Only hours after losing its lawsuit to block teacher tenure in California, the Silicon Valley-funded “Students Matter”filed a lawsuit in Connecticut, claiming that the state’s restrictions on magnet schools and charter schools discriminated against inner-city children.
Curious. Why isn’t this group suing the state for not giving the neediest schools the funds to reduce class sizes and provide social and medical services to the children?
“California-based educational-advocacy group has filed a federal lawsuit charging that Connecticut’s restrictions on magnet and charter schools harm city children and violate the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution.
“Students Matter, a group best known for bringing an unsuccessful lawsuit seeking to eliminate teacher tenure in California, filed a 71-page complaint Tuesday charging that “inexcusable educational inequity” in Connecticut was primarily the result of state laws “that prevent inner-city students from accessing even minimally acceptable public-school options.”
“The group is taking aim at laws that have put a moratorium on new magnet schools, limit the expansion of charter schools, and set per-student funding levels for districts participating in the Open Choice program in which city students attend suburban schools.
“A statement from Students Matter said, “Year after year, these parents have tried to avoid sending their children to failing public schools by trying to enroll them in magnet schools, charter public schools or other adequate public school alternatives.”
“However, the group contends that children have been “forced to remain in failing schools” because laws prevent magnets and charters from “scaling and meeting the need for high-quality schools demanded by Connecticut’s population.”
Hmmm. If students have a constitutional right to attend charter schools, do charter schools have the right to refuse admission?
I wonder if TIME Magazine will give the story a cover, as it did for Vergara, claiming that Silicon Valley knows how to fix failing schools. Or the cover it gave to Michelle Rhee, holding a broom, saying that she knew how to fix the public schools of D.C.
I have an idea: since David Welch, the Silicon Valley entrepreneur behind Students Matter, knows how to fix low-scoring schools, why doesn’t he offer to take over a district in California and show us how to do it?

They keep losing and keep spending money to keep losing. If they out all this money and passion into improving the conditions that exist for these inner city children they claim to advocate for, imagine the changes we could see in society as a whole. For shame on them.
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The danger is all they need is one win to establish precedent. And it will happen since the best legal minds in the country are working for the oligarchs.
I have been writing about Olson and Bois (two of the most respected lawyers in the US), Students Matter with Welch and Broad, and mainly about Broad’s boys, Ben Austin and John Deasy and their assignment to implement Vergara-like lawsuits all over California and all over the Nation, ad nauseum for the last two years.
When I was not swept away with joy a few weeks ago after the Ca. Supreme Ct. refused to hear the case, yet again, and upheld the lower court ruling to toss it, folks here castigated me. For shame indeed. Seems like folks do not understand this power block with the deepest pockets in America have had their plans in motion for two decades, and they will not loosen up. They intend to make teaching a minimum wage job, not a profession, but more than that, they intend to kill the entire US union movement.
It is no secret…this is established in many books and articles…and Eli Broad even says this in public…as do Rupert Murdoch…various members of the Walton family….Casey Wasserman…and others of the oligarch billionaires.
I cannot fathom why anyone is surprised at this Conn. filing.
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addendum….Eli Broad started the Broad Academy in 1999 to teach “CEOs” to run school districts on business models. He made his plan then, almost twenty years ago, and has worked it ever since, with amazing success. He now has placed over 2000 of his grads as Superintendents of Schools across the US.
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Ellen, many of the Broad superintendents have been fired or quit. I don’t think there are 2,000 of them. Some never became superintendents.
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Indeed, Diane, many were fired, some put in prison e.g. Byrd-Bennett, and yet, those from LAUSD like the current Boston Supt. and the current Glendale Supt. and some others, were immediately hired after being ‘let go’ in disgrace after the Deasy era. Deasy had many Broad-trained operatives packed into the district, some are still there.
Here is old info from 2012.
2012 article excerpt from google…..
“It’s been a tough year for Chicago teachers, but that’s not a surprise, considering that Brizzard trained at the Broad Foundation Superintendents Academy, the most prominent and most controversial training institute for school chiefs.
The Academy is the flagship program of the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, the smallest of a triumvirate of corporate foundations that are at the heart of the billionaire campaign to remake public education in the image of corporate America. The Gates Foundation, spending close to half a billion dollars a year on education, is No. 1. The Walton Family Foundation, started by the owners of Walmart, spends about a third as much. Broad’s education spending is much smaller—$26 million in 2009, according to the New York Times.”
Extra
“Broad “Superstars” Set to Expand Influence
BY KEN LIBBY AND STAN KARP
Read below ↓But Broad gets a big bang for his bucks with his strategy for catapulting graduates of his superintendents’ program into the driver’s seats of major urban districts. The Academy says 30 of its alumni are now running big city school systems, including Los Angeles, Dallas, and Denver, besides Chicago. Philadelphia has just hired one. In Louisiana, Maryland, New Jersey, and Rhode Island, Broad-trained superintendents have become state education chiefs. In 2011, Broad alumni filled 48 percent of all large urban superintendent openings, according to the Academy website. But many Broad grads have compiled records that are not much to brag about.
In Oakland, three Broad-trained superintendents in a row left the schools in chaos and saddled with a gigantic deficit.
In Seattle, Broad alumna Maria Goodloe-Johnson’s four-year tenure was marked by fake statistics, disruption, and corruption.
At least five Broad superintendents have earned no-confidence votes from their teachers. (note from Ellen…LAUSD teachers gave Deasy a 91% vote of NO CONFIDENCE, and a few weeks later, the BoE renewed his contract. Some of those same people are still on the BoE such as the Prez of the Board, Steve Zimmer.)
When Dallas hired a Broad Academy grad last spring, Jim Schutze of the Dallas Observer researched the Academy’s track record and predicted: “There will be blood.”
Many Broad superintendents have fought pitched battles with teachers and community organizations when they moved to close schools with low student test scores and to open new charter schools—sometimes in the same buildings, but usually not with the same students. Rating and paying teachers based on student test scores are also high on Broad alumni agendas.”
http://www.broadcenter.org/academy/network/profiles/category/alumni
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Here’s rule numero uno: anyone who utters the words “our failing public schools” must go home, stay home, shut out the lights and take a time-out of 10 or 20 years. Enough of this failing public schools glop. Schools in cities like Camden are struggling with huge social issues: crime, violence, gangs, poverty, homelessness, transiency, broken homes, etc. Jersey Jazzman sums it up nicely: “Now, we are currently living in the golden age of competition in public education. Milton Friedman’s dream of pubic schools having to compete for students has finally come true. Which means charter schools have to go out and make their case for enrollment, either by extolling their virtues, or by denigrating the public schools with which they compete.”
http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com
Obviously, “Students Matters” has boat loads of money to burn on frivolous lawsuits.
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“I have an idea: since David Welch, the Silicon Valley entrepreneur behind Students Matter, knows how to fix low-scoring schools, why doesn’t he offer to take over a district in California and show us how to do it?”
Bad idea he might take you up on it. Then his failure will always be spun as success,as they do now.
However this might be an indication of how he would preform. Of course this will never affect his personal fortune, paying the price for failure is for “little people”.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/stone-energy-says-bankruptcy-filing-a-possibility-1463506068
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Agreed. I experienced an involuntary shiver at the thought of David Welch experimenting on my district like Eli Broad did with his lapdog John Deasy.
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Dear Leftie…Welch is only a bit up the coast from your district. His smelly hands are deeply involved in the LA situation. He is partnered with Eli Broad in more than one Vergara attempt. They are working to get this to SCOTUS as we converse here. O’Melveny, Manatt, Olson, etc…all the firms whose billing hours are huge for the oligarchs, are involved in aspects of this. These are the biggest and best law firms in the country. It is surprising to me that so many here are so naive.
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Ellen,
Agreed, You know where I stand on this . That letter was re edited before I sent it. Lets see if it does any good. We may not agree with Hedges on the Election, but he may have a point on mass movements. The narrative has to be changed. Right now that narrative is being dictated by a media owned by oligarchs/Plutocrats. Mass movements counter that in the psyche of the American public.
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Again, thank you, Diane!!!!
The lunacy of those making policy never fails to disgust me. It’s just about $$$$$$ and control by the oligarchy.
Guess these yahoos think children and we are just Pavlov’s dog.
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The logic is interesting. Restrictions on charter and magnet schools are the problem? Not IF states have a responsibility to provide a thorough and equitable education to ALL children. Looks like the tactic once again is to distract from the real issue.
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“Curious. Why isn’t this group suing the state for not giving the neediest schools the funds to reduce class sizes and provide social and medical services to the children?”
School funding lawsuits are notoriously ineffective. Filing a Vergara lawsuit and losing will affect the status quo about as much as filing a school funding lawsuit and winning, and it’s a lot quicker, too.
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FLERP,
There are many lawyers who would disagree with you. Lawsuits seem to be the best way to compel equitable funding.
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If so, given how many of them have been filed, you’d think there’d be fewer people complaining about inequitable funding.
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FLERP,
I believe the inequities have grown as population has shifted and income inequality grows.
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If that’s true (I don’t know that it is — was school funding more equitable 20, 30, 40 years ago than it is today?), it would seem to demonstrate my point. If school funding inequity was a legal problem that could be resolved by courts, then demographic changes and income shifts wouldn’t be obstacles. Demographics and income inequality are political issues, not legal issues. And they matter because in the final analysis, school funding is primarily a political issue, not a legal issue.
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FLERP,
But state courts do order legislatures to meet their constitutional obligations to fund schools equitably.
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And how do the legislatures respond?
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Reblogged this on Matthews' Blog.
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If the “Students Matter” group were to win, then I can see some grounds to file a counter suit. The issue of selective admission is one issue that could be challenged. Perhaps someone should file a lawsuit on behalf of the minority students not selected for charters that now must attend an under resourced, under funded public school. While we are considering equity, who will stand up for their rights to an equitable education?
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EXCELLENT idea and one I’ve been wishing to see for years, now. Someone should file a collective lawsuit on behalf of the students NOT selected in the lottery/choice game. Or for those students pushed out of schools, or for students whose schools are suddenly closed…
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Lots of good ideas…but who will pay for this type of lawsuit? Are teachers going to kick in from their, our, minimal paychecks? Will Diane’s members raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to hire the best lawyers, or any lawyers? No one has taken anything on pro bono that I know of. We in California cannot find lawyers who will work for poor, jailed teachers who were unfairly accused by LAUSD, to help ‘pro bono.’
I have come to the conclusion that the only thing that matters is who is really organizing?
The only lawsuit I know of that is challenging the oligarchs and the charter school supporters on school boards is Rafe Esquith from LAUSD who was able to get the attention of Mark Geragos. At least this one filing representing the class action of 2000 LAUSD teachers, is something I can cheer for…but otherwise, it is all hyperbole.
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So, please stop saying “someone should”….
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The corporate charter school/voucher industry will keep filing these lawsuits gambling that the odds will favor them with an occasional victory that sticks. That will be their steel-clad boot toe in the door and then they will continue widening the gap — even if it takes decades — until the door is open all the way, the teachers and their unions crushed and community based, democratic, transparent, non-profit, traditional public schools are gone.
This is more than a one-front war. The court cases are one battle. The huge spending, starting with school board elections to state legislatures, governor’s mansions, the U.S. Congress and the White House, are all other fronts and battles in this war.
We are fighting hundreds of battles spread across the country from school districts to the White House.
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We will fight every battle. One by one. At some point, it won’t be fun for them anymore. They will go back to yachts and polo.
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As long as our heart beats.
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Exactly, Lloyd…we are fighting on so many fronts.
And also, IMO, we who are older, as with Diane, Laura, Sari, Larry,
(Karen, Carl, and Robert and Sara who are honorary older ’cause they work their hearts out), teacher ken, some of our wonderful teacher/bloggers like Klonsky and Jersey Jazzman, and you and I, are in the streets with our pitchforks….but where are all the younger parents and teachers?
In my community it is only the old folks who seem to want to save public schools, who show up at BoE meetings, and at functions. Some others who are younger will show up for a pay day only,
as we see at rigged events in LA.
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There are working teachers, younger teachers, who are fearlessly fighting back too. For instance, I have a friend who is more than twenty years younger then me with a decade left to teach before he plans to retire who was putting up the good fight until I convinced him to keep a lower profile so he doesn’t risk his future as a retired elder.
How many administrators and teachers have lost their jobs so far in this war — thousands, thousands, thousands?
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Lloyd…Joining Forces for Education was formed some years ago so that retired educators could be a voice for the younger working teachers, who, as you say, could be in jeopardy of losing their jobs. Many working teachers stay in contact and I, we, use their info and protect their identity. But there also seems to be a lethargy in So. Ca. The wonderful Geronimo, Josh, has written so eloquently about LAUSD…and I continue to thank him for his stances over the years.
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I’ve published a few pieces anonymously for a few teachers that are still working.
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It will stop being fun for them the second the money becomes unavailable — or there is more money to be made more easily somewhere else. And the money will stop being available as soon as communities nationwide stop buying into the false premise that public entities and institutions are “bad” and that the private sector can always do a better job of running things — and withdraw the possibility of getting all those tax dollars by “playing” in the public ed sandbox.
This education effort needs to go hand in glove with a push (on the public entity side of the equation) to fix the running of public institutions (many of which have been demoralized by a steady drumbeat, since Ronald Reagan, of dispiriting, disparaging rhetoric badmouthing the ability of the public sector to do anything well.
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I am beginning to believe that too often justice in this country depends on how much money you have. A friend of mine who was unjustly fired from a contract school was told by the NLRB (?) that she had a civil rights suit . Her lawyer told her that to file such a suit would cost her somewhere in the neighborhood of $10,000. So much for justice.
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It is all about money.
Here is the list put out by Forbes Magazine (where they list the 50 biggest billionaire philanthropists). I will only list the first 20 who combined represent many 100s of billions of dollars.
Their Foundations represent :
Gates, Buffett, Zuckerberg, Waltons, Broad, Bloomberg, Paul Allen, Chuck Feeney, Gordon and Betty Moore, James and Marilyn Simons, John and Laura Arnold, Carl Icahn, Koch brothers, Julian Robertson Jr.,Sheldon Adleson, Stephen Bechtel Jr., Michael and Susan Dell, Hansjorg Wynn, J. Wayne and Delores Weaver.
Then there are ‘pikers’ who only have one billion but are listed by Forbes elsewhere as major donors, like Meyer Luskin who founded Alliance Charter Schools and still sits on their Board.
Almost all of these wealthiest people on earth are charter school supporters.
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