Campbell Brown made her reputation calling public school teachers “perverts” and attacking teachers’ unions for “protecting” any member accused of a crime (even if the accusation was false). She then went on to attack teachers’ rights to due process in the courts of two states. She is a close friend of Betsy DeVos, who funds Campbell Brown’s “The 74.” Brown is contemptuous of public schools and advocates for privatization via charters and vouchers. Like DeVos, she never attended a public school and never sent her children to one.
After collecting $12 million from the Billionaire Boys Club to start the pro-privatization website “The 74,” Brown was hired by Facebook to manage its partnerships with other news organizations.
Now get this. CUNY Graduate Center is creating a “News Integrity Initiative” to protect the integrity of journalism. Brown is the Facebook representative.
The Initiative could begin with The 74, which was created to slime a democratic institution–the nation’s public schools–which enroll nearly 90% of the children in this country and which is a foundational part of our democratic society, welcoming all children, including those with profound disabilities and children who don’t speak English.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This should have been announced on April Fool’s Day.
The elevation of Campbell Brown to a well-heeled wing of the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism does nothing to support integrity in journalism.
Deep pocket funding comes from Facebook, Craig Newmark Philanthropic Fund, Ford Foundation, Democracy Fund, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Tow Foundation, AppNexus, Mozilla and Betaworks.
Of course this is a “global” effort. The CUNY Graduate School of Journalism took the bait. I am disinclined to trust any research or pronouncements from this source.
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The “public school teachers are perverts” theme in ed reform always baffled me because there have been such high profile cases of private schools with child abuse problems. One of the highest profile cases was a VERY ritzy private school. According to ed reform dogma those parents should have “voted with their feet”, right?
There are so many more public school teachers than private school teachers that it stands to reason that if it’s .00001 % of teachers there would be MORE public school teachers but that isn’t a function of “public schools”- it’s just numbers.
I question why people who strut around crowing about “data” so often seem innumerate in some basic, “number sense” way.
ANY school problem will be bigger in public schools because public schools are big! There are a lot of them! Campbell Brown, Data Professional, just breezed by this basic number issue without a second thought. It matters!
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“Trump at CEO townhall on #CommonCore: I like the fact we’re getting rid of Common Core. We have to end it. We have to bring education local.”
Except for his massive federal voucher program that his ed secretary promotes at every opportunity – in fact, she talks of NOTHING ELSE. Education should be local except for that. 20 billion dollars is HUGE. Spending on K-12 private schools is only 6 billion. They’re planning on pushing 20 billion dollars into the “sector”.
One of the DeVos hires spoke to the national PTA. He spent the whole time pushing private schools. Those people are probably still wondering why this guy bothered to stop by since he obviously has absolutely no interest in public schools.
I wish they’d leave us out of their plans. They offer absolutely nothing of value to public school students. In many cases in Ohio they ACTIVELY HARM kids in public schools.
Just go push the “choice” agenda and leave public school kids out of the “movement”. It has nothing to do with them anyway. They’re an afterthought.
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Thanks for exposing another sad example of this administration’s unprofessional, sad governing.
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Here’s an old style SAT question:
Campbell Brown is to journalistic integrity as a naked mole rat is to ?????
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a cuddly, furry puppy
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Ding ding ding ding! We have a winner!
The answer I was looking for was “hair” or “fur”, but you were certainly very close indeed.
You must be a biologist.
And if it had been an actual SAT question there would have been choices, at any rate.
Anyway, as a prize, you get a free year’s subscription to this blog.
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Campbell Brown wouldn’t know about integrity if it came up and bit her in the butt.
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You are going to be an investigative news source, a serious news organization. Or you are going to be entertainment. CNN created Trump as they also created the Iraq war. The format is no longer news. And it does the American people a tremendous disservice.
The endless panels of talking asses, has succeed in electing a jack ass while pursuing ratings . So Campbell Brown would be the fitting person to be involved in a journalism school if salacious BS is what you want to see from journalism.
I miss Al Jezeera the BBC format if followed was actual reporting.
Going to be honest. I only skimmed through this Times article . Maybe someday after the impeachment I will be able to read it. Pretty much explains our news entertainment industry.
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Campbell browni is a high school drop out,,,,did anyone ever realize this? She dropped out of high school and is a complete loser. This lanky loser married some corrupt politician with some money and now she has to validate her life and this is what we now have…..campbell brown – with a last name like brown any person can research her back ground and notice that she is a neophyte moron from the hood.
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Pairing “integrity” with “Facebook” is an oxymoron.
Brown, however, is just a moron.
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Good one.
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I was going to comment that Laura and Michael are worth a million dilettantes like Campbell Brown and DeVos but, that would imply the dilettantes have negligible worth, when, in fact, their contribution is substantially in the negative region.
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What is it with public universities sponsoring programs that are anti-public schools?
UCLA is housing Smarter Balanced testing consortium that forces public school children in CA to take their tests and use their products/software at great cost.
Now CUNY Grad School is sponsoring Brown to ruin our public schools using Facebook?
Their is no integrity in that. Period.
What? Zuckerberg doesn’t have enough money or power? He has to sponsor Brown?
I agree with Michael’s comments.
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Joan,
Thank you for bringing up this serious subject. UCLA is no longer a world class university. It is no longer even a university. It is now an app development center. Professors do not research and students do not study. They all try to make the next big apps, as was reported by the LA Times a few months ago. The former school has taken a heap of cash from Bill and Melinda to develop apps instead of researching independently, apps that support Common Core, apps that support Microsoft. LAUSD has capitulated and accepted UCLA Common Core venture capitalists as overlords. They’re in my classroom already because I am broken and need to be fixed with Common Core pseudoscience. I used to root for their athletic programs — no longer –UCLA is on the take.
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Gates-funded Pahara, boasted about its first Fellow, in a college dean position. She’s at the University of Southern California. The Massachusetts Dept. of Higher Ed. (public universities) has a Pahara fellow as a Board member.
And, two economists from the University of California, were among four neoliberal professors, who signed a letter, against Bernie, during the election. One of the two, Laura Tyson, had a huge number of corporate affiliations on her c.v., ironically, including chair of AT&T’s “Corporate Reputation” committee. Obviously she cared more about AT&T’s reputation than the university’s, because the letter only listed her university affiliation.
UnKochMyCampus.org is a site that is valuable to democracy.
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LCT, UCLA has “sold its soul to the company store.”
Concentrating on making apps, doing the bidding of the tech companies, the Gates Foundation, Broad, and other billionaires who know nothing about education or public schooling.
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