’ll meet with the guy, but trust me: We’re not going to let the Supreme Court flip,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said. “And this nominee obviously would flip the court, particularly on an issue that is pretty important in Wisconsin — the right to keep and bear arms.”
The “anti-gun” trope has been repeated over and over through various conservative outlets in the last 48 hours. It will likely be the primary talking point for the GOP over the weekend, as they line up, one by one, reciting the Koch line chapter and verse.
The relationship of the Republican Party to the interests of these oil billionaires is now so established they are for all intents and purposes indistinguishable. Perhaps the best known Koch Front group, Americans for Prosperity, has already cemented its master/servant relationship with the Republican Party. As Mayer notes:
On issue after issue, Republican candidates have sworn fealty to the Kochs’ ultra-free-market positions. The study calculates that Republican members of the House and Senate largely voted as Americans for Prosperity told them to eighty-eight per cent of the time last year, up from seventy-three per cent of the time in 2007.
Americans have a right to know who is really responsible for hijacking their Democracy.
Here is a superb youtube.com video made last week of the Dean of the UC Irvine law school, Erwin Chemerinsky, who is one of America;s greatest Constitutional scholars, talking on Scalia, SCOTUS judges and cases, and at Q and A, of me asking about some education cases that are designed to bring down public schools and public school teachers and their unions (Vergara v CTA, Harris v Quinn, .Freidrichs v CTA)
Well worth watching it all…and hearing at the end his remarks in support of public education and public school teachers.
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The March 17th Colloquium at the Skirball with Dean Erwin Chemerinsky is now available for viewing at
Erwin Chemerinsky on the Supreme Court Vacancy
Erwin Chemerinsky on…
View on http://www.youtube.com
Must be nice having it both ways. Public school when public money is used, private school when any type of accountability or lack of civil rights is concerned. Is it any wonder that the public schools are trampling on the civil rights of students, teachers, parents since charters have a free pass to do whatever.
The private sector often prefers to control what people see and hear and almost always gets rid of or attacks anything or anyone that shines a light on facts that reveal truth.
Billionaires prefer to manufacturer their own shady trutsh on cherry picked or manufactured facts that do not stand up under a spotlight.
Since charter schools themselves argue in court that they are “private entities,” isn’t it a violation of the state constitution and a violation of the Education Code and other laws for them as private entities to receive funds from the public schools fund which is specifically designated for public schools? Not only is charter schools’ own claim that they are private entities evidence of such, but they also are also governed by private boards that aren’t elected by the tax-paying public and they don’t file the same financial reports of what they do with tax money that genuine public schools file. It’s unconstitutional and illegal for private entity charter schools to receive funds that are specifically designated in law for genuine public schools. Someone should file a lawsuit to stop this.
Excellent–thank you Jack Covey.
Endorse the charter school repeal initiative in California.
Mike…please expand on this initiative and post a link where readers can sign on to repeal the 1998 California Charter School law.
And when a charter does not kick the kids with low scores out and attempts to provide services, the charter association withdraws support and kicks the school out of the association for “low” scores, though those low scores are higher than the feeder home schools of the students.