Mercedes Schneider alerted me to a GoFundMe campaign to raise enough money to match Betsy DeVos’s gift of $55,800 to his campaign.
The organizers of the GoFundMe are hoping that if their campaign raises enough money–say, to match or exceed Betsy DeVos–then we could buy his vote and he would oppose her nomination.
I contributed $20. Thus far, the campaign has raised $11,998 in only 20 hours. Almost 800 people have contributed. What if it raised $100,000? Do you think we could outbid DeVos?
If he votes for her anyway, the money raised will go to good charitable endeavors in Pennsylvania that help children, unlike the charters and vouchers that DeVos promotes.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Crazyland.
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Don’t understand playing this type of game. First off, the resources that the DeVoses, Waltons, Broads, Gates bring to the game dwarfs any go fund me campaign. Second, playing dirty pool with the pool sharks is guaranteed to get one to lose one’s money. They have to be laughing so hard out loud at this idiocy.
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Duane,
There is an important point here. No GoFundMe campaign can raise more money than DeVos or the others.
But why are all Republicans falling into line for an incompetent candidate?
The worst that happens is that about $20,000 will be contributed to three worthy causes in Pennsylvania.
I assure you they are not laughing out loud. They are exposed by this parody of democracy.
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Is this to be the new New Normal? Citizens raise money to bid against billionaires to pay off, payola, legislators and buy their votes?
Biggest Banana Republic….
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The total on the Buy Toomey’s Vote is now over $13,000.
It makes a good point!
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Love you Diane…but I’m with Duane on this one. Payola is a ‘no no’… no matter who is doing it. I am not comfortable with a sliding scale of morality.
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Ellen and Duane,
This is not payola. This is parody payola.
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“Buying” votes is illegal. Please delete this message immediately.
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You’re kidding right? Look at how much the on-line charters gave to Ohio’s Republican Party. Then, look at how fleeced Ohio taxpayers are, by charter schools. A very large Ohio charter has “mostly truant students” according to the O.D.E.
When Scott Walker took a call from a person pretending to be a Koch brother and refused calls from constituents, a point that is obvious, was reinforced.
Read Princeton Prof. Gilen’s research about the American oligarchy.
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Do we think that if DeVos isn’t confirmed that the next pick will be any better in regards to their positions on Ed reform and privatization?
Of course not. Chances are the next pick will simply be more competent. That will be great, a competent and prepared reform/privatizer maniac!
There is no chance that somehow a pro-public education pick will happen. Of course our side will hate any choice of Trumps. Wouldn’t the best of all bad choices be an incompetent who has no experience in any position like that and no experience getting things done on a national scale? If she isn’t confirmed we are quite likely to get a much more prepared and effective pick from Trump. Had HRC won, we would be faced with as reformer of impeccable lineage and preparation which would have, it seems, again thrown our side off for awhile.
We need to get over the fact that any Sec of Ed pick, from either party, would put up anything but a reformer/privatizer. It’s a false equation to think that getting rid of DeVos would open an opportunity for a pro-public Ed pick. It only opens up the opportunity for a more competent, and therefore more dangerous, reformer.
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NYSTeacher,
I don’t expect a good choice from Trump, but I believe that the massive resistance to DeVos has been a huge boon for those who support public education. Every senator has been swamped with calls to oppose DeVos. She is the personification of the out=of-touch elitist billionaire who wants to impose her ideology on public schools. If she were competent, it would be harder to build the enthusiasm and mass opposition. But she didn’t know what IDEA is! She liked about the results of cyber charters! She refuses to divest from a quack biofeedback company! If we can’t fight this nomination, then we are truly defeated. The act of opposition has been inspiring, has brought people together, has encouraged broader resistance to attacks on our civil order, and has unmasked the lies of the privatizers.
Yes, this is a good fight. It would be pathetic to allow a religious zealot who knows nothing of federal law or policy to sail through without opposition.
If she doesn’t make it, we will fight the next one too if he or she opposes public schools.
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I am not confident that the opposition to DeVos from folks in the Senate or House of Reps is about their support of public schools or about them finally “hearing” out side of the argument. I think that they are, truly, critical of her absolute and obvious fish-out-of-water level of competence and, more importantly, her super thin résumé that is dominated by a Christian college that most likely doesn’t have a polo team.
We shoiuld never underestimate the lengths to which people, especially politicians, will go to NOT get a deeper point….especially when the stand to gain from not getting that deeper point. Nobody was “woken up” to our side because of DeVos. Those active on our side remained active. No senator and no congressperson is suddenly anti-reform. They are just anti-DeVos. We should work to not confuse those two things
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Not sure I agree with the premise that DeVos is incompetent as a reformer.
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Not incompetent as a reformer. Incompetent as a leader of an executive-branch Department with a national scope.
Being competent as a reformer is easy: just believe that a public common should be handed over to a private/corporate entity. Done. You are a reformer.
Running a Department? Broad skills in communicating, administering, and marketing, let alone the political savvy and the open doors that a spiffy Ivy résumé affords. Also, knowing stuff. That helps.
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Also not sure I agree with the premise that an incompetent administrator is less dangerous than a competent administrator. And Devos doesn’t seem to have had much difficulty opening doors up to this point.
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As a working teacher, even at the building level, I will take an awful incompetent administrator over an awful competent one any day! I am talking about survival level stuff here, like keeping your job….not worrying a out the bigger mess that is made due to their incompetence. Us teachers should worry first about having a job and second about everything else.
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When you’re talking about an office that makes and implements policies on a national level, my main worries are about the bigger mess.
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I’m not. The bigger, sloppier mess they make, the more they are gunking up their ability to force states into compliance with whatever ridiculousness they enact. The competent ones, again, are the ones who do that better.
Make no mistake however, the Trump admin will be ramming through a lot of stuff that will enable vouchers and charters within the states, whether or not DeVos or anyone else is competent or not. The fact is, we lost the real battle, which was about gaining widespread public support for our side and widespread political support, so that when this moment occurred, we would have a substantial resistance to the very idea of vouchers, charters, etc.
Big filthy sloppy messes are just about our only hope to have public education as we know it survive in the mean time. Some good ol’ Ivy-educated competence will bring the house down much faster. Think hospice care….it’s about stretching the time remaining.
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Let’s see how we do with Trump’s sloppy mess.
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Not well.
We just have very few options here. That’s all. Basically every path leads to the same privatized place. Mass resistance against Ed reform and for public education is not a thing and not materializing. The best we can hope for is such a mess that at least blue states maintain some level of public Ed. That’s about it.
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Already donated this morning!!!
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If people want to donate money to something, it seems to me that there are better places than this. Local battered women’s shelters, local public schools, local homeless kitchens…
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Yes.
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I am not ready to throw good money after bad. The idea that I / we could outbid DeVos is laughable. Send your spare cash to the ACLU or to the tiny number of politicians doing the right thing. There are so few of them, I guarantee you will not go broke.
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Diane and the GoFundMe solicitors are absolutely correct in this action. It is the singular best possible use of money, in America, on this day, Feb. 2, 2017.
Reasoned arguments have gotten nowhere, for more than a decade, while oligarch money, delivered political results that forced Americans, to pay for what they don’t want- privatization of America’s most important common good.
Until the system changes, with actions like the GoFundMe page, OUR kids, OUR communities and OUR taxes will be EXPLOITED for the benefit/goals of the richest 0.1%, like Gates, DeVos, Broad and the Walton’s.
When the government offices of OUR representatives, e.g. Portman and Toomey, don’t answer constituent calls, it’s compulsory to take the fight to the oligarchs’ battlefield ($), and it is righteous, in defense of children and democracy.
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IMO, I love to use the same technique that Trump advocate, such as: “What do you have to lose?”
There are two techniques to control the illiterate and the educated:
1) MONEY =
– food in stomach (terrorist and gangsters use this);
– roof over head (fake charity and loan shark apply this);
– stabilized career (corporate masters this successful strategy);
– LAST BUT NOT LEAST, to destroy or to nurture humankind is up to THE MASTER’s conscience and logical mindset in savage or in humanity about their money usage.
2) LOVE =
– LUST or Sexual fulfillment: (arousing teenagers to against authority from Communist’s and fascist’s strategy)
– FAMILIAL RELATIONSHIP or Parental responsibility to sustain society: (Churches abuse this strategy)
– PATRIOTISM (Misuse word to arouse all hard head and narrow minded people into criminal acts against humanity)
– RELIGIOUS FANATIC (it is extremely dangerous from people with power and corrupted, inhumane/savage mindset).
In short, in the short term strategy, I am with señor Duane and Ellen (= NOT support Senators who need money to trade their votes!). However, in the long term strategy, I hope that all readers who trust Dr. Ravitch, will support Dr. Ravitch’s suggestion and strategy in unity. Otherwise, people, who oppose Dr. Ravitch, should offer or present their strategy in both short and long term ideas. Back2basic.
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I’m w/you, Diane! & I did you one better at $25! I TOTALLY LOVE this idea: corral citizen’s $-backed contributions to support their opinions to their reps– who are SUPPOSED TO rep their opinions anyway– but who vote instead w/ $-backed opinions of campaign-contributors– by matching or bettering special-interest $ against voter/ citizens public-good!
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And I’m hoping the message hits home: the message is that we voters– the ones Pat Toomey supposedly represents– get it. We get that his vote is not for his constituents’ interests, it is for sale to the highest bidder. So we’ll meet the highest bid to make the point. (When I pitched in we were already at 50% of the DeVos contribution).
We should be doing this on a much larger scale.
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Bethree,
The NPE Action Fund is a political Action Fund. If we had the money, we could make political contributions. We will have to start a GoFundMe campaign for our candidates, all of whom fight for public schools.
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