Blame it on the Trump Effect.
Shavar Jeffries, executive director of the hedge fund managers’ Democrats for Education Reform, resigned from the board of Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy charters.
Eva has been an outspoken supporter of Trump, DeVos and their pro-charter, pro-voucher agenda.
Jeffries quit.
He has not resigned, however, from DFER, which supports the charter part of he Trump agenda.
“Moskowitz, who has reprimanded reporters for what she called “a kind of rooting against” Trump, is on the other side of the spectrum.
“She has publicly welcomed Ivanka Trump and House Majority Leader Paul Ryan into her schools, and taken heat from her own staff for her slow response to a call to protect undocumented and transgender students in her schools. She has defended her ties to the White House and Republican leaders as an attempt to reach bipartisan consensus on education reform.
“Moskowitz’s praise for DeVos has been echoed by the leaders of the Center for Education Reform and National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.”
Th Center for Education Reform is led by Jeanne Allen, formerly of the far-right Heritage Foundation. The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools is led by Nina Rees, formerly chief education advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney. Why would anyone be surprised that these Republican-led, pro-privatization organizations support Trump?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
And then there’s this one.
https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/co/2017/08/14/feds-to-colorado-you-must-count-students-who-opt-out-of-standardized-tests/
The FEDS are out of control … KA-Ching! It’s about profits and power to diss those who refuse being used for profit and labeled by ridiculous high stakes testing.
I blame both the DNC and GOP for the DEFORMS. It’s gotten even more ridiculous.
And where are our professional orgs.? Are they sleeping with the enemies of public schools, teachers, and students? I think: YES!
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You captured the crux of the plot. It’s the work of oligarchs like Gates.
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I would be interested to see what Success spends. Not the public money- not what they receive from city state and federal but what they spend, so public + private.
Doesn’t it seem like that would be important to know when making comparisons? If they have X in public funding plus Y in private funding the total would be good to know, because Moskowitz COMPARES and that should be part of a comparison.
Can you find that out from what they file or do they just account for public funding?
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Jeffries should provide the info. He promotes charters so he should answer what happens when the colonialists stop propping up privatized ed.
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Chiara,
That’s an excellent question. If you ask SA, they will say “it’s all in our tax returns”.
And then they will claim they spend “less” than public schools. But in fact, they don’t compare on what is spent on public schools for the education of students without many special needs — the school-base budgets. Instead, they piggyback on the overhead of rent and maintenance and all kinds of programs their school system — which is bigger than most cities — are free riders on.
Can you imagine a city the size of Success Academy which got to rid itself of any child who couldn’t pass a state test or who was too “difficult” the first week of Kindergarten? Can you imagine a medium size city telling parents sorry, we don’t have the kind of program you need so find somewhere else? Can you imagine a city saying “we aren’t paying for buildings or crossing guards or security or transportation or any programs for kids with serious disabilities?
Can you imagine a city that gets to say “your child is too violent so figure it out because he can’t come to school” anytime they want with absolutely no oversight?
Imagine the chill parents would feel if they were told “one word and we will treat your child just like our very favorite model teacher has showed you?”
There is a dishonesty about Eva Moskowitz that reeks of Trumpism. She will say anything to close a deal and convince herself that she is doing it all for the greater good. And if some kids suffer — it’s all their own fault as they were less than nothing and were unworthy. Even if they are 5 years old.
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Great job casting these “rockstar” charters in a fresh light!
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The DFERS were/are wrong. They USED US.
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Action: Never ever participate in writing standards and test items.
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A rat jumping ship!
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Jeffries isn’t cutting the colonialists off cold turkey. Maybe he’s just freeing up time for a board gig with a right wing owned-corporation following in the footsteps of Michel Rhee.
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Yes – even if he left because he got disgusted with the policies, he knew to do what every other charter leader does and refrain from criticizing the most favored charter chain of the billionaires who will throw some money their way.
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He is not giving up his DFER job, which probably gets money from Dan Loeb, who called a black legislator worse than KKK
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IMO, Dan Loeb is garden variety Wall Street sleaze, magnified. His modus operandi is denigrating those who prevent him from taking a buck out of someone else’s pocket.
But, there’s a particular place in hell for those who exploit for monetary gain their demographic similarity to a population deserving of redress, with the result that the segment is victimized instead of receiving redress. Political corruption, an intended consequence of the duplicitous representation, stabs in the back, community members who are most in need of an honest government.
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Dan Loeb was a client of one of my husband’s previous employers. He said that Loeb is a well-known jerk. His specialty is “activist investor,” meaning he invests in weak companies and then harasses their management.
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The propaganda that the companies are “weak” is PR fraud by Wall Street.
More than a decade ago, the company, Simplicity, had $100,000,000 cash which made it a target for Wall Street slime. The slime then, bankrupted the company, loading it with $100,000,000 in debt, pocketing the combined $200,000,000.
The latest hedge fund activist action at Bob Evans provides another illustration, and, the country of Puerto Rico, a third. The failure of K-Mart was also an illustration of sucking the finances out of a firm for the benefit of money managers.
The difference between Madoff and hedge fund managers is Madoff’s wrong doing was criminalized by statute. The devastation caused by hedge funds and private equity is far greater but, it hasn’t been criminalized because the U.S. Congress is owned by the richest 0.1%. Iceland sent men responsible for the financial crisis to jail after 2008. The U.S. didn’t.
Matt Taibbi wrote about the jerks in hedge funds in Rolling Stone in a description of their pension plunder.
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Linda,
Add Sears to your list of companies sucked dry by financiers.
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The 74 quoted Jeffries in 2016, “We’d be happy to partner with the NAACP to sanction or shut down low-performing charters.” DFER isn’t prevented from acting on its own. Why isn’t DFER paying the legal tab for Ohio’s claw back of $60,000,000 from the state’s largest contractor school, which allegedly had a 70% truancy rate? If students aren’t attending the contractor schools, where are the students getting the educations that they need to prosper and contribute to GDP? Hilarious but consistent with actions- the idea that the DFER hedge fund managers would know or care anything about contributing to GDP or labor’s salaries since the financial sector drags down GDP by an estimated 2%. BTW, how many managers in the hedge fund sector are Black or Brown?
Funny thing- the Walton’s and Gates pulled up stakes in Ohio earlier this year. Guess that, before they left, they had no interest in delousing the corrupt legislature that their plotting created nor, any interest in “sanctioning or shutting down low-performing charters”.
Keep up the hollow statements, Mr. Jeffries of DFER.
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Good point.
There is no big effort to close down the most obviously corrupt for-profit charters by DFER.
They spend a lot of money lobbying for more charters, period. And no time at all speaking out on good oversight, good governance, or why no one questions a charter leader who claims 20% of the 5 year olds who win the lottery do such violent things that she has no choice but to suspend them. Because speaking out would stop the money flowing.
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Love By Lottery may not actually be love…
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When it comes to so-called education reform, and especially the vile Eva Moskowitz and Success Academies, “”What’s Love Got To Do With It?”
Apologies to the great Tina Turner for associating her even remotely with these rancid facsimiles of human beings.
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