Last spring, Salon published an article by Kali Holloway about Campbell Brown and her transition from news anchor to “education reformer” and “charter propagandist.” The article was posted before California’s highest court threw out the Vergara case, whose plaintiffs claimed that teacher tenure was racially discriminatory. It also was posted before a judge in Minnesota tossed out Campbell Brown’s copycat effort to kill teacher tenure in that state.
Nonetheless, the article accurately depicts Campbell Brown’s contempt for public schools, teachers unions, and teachers. Facebook announced that it plans to hire her as its face to the news media. It is important to know her low opinion of public education, a basic democratic institution, and the people who work to educate our children. As the article shows, Brown did not want to disclose the funders of her website, The 74, claiming that they might be harassed (as if!).
The article says The 74 is funded by: The Dick and Betsy DeVos Family Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Jonathan Sackler (of OxyContin producer Purdue Pharma) and the Walton Family Foundation.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
As Cenk Uyghur of The Young Turks (TYT) would say, “Of-Cooooooooorse!!!!” with lots of emphasis on “Cooooooooorse!!!!” Without the billionaires boys and girls club, there would be no deform movement.
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Greek mythology teaches us how to deal with a hydra, the billionaire boys and girls club.
“When one of its heads was cut off, two new heads appeared. The second labor of Hercules was to kill the monster. He did so by burning the neck after cutting off each head.”
The trouble is, Hercules is no where is sight.
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Surprise!
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Betsy again! Well, I will eat my hat as my mother used to say. Heavens to Betsy!
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Zuckerberg and Chan and others who are in the “news” business depend on growing the attention economy–getting attention, keeping it, refreshing attention, expanding it and so on.
Facebook is more about show than substance. Facebook cannot become a news organization that has credibility by doing the equivalent of putting lipstick on its FACE. Facebook is a money machine.
Campbell Brown’s credibility as a news-person has become zip. She is a shill for the interests of the billionaires who funded her propaganda mill, “the 74,”
Mercedes Schneider’s research on the funders of the 74 is worth reading. https://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2016/12/01/a-challenge-for-campbell-browns-the-74-publicize-your-detailed-history/
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I would say that Brown is a snake but that would do a grave disservice to snakes, even copperheads, moccasins and rattlers.
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Let’s recall that Campbell Brown is married to Dan Senor, Bush’ spokesperson for the Iraq War. She has been learning the techniques of misinformation from a master of the art.
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PRIVATIZATION WARS: There is a great analogy between standardized test scores and WMD.
After the #fakenews reported Iraq had WMD, almost everyone in DC and the media got behind the invasion of Iraq which cost trillions, killed hundreds of thousands and gave rise to Isis.
After the #fakenews got behind the idea that Math and ELA scores pegged to a child’s age determine the quality of their school, it gave rise to charter expansion, segregation, billions wasted and a massive federal takeover.
In both cases, the number of private contracts soared, creating large financial incentives for Wall Street investors and industry lobbyists to focus efforts on shaping public opinion.
The Brown-Senor marriage only affirms that these are indeed the same people, and if they have no compunctions about sending US troops to die over a lie about uranium yellowcake, why would they care about depriving young children of their right to a public education?
Any “solution” for failing schools that builds news schools to accommodate a small percentage of students and completely ignores the majority is not a real solution, it’s an abandonment, yet no education reporters have pointed this out.
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Brown and her tactics are reminiscent of Joe McCarthy and his.
Just substitute “pedophile teachers” for “communists”, and you have each of them claiming to have in possession a phantom “list” to stoke hysteria against their enemies:
Campbell Brown’s list:
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
SALON:
“Pressing on in her mission, Brown founded and funded a ‘watchdog group’ called the Parents Transparency Project, which in 2013 went so far as to create a $100,000 television ad challenging New York City mayoral candidates to ‘stand up to the teachers unions.’ The commercial essentially accused the union of allowing 128 teachers accused of sexual misconduct to remain in the classroom without facing repercussions.
“But as the Washington Post noted, those allegations were misleading.
“While some teachers accused of misconduct had remained on the job, the ad distorted several aspects of the emotional issue. One is that 33 of them had been fired. The balance were either fined, suspended or transferred for minor, non-criminal complaints. The other was the ad’s implication that the city’s main teachers union, the United Federation of Teachers, had impeded the disciplinary process. As the union pointed out, however, under state law, non-criminal complaints against teachers are handled by independent arbitrators. Neither the union nor the mayor had a say in such cases.”
Again, this is from ..
http://www.salon.com/2016/03/30/campbell_brown_charter_evangelist_how_the_former_anchorwoman_became_the_face_of_education_reform_partner/
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Here’s Joe McCarthy and his hysteria-inducing list or (lists, to be precise):
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
HISTORY CHANNEL:
“During a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, Senator Joseph McCarthy (Republican-Wisconsin) claims that he has a list with the names of over 200 members of the Department of State that are ‘known communists.’ The speech vaulted McCarthy to national prominence and sparked a nationwide hysteria about subversives in the American government.
” … ”
“In the next few weeks, the number fluctuated wildly, with McCarthy stating at various times that there were 57, or 81, or 10 communists in the Department of State. In fact, McCarthy never produced any solid evidence that there was even one communist in the State Department.”
from the History Channel’s website:
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/mccarthy-says-communists-are-in-state-department
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
In both cases, in a just and sane world, that should have been the end of each of them, and of their influence. After all, their credibility had been shattered. However, it was not. Both McCarthy and Brown continued on in their repective scurrilous campaigns.
And if this isn’t bad enough, corporate reformers out to remove Steve Zimmer from the LAUSD School Board in Los Angeles are taking a page from Campbell’s game plan with this latest pedophile-enabler “push poll”:
…
What’s a “push poll?”
Quick background: according to Wikipedia, a “push poll’ is “an interactive marketing technique, most commonly employed during political campaigning, in which an individual or organization attempts to manipulate or alter prospective voters’ views/beliefs under the guise of conducting an opinion poll.
“In a push poll, large numbers of voters are contacted with little effort made to actually collect and analyze voters’ response data. Instead, the push poll is a form of telemarketing-based propaganda and rumor mongering, masquerading as an opinion poll. Push polls may rely on innuendo, or information gleaned from opposition research on the political opponent of the interests behind the poll.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Push_poll
…
Got that?
Well, last week, anti-Zimmer forces went to work with one of these “push polls,” promoting the notion that Steve is a pedophile enabler, while using manipulative, pre-suppositional, or “When-did-you-stop-beating-your-wife?”-type questions :
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
L.A. SCHOOL REPORT:
“At least half a dozen times, the pollster repeated,
” ‘More than 200 children have been molested and abused under Steve Zimmer’s watch at the school board,’ and then asked for reaction to that statement.
” … ”
“The pollster asked for likely voters in the school board race and said the poll would take about 10 minutes. The survey lasted nearly 20 minutes.
“A typical question was:
“ ‘What bothers you most about incumbent board member Steve Zimmer?’
“The only eligible answers:
“ ‘A. The sexual abuse under his watch
“ B. The increased bureaucracy under his administration
“ C. He cares more about his own interests than the interests of the children of the district
“ D. The failing test scores his policies have caused.”
“ ‘None of the above’ wasn’t an option.”
http://laschoolreport.com/zimmer-melvoin-condemn-district-4-phone-survey-that-brings-up-lausd-child-molestations/
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Now, while this article is from Campbell Brown’s website L.A. SCHOOL REPORT, and Steve’s corporate reform opponent Nick Melvoin is quoted in the article as claiming non-involvement with and condemning this “push poll,” both the choice to publish this article, and Melvoin’s disavowal are all toothless and disingenuous.
After all, how many of the tens of thousands of voters in Steve’s district are going to read “L.A. School Report?” This “push poll” was not covered by the L.A. Times, the Valley newspaper ‘L.A. Daily News”, nor by any of the local television stations, so the vast majority of those voters are none-the-wiser about its nefariousness, and will now Steve enables pedophiles.
Melvoin and the corporate reformers are sure to benefit from this, while disingenuously and simulatneously claiming that they condemn it.
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Excellent reporting. The push poll experts are making a lot of money.
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