Billionaire Dan Loeb first insulted State Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins–who is African-American– by saying she had done more to damage the lives of children of color than anyone wearing a hood, then issued a mealy-mouthed semi-retraction in the face of the outrage he encountered. He was just too passionate about school choice, he said, and didn’t watch his language.
“After midnight on Friday, Loeb apologized for his comment, saying, “I regret the language I used in expressing my passion for educational choice.” Loeb also deleted the Facebook post.”
He is chairman of the board of Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy Network of charter schools. In addition to the millions he has personally donated, he has raised millions more from his Wall Street friends.
Will his racist comment spoil Eva’s big moment? Her memoir will be published this year, in which she projects herself as the new face of the privatization movement, once held by Michelle Rhee.
Loeb’s closeness to the Trump administration is not a plus in NYC. Eva too has boldly defended Trump, to the dismay of her teachers and other charter leaders. She was interviewed by Trump for Secretary of Education and welcomed Ivanka Trump and Paul Ryan to tour one of her schools. It matters not at all to her that Trump wants to slash funding on public schools. He wants to increase funding for charters and vouchers, and some of that money may come her way.
“Moskowitz recently angered some of her teachers when she refused to publicly state her support for undocumented and transgender students and staff in her schools, and finally relented to saying she would protect vulnerable students after a tense back-and-forth with staff members. In the weeks following Trump’s election, Moskowitz repeatedly refused to answer questions from reporters about whether she would commit to supporting undocumented students in her schools under Trump’s immigration policies.”
Say this for Eva: she stays focused on what matters most to her: money and power. Don’t expect her to distance herself from Loeb’s racist comments.
There is a subtext or narrative behind this story. You can flesh it out. It is about very rich and very powerful white people civilizing and “uplifting” little black children, while despising the black people who disagree with them. There is a word for it. I think it is called colonialism.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Good word: Colonialism. Precisely correct for NY in this case and also dor the work of Bridge International Academies and many of the projects of New Profit.
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Also indicative of the plantation mentality
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I think that is the better term by far!
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OMG Loeb “regrets” getting caught saying what he believes with all his heart.
Just like the Success Academy principal “regrets” getting caught with the “got to go” list that he wan’t supposed to put in writing because the principal who trained him in how to get rid of the kids who “got to go” never put hers in writing. She just refused to send home renewal forms with them and told their parents they were not welcome and treated them in the manner in which unwelcome children in charters are treated. With contempt.
Just like the “model” Success Academy teacher who trained all teachers “regrets” getting caught on video demonstrating the “model” methods that she was taught are correct by Success Academy.
Just like the Success Academy principal and administrators at the “model” teacher’s school “regret” telling the assistant teacher in the room who told them about the “model” teacher’s practices that the model teacher was doing exactly what she was supposed to be doing and the assistant teacher should get with the program or leave.
Just like Eva Moskowitz “regrets” endorsing Daniel Loeb’s favorite choice for Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos and “regrets” her racist comments that lots of 5 and 6 year old children who happen to win the lottery in Success Academy schools with almost no white children are just so violent she needs to suspend them.
Never mind, I forgot that Moskowitz regrets nothing. Why should she? Eli Broad will give her hundreds of thousands of dollars for her great work!
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Nicely done.
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Wrong! The billionaires will shower her with millions for her utterly non-replica le model.
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Loeb owns Third Point which was Raimondo’s Point Judith Capital firm and in the RI state pension! It was a losing investment until the newbie raimondo puppet treasurer, yalie II clone magaziner, finally decided to pull it out of the state pension, knowing next year he has an election!
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R.I. Gov. Gina Raimondo’s husband roomed in college with school privatizing and hedge fund loving, Corey Booker.
You can read about the self-anointed, education Chief for Change in Louisiana, at Mercedes Schneider’s blog. Not surprisingly, across the nation, the plutocrat-owned newspapers back Chiefs for Change, IMO, a synonym for colonialists.
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Daniel Loeb: #gottogo
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RACE-BAITING HISTORY: It was revealed Loeb donated $1 million to Families for Excellent Schools just as they launched a campaign attacking NYC Mayor de Blasio as a racist for opposing charter schools: http://www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/nyc-charter-school-ad-criticized-as-racist/
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That seems to be a Loeb tactic: race-baiting.
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And more — There are 2 Success Academy not for profits: Success Academy NYC, which is an umbrella group for the SA schools themselves. Loeb is not the chair of the board of SA NYC. The other is Success Academy Charters Schools (SACS), which while it sounds like a school is in fact a not for profit management organization that “supports” the SA schools. Loeb is the Chair of the Board of this organization, and Eva is its CEO. SACS, the management organization, creates and provides the scripts, curriculum, training, etc. for the teachers. But here’s the catch: SACS, the management org, charges each of the SA schools over $2,000 per child for this service — and the management org is running at a huge profit — over $17 million in 2014! So why is the not for profit continuing to make extraordinary profit off the backs of the schools it claims to support? Making matters even more complex, a number of SA schools are operating at a loss — in large part due to Loeb’s and Eva’s heavy management fees! (Here’s the 990 from the management corp: http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2015/205/298/2015-205298861-0ccb5e71-9.pdf
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I am so glad you posted this as that management fee is so slimy!
Creating scripts and training is relatively cheap. The cost of running a REAL school system the way every single school system even half of the size of Success Academy must do covers expenses that Success Academy’s lax oversight allows them not to have to cover. It’s the overhead that REAL public schools pay to make sure the rights and needs of EVERY child are addressed.
They are so awash with money while their “esteemed” leader has the chutzpah to testify to Congress that small class size are unnecessary and she has proved it and every school that buys her book would know if they just followed her directions.
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Lisa, great comment – can you point out which line indicates their exact profits for that year?
Also, I was looking at the section on lobbying and got confused – it says $377K in direct lobbying, $250K in grassroots lobbying, but then $40 MILLION in “other exempt purpose expenditures”.
Does anyone know what that means? It’s a lot of moolah….
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Line 19 shows revenue less expenses (over $17 million). Also check out line 22, which shows that in 2014 the mgmt org had over $49 million in net assets! So why still charge the SA schools, which it is there to support, exorbitant fees? And again, many of these Success Academy schools are operating at a loss — and that’s based on their own self reported numbers.
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They might be operating at a loss, but look at what management gets paid compared to administration in traditional public schools.
This is a page out of #FakePresident Trump’s handbook. Pay yourself a high salary while the company you manage is going bankrupt. In the end, someone suffers and it seldom the CEO and upper management.
Eva also gets contributions from the hedge funders and/or billionaires to cushion her during the destruction cycle of traditional public education. Corporations flush with cash are known to do this too. Operate at a loss to drive out the competition. Toyota does it, WalMart does it, and so does Amazon.
If these ruthless, predatory capitalists operate as usual, once the traditional public schools are gone and there is no choice left, they will start demanding more money from the taxpayers and get it because they already own many elected officials that will vote for anything they want.
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Here’s more on the management fees, from the 2015 financial docs of Success Academy NYC (the schools org that has to pay the mgmt org):
Affiliate Transactions
(a) Due to Affiliate
Success Academy Charter Schools, Inc. (the “Network”), a not-for-profit organization dedicated to helping start and manage charter schools, provides management, fundraising, and other administrative support services to SACS-NYC. Pursuant to the terms of the Academic and Business Service Agreement with an effective date of April 21, 2012, SACS-NYC pays the Network an annual fee of equal to the total general full-time equivalent enrollment of students in SACS–NYC multiplied by “the per pupil fee”. The per pupil fee shall be equal to 15% of the final and adjusted expense per pupil for Charter Schools in the New York City School district as calculated by the New York State Education Department annually. For operational efficiency and purchasing power, SACS–NYC also shares common expenses with the Network.
For the year ended June 30, 2015, SACS-NYC incurred $18,323,033 in management fees. The balance due to Network at June 30, 2015 was $7,805,703. This balance represents expenses paid by the Network on behalf of SACS-NYC, as well as management fees.
Click to access Success-NYC-2014-15-AFR.pdf
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And if you look at pp18-19 of SA-NYC’s financials, you’ll see that over half ran at a loss in 2015 — and most if not all would have not been in the red — except for the 15% mgmt fee charged by Loeb’s not for profit! Disgusting. http://www.newyorkcharters.org/wp-content/uploads/Success-NYC-2014-15-AFR.pdf
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“white/caucasian/Arian dominated colonialism”
I find it interesting that when the Chinese had their chance to dominate the world, and they did have that chance, they decided not to do it and sailed home instead. Why?
One book explores how powerful China was for almost 2,000 years. It is a fact, that China was the wealthiest and most technologically advanced nation on the planet up until about the 15th or 16th century right about the time the Han Chinese leaders were replaced by the Manchu minority during the Qing Dynasty.
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Moreover, when the English could not open the Chinese market, they resorted to providing Opium to the Chinese, who became addicted to opium even as the English were addicted to money. There followed the 1839 Opium war and the forced opening of Chinese markets. China may not have been perfect in their dynastic history, but European meddling in Chona was no improvement.
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Yes, colonialism was at work in China too, but China managed to avoid India, Africa, The Middle EAst, and North and South America’s fate. There were European powers that wanted to carve up China but there were also those in Europe that didn’t want that to happen to China.
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PBS recently aired the six-part series Story of China. According the series, the earliest dynasties governed themselves by moral code, not law. That may help explain the why you ask. http://www.pbs.org/story-china/home/
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“I regret the language I used” Translation: I meant what I said, I just should have said it less blatantly. It’s roughly equivalent to “I’m sorry if you were offended”.
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Yes, I’m sure another form of words would have expressed his point better.
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☞ White Man’s Burden
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So, I gather that Eva Moscowitz WANTS to be the next Michelle Rhee. That is hilarious! Talk about aiming low! Rheely low. Lower than dirt. OK, let’s see how she’s doing so far toward her goal. Which is the more abominable:
Young, African American voices silenced with mouth bubbles or with scotch tape?
Suspending African American kindergarteners or firing an African American principal on national television?
Being diagnosably sociopathic or being diagnosably sociopathic?
Lying about raising test scores on a job application for superintendent of a school district or — wow, how do you match that one?
Praising The Donald Trump or praising Jeb! Bush?
Encouraging cheating on tests and then engaging in a coverup or pushing out kids who don’t score well on tests and then engaging in a coverup?
Eating insects in front of 2nd graders for shock value or taking 2nd graders out of school to participate in corporate marketing campaigns?
Taking vast sums of money from billionaire closet racists or taking vast sums of money from billionaire closet racists?
You know what — she’s already there.
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