I am reposting this because I forgot to put in the link. Please listen. It is a lecture so you can listen while driving. I knew the late Michael Joyce of the Bradley Foundation, a very rightwing foundation, and I can confirm that he knowingly manipulated black leaders in Wisconsin to get vouchers passed.
Glen Ford, executive editor of Black Agenda Report, is a fierce critic of corporate education reform. He is equally hard on Democrats and Republicans who have sold out their schools to satisfy rightwing foundations and Wall Street.
http://www.blackagendareport.com/node/4666
In this post, he lacerates DeVos, Trump, Booker, and Obama
as enemies of public schools, who sold out their community schools to satisfy their funders or (in DeVos’s case) personal ideology.
Here is an excerpt:
“Sometimes, when ruling class competitors collide, the villainy of both factions is made manifest. Donald Trump did the nation’s public schools a great service by nominating Betsy DeVos, the awesomely loathsome billionaire Amway heiress, for secretary of Education. In turning over that rock, Trump exposed the raw corruption and venality at the core of the charter school privatization juggernaut. Only an historic tie-breaking vote by Vice President Mike Pence saved DeVos from rejection by the U.S. Senate. Two Republicans abandoned their party’s nominee, joining a solid bloc of Democrats, including New Jersey’s Cory Booker, a school privatizer that crawled out of the same ideological sewer as DeVos and has long been her comrade and ally. Booker defected from his soul mate in fear that the DeVos stench might taint his own presidential ambitions.
“The New York Times editorial board, a champion of charters, bemoaned that DeVos’ “appointment squanders an opportunity to advance public education research, experimentation and standards, to objectively compare traditional public school, charter school and voucher models in search of better options for public school students” – a devious way of saying that the Senate hearings exposed the slimy underbelly of the charter privatization project and the billionaires of both parties that have guided and sustained it.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“Booker defected from his soul mate in fear that the DeVos stench might taint his own presidential ambitions.”
What a perfect sentence!
LikeLike
The saddest truth is that IF Booker were to clearly pull away from the right, apologize to his constituents for his abusive educational mistakes, and then start to loudly and regularly promote ALL-student-inclusive no-gimmicks local neighborhood public schools, he might have little trouble in getting the political backing he craves.
LikeLike
Ciedie, don’t count on Booker pulling away from his rt wing roots. He’s a master of deceit. He licked the boots of NJ’s wealthy & powerful while concurrently stomping his Newark constituents into the dirt.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Booker has no hope for redemption in my eyes as uncharitable as it may be.
LikeLike
Booker is another ‘centrist’, but there is no real center. In other words, he campaigns from the Left and governs from the Right. He steals progressive votes with lies, then feeds the millionaire-billionaire class once in office. We’d better find a superior alternative by 2020.
LikeLike
LCT: Well said!
LikeLike
In case there was any doubt about Evita Moscowitz’ place on the list of enemies of public education, it looks like Breitbart owner Robert Mercer is a funder of Success Academy, via Jennifer Berkshire:
Click to access 20-1982204_990PF_201412.pdf
LikeLike
Check out this news report on the Mercers. They’ve been funding rt wing conspiracy outlets and politicians for years. Robert & his daughter Rebecca gave Trump Bannon & Conway plus a boat load of $ to save Trump’s presidential run.
LikeLike
oops here’s the link
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3021
LikeLike
Love Glen Ford and the Black Agenda Report. Thanks, Diane.
LikeLike
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
LikeLike
Diane: I guess my earlier question about Booker is answered via these responses; but I still have questions . . . .
LikeLike
What are your questions? I am a recipient of Booker’s largesse.
LikeLike
Abigail Shure: I was wondering if Booker had just “bought” the Orwellian argument that “choice is good;” Or if he was really a die-hard capitalist-privateer who doesn’t understand the difference between public service and commonwealth, on the one hand, and business on the other. I just listened to the video–pretty damming. (damning?)
LikeLike
CBK,
I think it is obvious. Booker wanted the money to succeed in politics. He loves being the hero of Wall Street.
LikeLike
Political expediency is the key to understanding Booker. IMHO, belief in choice is a smokescreen for a lack of concern for the common good. Not one of these choice advocates can make a convincing argument to justify the harsh conditions that the remaining public school students are forced to endure. They have no compassion for the neediest children amongst us.
LikeLike
Abigail Shure: thanks for the update.
LikeLike
Thank-you Diane. Glen Ford is a man of true principles & a fearless defender of the 99%.
LikeLike
There is no link the the Black Agenda Report
Thank you,
LikeLike
Here’s a link to the Black Agenda Report (BAR) article, “Billionaire Opponent of Public Education is Now Sec’y of Education. Get Ready For It.”
http://blackagendareport.com/Betsey-DeVos-new-sec%27y-of-education
And here’s a link to another relevant BAR article, “How Democrats Paved The Way For Trump-Era School Privatization”
http://blackagendareport.com/Dems-paved-the-way-for-school-privatization
LikeLike
“. . . to objectively compare traditional public school, charter school and voucher models in search of better options for public school students. . . ”
Ha ha ha ha ha, heh heh heh, allow me to catch my breath, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha . . . and for you Spanish speakers, je je je je je je je je je je . . . . Spit my hot chocolate out laughing so hard. “Objectively compare”-breaks me up every time!!!
Them public schools need better options as shown by those other models. Oh, don’t get me started if I can get beyond the laughter. Sorry can’t be done. Ha ha ha ha ha, heh heh heh, allow me to catch my breath, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha . . . and for you Spanish speakers, je je je je je je je je je je!!
LikeLike
My post from 2013 of a Glen Ford talk on the corporatization of public education and Booker’s deep right wing roots. (The audio isn’t great, but the talk is.)
It’s time for liberals to become socialists – and I don’t mean like Bernie. I mean real “workers owning the means of production” socialists. The Dems will not “save” you, they can’t even save their own neoliberal corporate loving selves. At the very (very) least, it’s time for a third party.
LikeLike
They could not even elect Keith Ellison.
There is no hope for the hopeless
“Rope a Hope”
Only a dope
Would vote for Hope
When Hope had rope
To tie the Pope
LikeLike
Should be “Rope a Pope”
LikeLike
Sanders might have more influence in the Democratic Party if he became a member.
If the Sanders’ wing of the party that he doesn’t belong to doesn’t unite with the Perez wing, we can count on 8 years of Trump, followed by 8 years of Pence. We will be a theocracy by then.
LikeLike
Diane, sad to begin skimming this blog again to find you still making the wrong arguments about what the democratic party needs to do, and who to blame for Trump, past and present. Instead of compelling everyone to “unite” with the neoliberal politics that have led to worldwide economic and imperial disaster, the party needs to become more progressive and people-oriented. Instead of blaming Bernie Sanders and the base of the democratic party (and anyone who is not a registered democrat), blame the party itself if it does not adjust its principles and core strategy.
You should be scolding the democratic party establishment, not everything and everyone but the democratic party establishment. You should be rallying the grassroots to change the party, not to accept it as it is handed down to them.
I’ll check back in a few months.
LikeLike
Ed, the great thing about a free society–unless Trump “does something about it”–is that we are entitled to our own opinions. We can argue and debate but we can’t force people to agree. The Republicans have united behind the most reactionary administration in my long lifetime, maybe in a century. They have neither souls, nor hearts, nor brains, like their Dear Leader. If the Democrats squabble and break into factions, the Republicans will be in power for many years. If you think that the Bernie faction can prevail by ousting the Clinton-Obama faction, we disagree. Winning parties are always coalitions. Ideologically pure parties lose. If Bernie wants to have a larger voice in the Democratic Party, he should join it.
I have been active in campaigns since 1956. That is what I have learned. Coalition-building is a winning strategy.
LikeLike
What you seem to miss is that the democratic party caused the divisiveness, itself, by becoming a corporate backed party that doesn’t care about anyone but the rich and themselves. This is not about “purity,” which is a lame excuse to avoid reflection and any bit of real change, it is about basic necessities and basic JUSTICE. There will be no coalition from progressives with a party that is little better than the Republicans — it is not even my choice, I am telling you what half of the country thinks and will continue to think. If the corporate democrats do not step aside, there will be no unity, and it will be the corporate democrats’ fault, not the progressive wing’s fault. Best to kick out the corporate wing of the party, or start a new party, than “unite” with failure and slightly lesser evil — a losing strategy and simply a way to continue the injustice that has divided the country. So, again, please shame and blame the right people (and it is never the voters, unless you don’t like having a democratic republic). Then, better solutions will follow.
LikeLike
Ed Detective: I’ll be GLAD to blame the voters–in fact, we live in a democracy. This means you cannot NOT blame the voters, even though it’s not the ONLY fault-line around.
LikeLike
Your reasoning would be good except that choosing from a few terrible candidates, and two terrible parties that back them, is not a real democracy. So, it is better to blame the system for being that way (not actually democratic) and the extremely limited choices that were offered by a rigged group/system.
LikeLike
Ed Dectective: I don’t know where your reasoning begins, but mine begins in the voter and goes to the concrete core of our activities and participation in a democracy, including our active understanding of the problems and issues, and all the way up and down the line. Democracies commonly don’t die overnight. They easily die a slow and incremental death, finally killed by absence–by voter apathy and ignorance, and here we are back again at education of the polity. No guarantee–just a better chance at it than ignorance. (not just me saying this, also straight-up Alexis deTocqueville).
LikeLike
People act a certain way largely due to the environment and conditions they find themselves in. Blaming individuals for acting in their own perceived self-interest misses most of the point, especially when their options were extremely limited in the first place. Let’s take this into concrete terms. Blame the democratic party for going to hell, not the people who think it’s gone to hell and vote accordingly. Otherwise, you’ll never solve the problem, which is not the voters who voted a certain way but why they voted that way.
LikeLike
Ed,
By your reasoning, we have never had a true democracy in this country, probably never will. Sad.
LikeLike
You’re right, we’ve never had a deep democracy. That’s the truth and I won’t deny it. Never will? Well, that’s up to what people decide and how we act.
LikeLike
…and, honestly, even if we had good choices, and more than a few choices, my point was that blaming the voters is blaming democracy itself. So you can blame people for making the “wrong” choice if you disagree with those people being able to make that choice. The alternative is to blame the reasons people voted that way, and work to change those conditions.
LikeLike
Ed Detective: The assumption in a vibrant democracy, with a solid first amendment, and a relatively educated electorate, is that the people will choose rightly more than not and the democracy and its freedoms will survive and continue to thrive. But then that’s why they call it an experiment. Guess what?
LikeLike
Ed, the corporate Democrats are not going away. Neither is Trump. He has four years to roll back the New Deal, the Great Society, public education, healthcare, environmental protection, civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights. You can wait for the perfect party to come along, but I can’t. I have to live in the here and now.
LikeLike
Nobody is waiting for a perfect party. If the corporate dems are not going away, and they maintain their power, Trump will win, and it will be their own fault more than anyone else. You can do something about challenging their power, or you can resign yourself to being governed by corporate schmucks, and expect the outraged nation to settle with that.
Won’t happen. Live here and now and challenge the establishment rather than expecting half the dem party, a large amount of independents, and virtually the entire “millennial” generation to conform to the vacuous neoliberal politics that brought us to this point.
LikeLike
Ed, if half the Dem party decides not to vote, we will have Trump forever under various names. If Bernie wants to strengthen his role in the Dem party, he could start by becoming a Democrat.
LikeLike
Or the democrats could do things that actually help people, or get primaried. And the democrats, and others, could stop caring about what someone’s formal party name is, and start worrying more about doing their jobs at representing their constituents and the nation.
LikeLike
Diane,
Rather than just cave in to traditional, corporate owned mainstream Democrats who ignore their progressive base, the Working Families Party, which just sent me the following email regarding the DNC vote, is taking a different approach:
“Over the weekend, the leaders of the Democratic Party missed a big opportunity.
Members of the Democratic National Committee had a chance to harness the energy of the millions of people resisting Trump — but instead, a razor-thin majority circled the wagons and denied progressive Congressman Keith Ellison the DNC chairmanship.
Isn’t it obvious that a lack of energy and enthusiasm contributed to Trump’s narrow electoral college win? What could be a higher priority than selecting the leader most capable of inspiring and mobilizing this newly activated base?
It’s a familiar story. The Democratic Party is torn between a progressive base of voters on the one hand, and corporate donors and consultants on the other.
But now, the stakes are higher than ever. A Democratic Party that coddles powerful donors and consultants will never lead the progressive, anti-corporate movement we need to defeat Trump and Trumpism.
That’s why we need the Working Families Party more than ever. Will you make a monthly contribution?
None of this is meant as a knock on new DNC chair Tom Perez, the first Latino elected to the position. He is a progressive and was an excellent Labor Secretary. But what the DNC chair’s race revealed is an unwillingness from many Democratic Party elites to allow anyone who isn’t in the club — especially anyone who backed Bernie Sanders — to control the levers of power in the party.
Since Bill Clinton and his allies in the Democratic Leadership Council seized the helm of the Democratic Party in the 90s, the party has steadily drifted to the right — seeking out corporate donors, embracing trickle-down economics and deregulation, locking people up (especially young African-Americans) in mind-boggling numbers, arguing about immigration reform while continuing to deport millions of immigrant workers, and embracing corporate “free trade” while abandoning working people and their unions.
They thought this would help them pick up both “centrist” voters and Wall Street donors. But what it really accomplished was a shift in the political center of gravity, which allowed the Republican Party to race even further to the right — from Gingrich to Bush to the Tea Party to Trump. This dangerous right-wing movement is now fully in control.
The leaders of the Democratic Party missed what’s obvious to so many of us: that the future of our nation requires trusting that working people — of all races, religions, backgrounds, and regions of our nation — actually know what they need, and want a party that will stand up for them.
That’s what the Working Families Party is: an independent progressive political organization with a track record of fighting against corporate Democrats and for progressive ones. With the wins (and the scars) to show for it.
This is not about abandoning the Democrats. But we are committed to building the independent political power that can force them to be better — a lot better. That’s how we’ll beat Trump and the right-wing Republicans. We’ll work with Democrats when we can, and push them when we must, including challenging them in primaries. Tough love, political-style.
At its core, the Working Families Party is about building power for working families, of all colors, all backgrounds, from all over America, who have been marginalized for too long. That work is part of what it will take to transform the Democratic Party: what they stand for, who they run, how they govern.
Chip in to the Working Families Party today and help build a party that stands with working families, not corporate donors — every time.
In solidarity,
Ana Maria Archila
National Co-Chair, Working Families Party
Bishop Dwayne Royster
National Co-Chair, Working Families Party
Karen Scharff
National Co-Chair, Working Families Party
Dan Cantor
National Director, Working Families Party”
https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/wfpnc_20160227_e_sust
LikeLike
Homeless Educator,
I got the same email from the Working Families Party. I’m still sore about how they stabbed Zephyr Teachout in the back in 2014. They encouraged her to run against Cuomo, then at the last minute threw their support to Cuomo. All he did was promise to help elect Democratic state senators so Democrats could gain control of the state senate. Not much to ask of a Democratic governor. But the day after he won their endorsement, he abandoned his promise because he didn’t want a Democratic state senate. Zephyr ran without WFP and without money and got 1/3 of the vote in the primary.
So I don’t look to WFP for political direction.
LikeLike
This is how they are, though. I’m old enough to remember when they deregulated the finance sector.
It was like lemmings off a cliff in the 1990’s. You couldn’t have stopped them.
They fall in love with this stuff. They fell head over heels for charters and now SO MANY of the are invested they will never, ever admit it.
LikeLike
Have any of you seen how ed reform defends vouchers? The claim is vouchers make public schools “better”.
They are incapable of crediting public schools with anything. Rather than congratulate public schools for out-performing private schools they insist that private schools ARE RESPONSIBLE for any and all improvements in public schools.
This is what I mean by an echo chamber. A “movement” that wasn’t blatantly biased against public schools would ask WHY public schools do better than voucher schools.
Ed reform doesn’t ask. Instead they announce their conclusion. That conclusion NEVER credits a public school, with anything.
They didn’t even look at what the public schools did in voucher states! They just summarily announced that public schools got better AS A RESULT of vouchers.
This isn’t science! I mean, my God, they should be ashamed to call it science.
LikeLike
Take a look at the US Department of Education “ed tech” site and see if you think ed reform is blatantly selling this product to public schools:
https://twitter.com/OfficeofEdTech?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
The fact is the one and only time public schools are mentioned in ed reform is when they’re selling public schools stuff.
Don’t buy. They’re giving you bad advice. They want to sell you product. Find someone who isn’t captured by this industry and hire them to advise you on ed tech purchases.
Hire a real advocate- someone who works for you. It will be worth every penny you spend, or actually DON’T spend and for God’s sake don’t re-tool your entire school based on advice from people who are pushing tech product.
LikeLike
This is what I don’t get with public schools:
“Under federal and state law, Ohio policy makers are responsible for gauging and reporting on the performance of its 3,000 public schools and 600 districts. To do this, Ohio has a report card system that assigns A-F grades based on a variety of performance indicators. While Ohio does not currently roll up these disparate component grades into a final “summative” rating, in 2017-18, the Buckeye State will join thirty-nine other states that do just that.”
Why is Fordham the think tank for Ohio public schools? They’re a charter lobbying group.
Why do public schools allow people to who don’t even want public schools to exist to set policy for public schools?
Can’t we get a public school person or organization to craft policy for public schools?
If there was an organization that spent a good part of their time lobbying against charter schools would charter schools turn to them for advice? Of course not. Why do public schools go along with this? The whole ed reform “movement” is hostile to our schools yet ed reform is RUNNING our schools.
Would Eva Moskowitz turn to Randy Weingarten for advice? No. Yet I’m stuck with policy set by Eva Moskowitz.
LikeLike
Ed reform are going bananas for vouchers.
People would do well to read the plans for their schools coming out of DC:
https://edexcellence.net/articles/the-fordham-institutes-2017-wonkathon-the-20-billion-school-choice-edition
Public schools are entirely excluded from this debate. Not invited. Trump DeVos and the ed reform “movement” are all set to “radically transform” public education and they are doing without a single public school district or advocate at the table.
90% of kids and parents are simply omitted.
LikeLike
Chiara,
Mike Petrilli was #NeverTrump. How times change!
LikeLike
Diane, you say “Public education is not failing. Our society is failing. Our society is failing to fairly fund its public schools. Our society is failing to address the root cause of school failure, which is poverty and racial segregation. And because our society is failing, it’s very easy and cheap to blame it on the schools.”
If 90% of public schools are not failing, perhaps it is NOT the society that is failing.
LikeLike
“The New Normal”
To normalize extreme
And privatize the school
Obama-Booker dream
And dream of right wing tool
LikeLike
The Huff Post (Ryan Grim) sent me an e-mail concerning the turn-around of Booker (& Casey), 2 of the 13 Dems who voted against a Sanders-Klobuchar resolution to craft a bill for drug imports, & killed it. (Had these Dems voted yea–Cruz & Grassley both voted yes–this would have easily passed.) But…no–then we see Booker’s name on the Top 10 list of senators receiving the highest amount of contribution from BigPharma (some $250-300K). This list includes DINO Joe Manchin, WVA (big surprise! His daughter, Heather, is the CEO of Mylar, company that hugely inflated prices of the EpiPen), he who has voted yes on confirming most of the swamp people. That being said, Booker was to have held a joint press conference today w/Sanders to confirm his touching change of heart (seems to have been a result of haven’t a Town Hall–?) I haven’t been able to see it, but perhaps some of you readers have. (I doubt it’s fake news, though.)
Seems in line w/what Booker, undoubtedly looking at 2020, would do. Not a fan, & not fooled…especially not after Newark. Pray tell, just where did all that Zuckerberg money go?
LikeLike