One of the most powerful players in the corporate reform movement is Democrats for Education Reform (DFER), which represents the hedge fund managers who are eager to expand privately managed charters with public dollars.
Experienced journalist Alexander Russo writes here in the publication of the conservative American Enterprise Institute about the travails of DFER. From the outside, it appears that DFER is powerful for two reasons: its money (which seems to be endless) and its closeness to the Obama administration. President Obama took his cues from DFER, not the teachers’ unions. But Russo says that DFER is losing its grip and its sense of possibility. If it appears to be aimless and dispirited, it is.
The two issues that it fought for–charters and teacher evaluation by test scores–have not been the big successes that the hedge fund guys expected. Obama is leaving, and there is no certainty that Hillary will be as congenial as he was. She has a debt to the teachers’ unions, and Obama had none. On issue after issue, there have been no results–not for the agenda of privatizing the schools, nor for the fantasy of booting out all those “bad teachers.”
Money was never lacking, and the vision has all but disappeared. DFER exists because it continues to raise money, not because there is a groundswell of support for privatization and firing teachers based on test scores.
DFER’s long-time executive director Joe Williams has left to work for the Walton family.
Meanwhile, DFER’s real opposition is not the teachers’ unions but the parents and educators who are fighting back on their own dime. The grassroots opponents of corporate reform don’t have the money that DFER has, but they have passion, commitment, and the support of classroom teachers and scholars who oppose DFER’s goals. No one pays them. They (we) will outlast DFER because DFER will grow tired, tired of losing Friedrichs, tired of losing Vergara, tired of reading about the Opt Out movement, tired of being thrashed by bloggers like Mercedes Schneider and Peter Greene, tired of being vilified for their selfless investment in “reform,” tired of getting no returns on their investment.
The tortoise and the hare. Rabbit stew, anyone?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I wouldn’t eat that rabbit stew because the meat is poisoned/tainted and I’m a vegan.
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I am a vegetarian, but thanks anyway. Where is Shavar Jeffries?
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love your reply
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In the story of the tortoise race, the hare takes a break because he is so far ahead. Right now, DFER is taking a break, laying low, working behind the curtain so as to get three million teachers to vote Dem. As the billionaire (his name escapes me) who emails back and forth with Diane explained, they want teachers unions to be strong and politically active during campaign season. Once the election is in the bag, they want teachers to be helpless and roll over. They will attack again. This is “reformer” “logic”. Don’t start boiling the pot for rabbit stew just yet, folks. I’m not sure the tortoise wins the race. Vegetarians wear sleeves. The talking pineapple isn’t out of it yet.
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Billionaire Whitney Tilson.
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That shiny thing losing its shine?
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Here’s my favorite Whitney Tilson quote:
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WHITNEY TILSON : “(Public school teachers) are gutless weasels and completely disgraced themselves in siding with the unions against meaningful reforms of a public school system that systematically, all over the country, gives black and Latino students the very worst teachers and schools, thereby trapping black and Latino communities in multi-generational cycles of poverty, violence and despair.” (July 30, 2011 blog post)
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My SECOND favorite Whitney Tilson quote is an example of the keen stock advice that he’s paid to provide wealthy investors: (from his Wikipedia page):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitney_Tilson
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WIKIPEDIA:
When Google went public in 2004, Tilson stated in a 2004 Motley Fool article:
WHITNEY TILSON : “Google with the same market cap of McDonald’s (a stock I own)?! HA! I believe that it is virtually certain that Google’s stock will be highly disappointing to investors foolish enough to participate in its over-hyped offering — you can hold me to that.”
Note: Since then (as of 10/18/13) Google has gone on to give its investors a return of over 1050%.
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With expertise such as that in his own field, it’s so reassuring to know that the Whit-ster’s applying his same brilliant acumen and applied insight to “reforming” public education.
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While we’re at it, here’s some more teacher quotes demonstrating (or commenting about) teacher bashing.
Let’s start with anti-corporate reformer Leonie Haimson:
http://www.eduwonk.com/2010/08/unmasking-the-blame-the-teacher-crowd.html
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LEONIE HAIMSON: “Scapegoating teachers has become the mantra of the so-called reformers. From Katie Haycock claiming (with no evidence) that the problems of low-performing schools are primarily due to poor teaching, to the recent cover of Newsweek, proclaiming that the ” Key to saving American education” is to “fire bad teachers,” with these words repeated over and over on the blackboard, this simplistic notion notion infects nearly every blog, magazine, and DC think tank, including this one.
“In what other sphere would we make this claim? Is the key to reforming our inequitable health care system firing bad doctors? Or the key to reducing inner city crime firing bad cops? No. But somehow this inherently destructive perspective is the delivered wisdom among the privateers who populate and dominate thinking in this country.”
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From corporate reformer Kati Haycock: (originally at NEWSWEEK—since deleted by NEWSWEEK) but still available at
http://www.eduwonk.com/2010/08/unmasking-the-blame-the-teacher-crowd.html
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KATI HAYCOCK: “But what we need to do is change the idea that education is the only career that needs to be done for life. There are a lot of smart people who change careers every six or seven years, while education ends up with a bunch of people on the low end of the pile who don’t want to compete in the job market.”
— Kati Haycock, President of Education Trust, (Newsweek, 9/1/08)
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And finally… From Michelle Rhee
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/11/crusader-of-the-classrooms/307080/
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ATLANTIC MONTHLY: “One of the other concerns I’ve heard voiced about alternative selection models is that the teachers aren’t making a thirty-year, or even a ten-year commitment.”
MICHELLE RHEE: “Nobody makes a thirty-year or ten-year commitment to a single profession. Name one profession where the assumption is that when you go in, right out of graduating college, that the majority of people are going to stay in that profession. It’s not the reality anymore, maybe with the exception of medicine. But short of that, people don’t go into jobs and stay there forever anymore.”
ATLANTIC MONTHLY: “So you feel like teachers can be effective even within a short term?”
MICHELLE RHEE: “Absolutely, and I’d rather have a really effective teacher for two years than a mediocre or ineffective one for twenty years.”
ATLANTIC MONTHLY: “One thing that I’ve encountered personally in talking to a lot of veteran teachers is this idea that programs like Teach for America or the D.C. Teaching Fellows de-professionalize education. They see it as a kind of glorified internship.”
MICHELLE RHEE: “I’ll tell you what de-professionalizes education. It’s when we have people sitting in the classrooms—whether they’re certified or not, whether they’ve taught for two months or 22 years—that are not teaching kids. And whom we cannot remove from the classroom, and whom parents know are not good. Those are the things that de-professionalize the teaching corp. Not Teach for America, not D.C. Teaching Fellows. That, I think, is a ridiculous argument.”
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Put yourself in the shoes of a university student considering entering his university’s Education Dept. and undertaking a career in teaching.
Are you going to spend and/or incur debt in a range of $100,000 – 300,000 for tuition/room & board/other expenses, then face all of that?
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There are contentment, patience, integrity and conscientiousness in people who believe in KARMA, in the universal law of cause and effect.
Also, there are arrogance, impatience, liar and malice in people who convince themselves that money and power of control people with fear will make them an invincible Satan.
Historically, we have seen enough terminal illnesses and sudden death like commit suicide in dictators.
People love to borrow and live in luxury and understand that they will be in jail or get beat up to death by loan shark. They still repeat their pattern if they still have the last breath. In the same vein, liars and talent-less leaders will keep cheating with their weaving dreams to satisfy gullible followers until the last breath.
However, people, who have committed their lives to cultivate the value of conscience, integrity, patience and kindness into learners, will outlast Satan. Back2basic
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Wow! This says so much in such a small space about politics and our economy. Incredibly well stated!
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The problem is privatization is that is not an authentic movement. It is a movement backed by zealots, the religious right and many opportunists that have attempt to suppress democracy. It does not represent the will of most people. Privatization has alienated a lot more people than it has served.
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Correction The problem with privatization is that it is….
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Three years ago, at 2013 California’s Democratic Party state convention, the delegates passed a resolution calling out DFER as a fake organization that is misusing the “Democratic” label to confuse people, as it espouses and promotes ideas and legislation related to education that are diametrically opposed to bedrock principles of the party’s education policy, and that those DFER policies originate in Wall Street, and with Republican corporate interests, not with anyone actually in the Democratic Party.
TEXT OF RESOLUTION:
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“Supporting California’s Public Schools and Dispelling the Corporate “Reform” Agenda
“Whereas, the reform initiatives of Students First, rely on destructive anti-educator policies that do nothing for students but blame educators and their unions for the ills of society, make testing the goal of education, shatter communities by closing their public schools, and see public schools as potential profit centers and children as measureable commodities; and
“Whereas, the political action committee, entitled Democrats for Education Reform is funded by corporations, Republican operatives and wealthy individuals dedicated to privatization and anti-educator initiatives, and not grassroots democrats or classroom educators; and
“Whereas, the billionaires funding Students First and Democrats for Education Reform are supporting candidates and local programs that would dismantle a free public education for every student in California and replace it with company run charter schools, non-credentialed teachers and unproven untested so-called “reforms”;
“THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the California Democratic Party reaffirms its commitment to free accessible public schools for all which offer a fair, substantive opportunity to learn with educators who have the right to be represented by their union, bargain collectively and have a voice in the policies which affect their schools, classrooms and their students;
“BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the California Democratic Party send this resolution to all elected Democratic leaders in California, publicize the corporate and Republican funding of these groups and work with the authors of this resolution to dispel the false reforms and support the real needs of the classroom: trained teachers, adequate funding, safe and clean facilities, diverse and stimulating curriculum and access to pre-school and higher education.”
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In the L.A. Times coverage of this (link BELOW), State Superintendent of Education Tom Torlakson didn’t mince words, “People can call themselves ‘Democrats for Education Reform’ — it’s a free country — but if your agenda is to shut teachers and school employees out of the political process and not lift a finger to prevent cuts in education, in my book you’re not a reformer, you’re not helping education, and you’re sure not much of a Democrat,” said state Supt. of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson, a registered Democrat whose office is nonpartisan.
Meanwhile, DFER head Gloria Romero called the resolution “stupid,” saying the resolution was the result of convention delegates “drinking Koolaid freshly squeezed by” the teachers’ unions. (Actually, as most people are aware, a Koolaid drink is made NOT from “squeezing” fruit, but by adding water to a dehydrated Koolaid powder, but whatever.)
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/apr/15/local/la-me-democrats-20130415
L.A. Times editor Karin Klein, a corporate reform cheerleader, attacked the resolution as well, saying how dare the Democratic Convention try to delineate what is or is not the policy and platform of the Democratic party, and, based on their words and actions, who can or cannot truly consider and call themselves real “Democrats.”
Uhh … isn’t that sort of the whole point of a party convention?
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/apr/16/news/la-ol-democrat-school-reform-20130415
Dr. Ravitch highlights and responds to here:
Ravitch reminds everyone that Klein’s editorial neglected to mention that, in actual fact, DFER originated as the brainchild of money-motivated Wall Street hedgefund managers (Whitney Tilson and others) out to privatize public education, with no actual or — to use Klein’s words — any “real Democrats” involved in its founding.
These privatizers and union-busters were and are using this mis-named “DFER” as a vehicle to trick people into thinking that corporate education reform actually has bi-partisan support when it most certainly DOES NOT. In Ravitch’s words, the various state DFER affiliates, are, in fact, just “fronts for corporate interests and Republicans.”
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Privatization and “reform” have accomplished very little under Obama’s heavy handed, extortionist educational policies. There are no miracles, just lots of chaos and resentment. Most of all the DNC has alienated many members of its base, including teachers and public school parents. I hope the anti-DFER sentiment does not translate into Trump winning the White House and future Supreme Court nominations. That would prove to be a disaster for a lot more than public education.
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From the corporate perspective, “reform” has not accomplished very little under Obama. It has accomplished billions.
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VOTE 3rd Party!
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DFER is working the states. It is an octopus. ESSA is in place for a while and Congress has not approved key features of Obama’s FY17 education budget. State-by-state action on the DFER (et.al.) agenda is undiminished, even if not always 100% successful.
http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/03/13065/how-dfer-leaders-channel-out-state-dark-money-colorado-and-beyond
Note that Trump has inspired and emboldened David Duke, of KKK fame, to run for the Senate to defend American Europeans. This is the latest version of his commitment to save the white race from whatever.
I guess my point is this: What is (or is not) happening with DFER should be seen in the light of extremist views promoted by Trump, DFER, and supporters of the DFER Octopus who have held positions that are not different from Republicans (e.g., choice, charters, tests, targeting teachers for blame,etc).
In this election season will it become clear that “choice” is not about rescuing low income children of color from failing schools but really about reinstating separate and segregated schools? Duke’s alignment with Trump makes that explicit–no need for hedging around with political corectness.
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The irony is that many of the pro-privatization forces have included lots of educated African Americans. The net result of unfettered privatization is increased segregation and less opportunity for most African American students. The lie of the test and punish policy is that testing is not a great equalizer. All the stack ranking does more harm than good for poor minority students. If people like Duke co-opt privatization to promote segregation, it has the potential to undo decades of civil rights’ gains.
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The Deutsch 29 blog posted Prof. Roland Fryer, of Harvard’s c.v., listing huge venture philanthropy grants.
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Since when has a big D democrat president paid a debt to a union? Must have been sometime in the Carter administration.
The best you can hope for with Killary is kinder, gentler, corporate “reform.” And yes, I use “kinder and gentler”as Neil Young did, “a kinder and gentler machine gun hand.” And yes, she will support the TPP.
I appreciate a lot of what you do on this blog, but this constant pro killary stuff is sheer delusion. To be clear, I loathe drumpf. I will be voting for the candidate that is actually against charter schools and wall street criminals, and for school loan forgiveness and alleviating poverty: Jill Stein.
The irony of liberals not voting for what (they say) they believe in is rich – but the irony is compounded when they do it over and over out of fear, and it makes them look pathetic, unprincipled, weak, and gullible – and it has real consequences for struggling people. The irony is compounded further, one could say crystallized, when they vote in neoliberals and make it worse for themselves. Even more irony: constantly voting in neoliberal Democrats has helped move the political spectrum to the right, making a dangerous buffoon like drumph inevitable. Let’s add one more thing here, liberals doubling down, telling me things are better because of ( fill in the blank with any big D dem of the last few decades).
But let’s be really honest, they vote like that because, as a group, they have remained relatively comfortable. Speaking as a poor person who has worked directly with marginalized populations (as the euphemism goes) for decades, I’ve lived with the fallout of neoliberalism and I’ve seen every aspect of desperately poor people’s lives get worse. People frame these presidential votes like they (the people) are actually doing something. OK, I’m running out of time and patience. Vote your conscience. Yay.
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DFER abandons ship rather than mount a defense because, when called out, they’ve got nothing but greed to put on display. The financial sector should circle their wagons, When a philanthropy like the Roosevelt Institute, finally documents, the financial sector’s drag on the economy, it can’t be long until the hedge fund gig is up, despite both presidential candidates having sons-in-law in the cesspool.
If all of those Silicon Valley smart a__es had set their sights on reforming Wall Street, the world’s productivity might have been improved but, they wasted their agendas in pursuit of destruction of the middle class and channeling our kids into “human capital pipelines”.
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Wall St. along with other forms of corporate welfare is a huge drag on the economy, but the medial rarely attempts to tackle it for fear of reprisal.
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Silicon Valley doesn’t want to reform Wall Street. Wall Street provides the capital for their experimentation and expansion.
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But, Silicon Valley told us they were “philanthropists”. They earned tax avoidance for their “altruism”. They should be willing to fight in the weight class above them, Wall Street. Otherwise, I have to conclude that they are cowards who victimize people far down the economic ladder.
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Diane, did you mean to link to the article?
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Christine,
I accidentally left out the link and added it after 30 minutes.
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Never mind–I see the link.
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The article’s author put DFER and social justice in the same sentence. That’s funny.
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