Ex-talking head Campbell Brown was just hired by Facebook to handle media relations. Brown hates public schools, teachers, and unions. She has filed lawsuits to eliminate teacher due process rights.
Pleae read and consider signing this petition opposing her hiring by Facebook.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I signed already; it is important for me to know that Class Size Matters is sponsoring this petition because I know that group ….
“Campbell Brown has received funding from billionaires to relentlessly promote charter schools and vouchers, and attack public schools and public school teachers at every turn, through spreading disinformation and misinformation. She has also received funding from Betsy Devos, the pro-privatization billionaire appointed by Trump to head the Department of Education, who herself has wreaked havoc on the public schools in her state of Michigan. In short, Campbell Brown is the last person in the world who should be hired to try to inject more objectivity and truth into Facebook.
Can you join me and take action? Click here: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/tell-mark-zuckerberg-not-to-hire-campbell-brown-to-lead-facebooks-news-team?source=email&
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I signed, Jean, and added a similar commentary on Campbell Brown being an acolyte of DeVos, and a supporter of her view that all students should attend Christian schools using vouchers, and that both reject separation of church and state.
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Thanks, Ellen. We know there is predictive validity for teachers who are certified and in classrooms when it comes to achievement of students; Lubienskis’ book on Public School Effect, looked at NAEP data reporting and found that
public schools — 89% of teachers are certified
parochial (catholic) 75% are certified
charter schools 62% are certified
conservative “evangelical ” “christian” schools only 44%
There are a lot of implications for this…. e.g., statutory requirements that have been “de-reguated” in order to remove unions, curriculum development in areas where you can convince the less informed teachers that evolution is only a “theory” etc. which is being pushed by the climate change deniers (in science curriculum etc)…that is what Devos will be pushing and we have a republican governor ready to accept all the federal money she would send down that pipeline.
This was important to me so I made sure I included it in our city League of Women Voters report (prepared for annual meeting).
On another topic, Ellen, you had placed two articles in the blog this week and I sent both to my nephew who is an “ex-pat” and I knew he would appreciate them . I hope other people read them also; I didn’t mention it at the time but wanted you to know I valued your information this week.
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NO. I will not object.
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SelectPrep,
I am curious what your reasons for not objecting are.
Can you elaborate a little?
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perhaps my browser needs updating because I had trouble finding the sponsor of the petition. Once I found it I was OK with it… signed
Leonie Haimson
Executive Director
Class Size Matters
124 Waverly Pl.
New York, NY 10011
212-529-3539
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Signed it. BTW Slate has an article concluding that the Brown hiring is less about controlling fake news and more about keeping the revenue pouring in, via free content….lots of free video content. (The live video serving as a “bulwark against rival social networks” for Facebook.) http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2017/01/06/what_facebook_s_decision_to_hire_campbell_brown_says_about_its_future.html
Could it be that billionaire Zuckerberg is worried about the future of his empire? I don’t know…..a lot of the young people I know are moving on to other social media sites.
Funny thing when billionaires worry about money, isn’t it?
Makes you just want to keeping asking them, “How much is enough?” I love that line in “Wall Street”, the original film, not the remake.. The line is at about 1:10 minutes into this clip but the whole scene is great. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDD1tW59Mjg
Devos, Trump, Gordon Gekko, now Zuckerberg…the same old story. Perhaps the headline should be: “Zuckerberg Losing His Edge Becoming One of Them”
Another great line from Wall Street: “The main thing about money, Bud, it makes you do things you don’t want to do” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCSOsFe42P8 Start at about 1:35.
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So, Mark Zuckerberg hired a phony who peddles fake education news to liaison with media companies and others over “fake” news problems.
Biggest. Fake. Hire. Ever.
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There are two peculiar, funny things about this petition. First, it seems funny to me that we would want to petition a private company. The right to redress grievances is a constitutional right which is designed to effect good government. The right to petition a right that relates to governmental functions, not the workings of private firms. But wait. Of course. Why did it not occur to me that the controlling of large sums of money creates government? When companies control so much capital, the management of that capital amounts to a form of government. This is why it seems logical to petition Zuk: he is big enough to be governmental, to exercise some of the functions we identify as government.
The second peculiar thing is that billionaires want to keep their position and fear losing ground. The normal person would retire from the company when a plateau of enough money was attained. People who make billions are obviously outside the norm. Money becomes power, and when you are elected only by money, it becomes your only source of power. Thus holders of large amounts of capital become modern royalty. Some feel an obligation to those who work for them like Wencheslas of old and maintain the company to help the employees. Others feel loyalty to the human race in general and donate large sums of money to one cause or another. Others are intoxicated with the thought of having power and push their ideology on society with the same urgency that they had to seek money. It is in their character. Many are a complex mix of these and more attributes.
This lies at the basis for the need to have a constitution that makes it difficult for the will of one man to be exerted more than that of another. I do not mean for his to be ridiculous. The person who is the originator of this site, and others like her, have enough money to spend their time doing it. This gives them an extraordinary voice in society. I am completely comfortable with the process that allows and promotes all sorts of dialogue, even when I think some of the ideas are incorrect. What I refer to is the presence of money in such quantity that it can be applied to large governmental activities without bringing people together and working for a common perception of problem and solution.
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I think Martin Luther King’s description of “boycott” is closer to what we are doing with “petition” to Zuckerberg. In Goerge Washington’s day the women would follow the marching /travelling camps of soldiers during the war “with their petitions” .. so it was a “woman’s march” to my way of thinking. (I will try to look up the reference for you but I think I found it in the women’s book “Wish I could be a patriot, too”…. Also, I will look up the Martin Luther King quote because it just came up in the school here where my neighbor’s daughter was reading about the bus boycotts. Marches (like the “Bonus Army”) … petitions, boycotts. a lot of variations on a them.
redress grievances is a constitutional right which is designed to effect good government.
jeanhaverhill@aol.com
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“quote MLK justice delayed
…So in order to be true to one’s conscience and true to God, a righteous man has no alternative but to refuse to cooperate with an evil system. This I felt was the nature of our action. From this moment on I conceived of our movement as an act of massive noncooperation.” he was attempting to NOT use the word boycott…. I also feel this way about the word “backlash”… especially when it is applied to women’s issues….
(civil disobedience; peaceful protest)
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Roy, “protest” is broader. because women could not vote they were assumed to be apolitical beings…. who had the right to “petition”? “Not every woman signed a petition, wrote a poem, or spun cloth for the good of the “nation.” Even those women who did express themselves politically did not challenge traditional gender ..Nevertheless, if many women were—like their male counterparts—indifferent to the issues dividing England and America, many others began to think politically. Some disdained the movement toward independence, refusing to sign non-consumption agreements, defiantly drinking British tea, and declaring their continued loyalty to the Crown. Others made sacrifices for the rights of colonial Americans, even if they did not seem to recognize that their own rights were very limited ”
so you come at it from a “legal” point of view I guess and I see it as social protest that evolved (and is still changing)…… so I don’t look at the change as “peculiar” but necessary.
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This is all very interesting. I simply meant to make the point that those who assemble power in the form of money are a type of government. To petition, boycott, protest, or otherwise address these power bases is entirely justified.
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Haha!
We are still shocked when techno-billionaires, like all techno-utopians, side with, hire, and advance Ed reformers. It is ALL of their agenda! School privatization hinges upon replacing teachers and school itself with technology. They are all the same people here folks!
Why would we even begin to expect a Zuckerberg or whomever else to NOT hire Campbell Brown? Really! Ridiculous.
I don’t think too many of us see what should be plain and clear.
Sign a petition for what? Zuckerberg to not hire his fellow travelers? Come on. This kind of stuff emboldens the other side because they see, pretty clearly, how our side simply doesn’t get it.
Lets start expecting things that are obvious already, and maybe we will take a step towards becoming a more potent resistance.
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NYSTEACHER
Exactly my thoughts . Again that bedroom seen from predator 2 comes to mind ” I don’t think he gives a… ….” However on the subject of resistance a minor Union officer sent me this link . It is an excellent analysis of the failures we have discussed . I can not say that many here will enjoy it . In fact the immediate response will probably be nausea . But as an analysis it is spot on. I will post it again for GregB who also has noted the role of labor in this debacle.
http://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/unions-facing-the-trump-era
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scene
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Thanks for posting Joel. Lots of good points. Let’s hope his concluding paragraph will be relevant in a few years. Next time, something more uplifting please!
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Those last lines need much repetition in 2017 if we are to truly make headway in our anti-reform stance: Let’s start expecting things that are obvious and thus step toward becoming a more POTENT resistance.
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NYSTEACHER said:
“Why would we even begin to expect a Zuckerberg or whomever else to NOT hire Campbell Brown? Really! Ridiculous.
I don’t think too many of us see what should be plain and clear.
Sign a petition for what? Zuckerberg to not hire his fellow travelers? Come on. This kind of stuff emboldens the other side because they see, pretty clearly, how our side simply doesn’t get it.”
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Roy: I sugesst it would depend upon which chapter of Abnormal Psychology you are reading.
” The second peculiar thing is that billionaires want to keep their position and fear losing ground. The normal person would retire from the company when a plateau of enough money was attained.”
you think there is a “Normal” individual without hubris? without greed?
The narcissistic personality in particular, has this extreme “need”. There is a description of Frank Langella when he played Dracula (I think there were 900 performances on stage) “not being able to see himself in mirrors, he had to content himself with the audiences’ rapt gaze”… but the author says this portray by Frank Langella left out the lethal aspects (for example , Trump’s version of narcissism is malignant and psychopath so the lethal aspects are predominant (and we will all suffer). (source for Dracula quote “Something in the Blood” by David Skal).
Even the myth of narcissus has been re-interpreted as the person who does not have enough “identity” who constantly needs to look for others (like parents or an audience) to fill himself up but when he looks at the reflection in the pond/lake there is nothing there. So if Frank Langella were trying to see his reflection in a mirror on stage he would see a blank… so he still needs the audience. There is also an implication that he (dracula) has no soul… therefore the lethal aspects are all the more dangerous.
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Very interesting. Thanks for taking time to point this out. So do all those who crave power share this narcissism? If so, does that mean all political leaders are subject to this? All wealthy people? Am I such a person?
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“The normal person would retire from the company when a plateau of enough money was attained.”
Really? And who decided that? So Buffett is abnormal? Clintons are… well, never mind that one. Soros is abnormal?
What is “enough money?” How is that decision made?
These ideas sounds more like jealousy than anything.
Want to be rich? Have a million dollar idea. Work hard. Simple as that.
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Rudy,
People usually don’t get rich by working hard.
Millions of people work very hard and never get rich.
Most very rich people were born to very rich parents.
Betsy DeVos was born into a billionaire family and married a billionaire.
She never worked hard a day in her life.
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I said, “have a million dollar idea…” work hard.
Want another idea?
Start investing young.
Make sacrifices on a gamble like a start-up. Go without until it either pays off or fails.
Many people have become wealthy by such acts. Sacrifice and hard work. Look at Forbes and see how many new millionaires pop up.
And the economic fact is that money makes money – if handled right. Even if nothing else, the interest makes money.
I just don’t get the hatred expressed to wealth. Even the Devos money is spent on good, useful things. Sure, you don’t like what SOME rich people do with education. I understand that. But the general sense I get is that it is evil to be rich.
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Rudy,
You like to say how hard you work: are you rich?
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What part is missing??? Have a million dollar idea – work hard.
I don’t have million dollar ideas. I’m one of those people who wakes up every once in a while kicking myself for not having taken the chance and bought 1,000 shares of Apple at $ 11.00 ea.
It was, at the time, a million dollar idea… but not until quite a few years late.
According to Forbes the number of wealthy people who did not make their own money is outnumbered by those who did.
Gates is a good example. Walton. Jobs. Dell. They had ideas and the courage to follow them.
Yes, I work hard. No, I’m not getting rich. But then, I have no desire to be rich. And too many people who will find fault with how I would or not spend my money.
More and more, the American dream is becoming a nightmare.
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Sam Walton got rich by building the Walmart chain. What about the second generation of Waltons? They are all billionaires because of Sam.
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Yep. And the point is??
I had the opportunity to meet Sam Walton. An amazing man. Simple.
I also got to meet some of the EDS men who got stuck in Iran. The drivenness of perrot was amazing. He used whatever was needed to get his people out of the country.
Two men, who used their hard earned wealth for many good things.
SOMETIMES kids of wealthy people may do stupid things.
And sometimes they honestly believe they’re using the wealth for good things – like educational issues.
You may not agree with them, but that does not make them evil – unless you can PROVE they intentionally milk the system for their own benefit.
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Rudy,
This is a stupid discussion. You waste my time. Some very rich people have a social conscience and are good people. Some are evil and greedy and can think of nothing more than ego and greed. We just elected one of the latter as president. Discussion closed.
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no, it’s like heart attacks… there are a lot of different reasons…
(not all share the same motives for a behavior or syndrome /pathology of narcissism)
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Hiring Campbell Brown to be Facebooks education guru is like hiring Phyllis Schafly to take a neutral position on the abortion debate!
Employing Ms Brown is sending a very bad signal to Facebook members about the intentions of the company! Why would FB jump into such a contentious situation precisely when it has been accused of helping circulate ‘FAKE NEWS’ in the recent election? That’s precisely what Ms Brown does in the education world!!
VERY BAD MOVE FACEBOOK!!
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Completely consistent and predictable move by Facebook.
Why would we expect a tech juggernaut to NOT hire an Ed reform person to be the education advisor?
Really….why?
The tech industry is for reform. They have a deep shared interest. Privatizing schools and replacing teachers with tech.
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yes and no….. I mean, Brown = Devos = weird/anti-science/uncool.
Yeah, the tech masters of the universe seem to think they know it all, including how to fix schools everywhere on the planet.
But…… don’t they also like to see themselves as creative, hip, cool, progressive …etc….etc…?
Devos…Amway? I didn’t even know Amway still existed. Tells you where my head was at. Amway reminds me of the 1970s.
There just seem to be some really “odd bedfellows” developing in this latest bizarre and very disturbing chapter in U.S. history.
But, yes, NYSTEACHER, the technology part is the key. And, I think it has turned the country upside down.
So, what happens next?
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John,
The hip, creative, cool, and progressive thing by the tech world is a total and complete front. It’s a marketing stance, not a personal one.
Insofar as people inside the tech industry see themselves as such, it is delusion and lack of historical knowledge that allows it: like every generation of leading edge capitalists, they see themselves as outside the bounds of history and therefore imaginers and creators of a new world. In that, they are wrong, deluded, and deeply under-informed. They are capitalists in the end, and they display the usual and predictable and not-new desire to privatize the commons. Back on the college campuses, these were not the people deeply engaged in the historical, creative, and philosophical questions of humanity and their time. They were dorks…..usually marginal for all the reasons people should be marginal…..and also usually hyper-focused on shedding complicated questions of history and philosophy. They were not artsy creative kids. They were not the edgy English majors. They were not the politically-engaged politics or history majors. Tech people were the kids exploiting the idea of a university to become capitalists. Also an age old thing.
When Apple and Facebook and Twitter project an image of slick social connection as the gateway to art and liberation, they are doing it as a marketing tactic, well constructed and well done. Apple would have you believe that their slave-made products are going to make you the next Ghandi leading the salt march. Facebook and Twitter want you to believe that their platforms will make us all the next Civil Rights movement from our couches. Bullshit all. Isis uses iPhones. Donald Trump reintroduced the United States to fascist authoritarianism via Twitter. That special kid: he was held captive and tortured for all to see.
At best, social media and technology is simply a tool, just like a hammer, that can be used for any purpose. To build or destroy.
So no, I don’t think being hip and cool and creative and progressive is what the tech masters of the universe are truly after, and if they are, they are perhaps the LAST group of people that would know what hip, creative, and progressive even mean.
What to do next? Well signing a petition like this is meaningless and perhaps weakens our side. I mean, if it makes you feel good, fine. Go ahead. But don’t expect it to be a vector for any type of change. What we need to do is organize via our unions. Be willing to actually act. And demand that those structures already extant in our society, like unions, take on a more aggressive posture.
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Like the plug for unions -as always!
I see what you’re saying, though I have to think…..doesn’t how we perceive ourselves also shape our beliefs and actions -even if those perceptions of ourselves might not be accurate. (Like how New Year’s Eve finally proved that I cannot and should not sing karaoke -ever again. Why didn’t I stop years ago?)
And, considering how most of us are constantly “plugged into” digital computing machines of some sort all day long nowadays, aren’t the “dorks” as you call them long past being “marginal” in our society? Their form of creativity seems to be defining so much of what our culture considers creative now. (Just stating an observation not that I’m thrilled about that development.) Of course, some of my best friends are dorks. Some might consider me to be dork. LOL.
Also, don’t think I would consider technology “just a tool” either. Not sure I could plow my way through Jacques Ellul’s “The Technological Society” again. Ha, ha. But there seems to be A LOT going on with these machines. The rise of Trump is just the tip of the iceberg maybe….a warning sign, perhaps?
I am glad these days I am sitting here in New York State like you, NYSTEACHER. That much I am sure of.
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NYSTEACHER / John Ogozalek
Andrew Carnegie portrayed the image of a benevolent capitalist as well . Till push came to shove at Homestead.
A few years back someone handed me a copy of Jack London’s “Iron Heel” written 1908. The descriptions of the power dynamics between and within the classes are as relevant today as it was over a century ago. Right down to his description of the deficits within organized labor. It was as if I were reading a contemporary political novel.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carnegie/peopleevents/pande04.html
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John,
I am likewise happy and proud to be sitting on New York as well.
As far as the “dork” comment: well yeah, we should all be dorks for something. I was trying to impress the idea that these tech folks were dorks due to their hyper focus at the EXPENSE of things like the humanities and the idea of the university in general. They were exploiters even of the idea of college. And when I described them as marginal, I meant that in terms of college life etc. They, of course, are no longer marginal. At the most crass level, people flock to wealthy folks…..but the origins of their marginalization: their exploitative focus, social weirdness due to it, and interest in coding (before cool kids did it) makes them marginal. For real, remove the billionaire label and fact from Mark Zuckerberg, and who the hell cares what he thinks or would want to hang with him?
Broadly though, it is almost always a mistake to see that there is something new or more to an exploitative capitalist. There isn’t.
But whatever.
As far as technology in general, many folks tend to defer to Elull’s work as gospel. It isn’t. I would point you to a very strong strain emerging within the history of technology academic community where the ideas of technological determinism are being quite deeply questioned and undermined. Look at the work of Eric Schatzberg for example.
Anyhow, this is a good and necessary discussion.
Lets hope New York and our governor reject any and all of DeVos’ policies rather than see them as a place to “work together.” I am nervous on that front.
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NYSTEACHER
Your Governor will move to where he is dragged and the only thing that will drag him is mass movements. Otherwise his instincts will lead him to follow the money. He like Obama has mastered the art of proposing the big idea that he has no intention on following through. He stands with Eva rather than standing with the majority of children. Like Gates and Zuckerberg it is not a matter of ignorance . No amount of evidence will dissuade these people. The are not stupid or misinformed, they are greedy for power and money . In six months or a year when Steve Israel former head of the DCCC takes a job with the Pharmaceutical industry as a lobbyist,we will discuss my thousand calls to his office.
This time around there will be no excuse for mass movements not being joined by broad support across the progressive movement. Occupy was crushed to re elect Obama . Organized labor withdrew its support for two reasons the difficulty in dealing with the loose leadership structure of Occupy and getting Obama re-elected. How can you re-elect a President as a progressive ,who was the lackey and chief for corporate abuse.
Seriously that link I posted was as clarion as Lufgren or Frank.
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Joel,
As per usual, I could not agree more.
Cuomo is and remains a privatizer. He will only go otherwise if he is certain that it is politically non-viable. This is where strong collective and aggressive action matters. Opt-Out is fading as a thing, and our union, NYSUT, is led by deeply dumb and politically cooperationist people.
I am not too hopeful.
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I’ll check out Eric Schatzberg at some point. Thanks. Right now my brain is fried. This four day week felt more like six. Enjoy the weekend.
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NYSTEACHER
You will appreciate the link I posted about Unions in the Trump era pretty much covers where we have gone wrong .
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Flake News —
Flakes of a weather flock together
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Don’t have a facebook account but if I did this would be enough reason to delete it. Perhaps everyone being data-mined by Zuckerberg should consider this action.
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Done
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Brown is notorious for bending the truth with her anti public school rhetoric. An unbiased journalist would be more appropriate.
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Zuckerberg is obviously throwing away money at this time. One point of advice is change is good sometimes
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