Peter Dreier describes the full assault on Steve Zimmer by the plutocrats. They want control of the Los Angeles school district, and he is in their way. What is their goal? Privatization and profit.
Some of America’s most powerful corporate plutocrats want to take over the Los Angeles school system and Steve Zimmer, a former teacher and feisty school board member, is in their way. So they’ve hired Nick Melvoin to get rid of him. No, he’s not a hired assassin like the kind on The Sopranos. He’s a lawyer who the billionaires picked to defeat Zimmer.
As a result, the race for the District 4 seat — which stretches from the Westside to the West San Fernando Valley — is ground zero in this battle over the corporate take-over of public education. The outcome of next Tuesday’s (March 7) election has national implications in terms of the billionaires’ battle to reconstruct public education in the corporate mold.
The corporate big-wigs are part of an effort that they and the media misleadingly call “school reform.” What they’re really after is not “reform” (improving our schools for the sake of students) but “privatization” (business control of public education). They think public schools should be run like corporations, with teachers as compliant workers, students as products, and the school budget as a source of profitable contracts and subsidies for textbook companies, consultants, and others engaged in the big business of education.
Read more to learn their names. They will be familiar to you.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“PLUTOCRATIC IMMUNITY!!!”
Comprehensive report by Dreier. I made a mistake about Riordan and thought he was a DEFR like Broad…not…he is a Repub.
The ability of Board members to actually decide the direction of the district seems to be very limited. Many teachers don’t see much difference between Zimmer and Melvoin. The question is not which one will be able to steer the district away from bankruptcy but which will harm teachers and student the least.
Michael, WHAT?! No difference between Zimmer and Melvoin? The distinction is sharp as can be: do you favor Broad’s GPS:LA plan to flip the switch on half its schools from regular public district to “public charter”?
If you favor Broad’s plan, you vote for Melvoin. If you do not, you vote for Zimmer.
It’s that simple, that plain.
Hope your family will go out and vote for Zimmer!
On Fri, Mar 3, 2017 at 1:02 PM, Diane Ravitch’s blog wrote:
> dianeravitch posted: “Peter Dreier describes the full assault on Steve > Zimmer by the plutocrats. They want control of the Los Angeles school > district, and he is in their way. What is their goal? Privatization and > profit. Some of America’s most powerful corporate plutocrat” >
All that voters need to know to vote for Zimmer is that billionaires like Broad are funding Melvoin’s campaign. (It’s so terribly, painfully ironic that Melvoin’s TV ads blame Zimmer for the iPad scandal that billionaires like Broad influenced Zimmer to support.)