You may be familiar with an education news site called The 74. It was founded by Campbell Brown, the strident critic of unions and public schools and teachers. It now owns a website in Los Angeles called LA School Report and another called Top Sheet.
Ever wonder where the money comes from? Billionaires, of course, including billionaires who are hostile to unions and public schools. One regular contributor to The 74 is Peter Cunningham, who was Assistant Secretary for Communications (public relations) for Arne Duncan. Cunningham is editor of a website called Education Post, which is funded by some of the same billionaires, including Eli Broad, the Walton Family, Bill & Melinda Gates, the Emerson Collective (Laurene Powell Jobs), the Joyce Foundation, and Michael Bloomberg. In a recent post at The 74, he aligned his own views with those of Betsy DeVos, one of the funders of The 74. On the issue of privatization, school choice, charters, and vouchers, there is no longer any distance between the education policies of the Obama administration and those of the Trump administration. What a strange world. Sad.
Despite the many millions poured into these websites, I venture to guess that they have fewer readers than the blogs written by teachers like Anthony Cody, Julian Vasquez Heilig, Jose Vilson, Steve Singer, Mercedes Schneider, Gary Rubinstein, Arthur Goldstein, Paul Thomas, Leonie Haimson, Peter Greene, the BadAss Teachers, and yours truly. None of our blogs are underwritten by billionaires or millionaires. We write because we believe that the destruction of public schools is wrong.
In case you ever wondered who supports The 74 and its related entities, here is a screen shot:
Diane Ravitch's blog 
May the DEFORMERS rot. They need a “real” job.
Back during the day when Campbell could and did hide who the donors were, somebody made this video — and the contradiction about transparency when it comes to teachers salaries, teachers’ students scores, teachers’ employment records …
The Parents Transparency Protect …
… only when it comes to her donors … ehhh … not so much “transparency.”
Watch this cartoon:
Also, here’s a commentary about the show where Stephen Colbert wiped the floor with her (back during his old Comedy Central show, not his CBS talk show … it includes a short clip):
This perhaps is the full Colbert segment you were referring to?
http://www.cc.com/video-clips/2mpwlv/the-colbert-report-campbell-brown
Yeah, that’s it.
Jersey Jazzman wrote a piece about that show:
http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2014/08/campbell-brown-lame.html
JERSEY JAZZMAN: “Let’s start with her detractors: apparently, some folks showed up to protest outside the show, which Campbell says they have the right to do. Except she also says what they’re really doing is silencing debate, which I guess is what happens when someone opposes Campbell’s point of view. So yes, let’s have a debate, except let’s not…
“Ooo, is that scary! I mean, look at these thugs, what with their magic-markered poster boards and their peaceful milling around on the sidewalk! No wonder Campbell won’t say who is financing her operation — clearly, these parents who are “trying to silence debate” are “going to go after people who are funding this”! And by “go after,” I guess Brown means “hold up hand-made signs”!”
I see one can, at no cost, download a .pdf of Whitmire’s book: “The Founders”
http://thefounders.the74million.org/
Stephen,
You are kidding, I hope.
Whitmire wrote a glowing bio of Rhee. Then she disappeared.
Then he wrote a glowing book about Rocketship. Then it’s star faded along with its test scores. Turns out most people don’t want their children trained on computers.
Now a hagiography of the charter movement. Maybe this is the kiss of death for charters. Did DeVos write the foreword or was it. Harley’s Koch?
“Did DeVos write the foreword or was it. Harley’s Koch?”
Arne Duncan wrote it.
Skip it. You’ve heard it before, including “The seventh year in a row in
which 100 percent of Urban Prep seniors were admitted to a four-year
college or university”.
I’m optimistic there’ll be some new and usefully informative material in the body of the book, which I haven’t read yet.
Hold your nose if necessary and skim like a historian.
Who wrote the introduction for Arne?
That 100% figure for Urban Prep has been debunked many times. Urban Prep has lower test scores than the average for Chicago public schools. And high attrition too.
Diane: “Who wrote the introduction for Arne?”
You think in the bit about Urban Prep he was cribbing from Randi talking about the UFT charter school?
Nah, I don’t think so, though he does of course deferentially allude to “Al Shanker, the legendary labor leader of the American Federation of Teachers.”
This from Duncan’s foreward had me thinking about Jerry’s hopes for you and Eva:
“Charter school leaders will no longer just be outsiders knocking at the door of the traditional schools. My hope is that they will become less like combatants in the battles over education and more like co-conspirators for change with traditional public schools.”
Can’t say I share Jerry’s hopes for the particular tête-à-tête he seeks, but do like to imagine your hanging out at some Boston charter schools at some point…
Al Shanker denounced charter schools in 1993 and said they were no different from vouchers. He said they were turning into means for union-busting. He was right.
No one told Arne.
I was a close personal friend of Shanker.
Diane: “Al Shanker denounced charter schools in 1993”
The AFT currently has a rather more nuanced view, and I doubt that Shanker would find much of anything to disagree with here:
http://www.aftacts.org/about-us/aft-and-charter-schools
In The Death and Life of the Great American School Stpystem, I quoted Shanker’s rejection of charter schools word for word. He said they had become a means of privatizing public schools; that they were no different from vouchers; and that they would be used for union-busting. No qualification there, and nothing in common with the AFT statement you cited.
More than 90% of charters are non-union. Charter supporters like Jeb Bush and Reed Hastings have said without nuance that the destruction of public schools is their goal.
The AFT and NEA have organized unions at a few hundred charters. Working conditions are awful.
But that doesn’t change the fact that Shanker opposed charters and the fact that more than 90% of charters are non-union.
“There is no longer any distance between the education policies of the Obama administration and those of the Trump administration.”
Gee Diane that is even a bit further than this loather of Obama ,Hillary and Bill would go .
But I see your point. Thomas Frank only credits Bills 5 major accomplishments as being what Reagan Republicans only dreamed of before Clinton . Michelle Alexander credits Bill with
You are right, Joel. That’s an overstatement. I modified the sentence to make clear that I was referring to school Choice and privatization.
Actually that posted before I completed it, without me even knowing Not that I could have done anything about that . Bill ,Hill and Barrack were never the “Vulgarians ” that Trump or his Republican allies in the US senate are. But the end result on policy has been much the same. Democrats may not disenfranchise black and minority voters but they didn’t empower them with economic power ,when they had the opportunity to do it . A very long list of failed policy whose effect was destructive .
YES. I might edit that last statement to say “A long list of failed policy whose destructive effect VERY IRRESPONSIBLY set up our particularly dangerous political moment.”
The billionaires on the above graphic, Bill Gates and Eli Broad are not Democrats. Bloomberg is not an independent. They are Republicans in disguise.
Actually they could be Democrats . The problem with that is the problem with the party. Not the problem of the billionaires . I doubt you would find any billionaires aligning themselves with the Socialist Workers Party of America.
Cross posted at :
https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Who-Funds-The-74-by-Diane-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Diane-Ravitch_Funding_Money_PUBLIC-EDUCATION-NETWORK-170825-482.html#comment670990
with this comment
Want to know more about the PLOT TO END PUBLIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA?
READ: The Demolition of American Education | by Diane Ravitch | NYR Daily | The New York Review of Books http://www.nybooks.com/
http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2017/06/05/trump-devos-demolition-of-american-education/
/2017/06/05/trump-devos-demolition-of-american-education/
Did you notice the name of Betsy Devos on the chart of who owns 74? She is our President’s choice to wreck public education and she will: DeVos Puts CEO of Student Loan Company in Charge of Policing Student Loans https://dianeravitch.net/2017/06/22/devos-puts-ceo-of-student-loan-company-in-charge-of-policing-student-loans/
Can anyone spell “conflict of interest”? Has anyone at the Department of Education ever heard the term?
Betsy Devos just selected the CEO of a corporation collecting student loans to police the collection of student loans. https://www.buzzfeed.com/mollyhensleyclancy/betsy-devos-picked-a-student-loan-ceo-to-manage-your?utm_term=.isqyvn3Gx#.isqyvn3Gx
The 74 posts on Facebook, but I have been banned from commenting since I presented a counter-narrative to their propaganda. I ignore it on my feed now, but I sometimes read others’ comments. The majority of the comments now are negative as I think the public is catching on to the billionaire cabal against public education.
I’ve left a few negative comments under some FB posts of “The 74” (my last concerned their glowing post about “Personalized Ed.”) Amazingly mine all disappear by the next morning! I don’t think I’ve been banned (yet) but I’m sure it’s coming…
“There is no longer any distance between the education policies of the Obama administration and those of the Trump administration.”
Gee Diane that is even a bit further than this loather of Obama ,Hillary and Bill would go .
But I see your point. Thomas Frank only credits Bill’s 5 major accomplishments as being what Reagan Republicans only dreamed of before Clinton .Among those accomplishments was lowering the Black unemployment rate by throwing a million men and boys in prison as Michelle Alexander pointed out . I think Frank missed a few like deregulation at the FCC that enabled Fox and now Sinclear news to grow immensely. Lets not forget that even Ronald Reagan (a man I personally see as the original Trump),saw the injustice of Gains the primary income for the wealthy, being taxed at a lower rate than wages the primary income for American workers. Bill and thus Hill saw no injustice there as Bill restored the Capital Gains advantage . Assuring that the Government takes less money from billionaires than buss drivers. Leaving less money for Schools ,roads and water pipes.
Obama came rolling in with a promise of hope and change . The only change many of us got from him was the liberation from the belief that these two parties are all that different, on many issues including education. .
I guess Frank saw the obvious
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/28/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-voters-republicans-democrats
.
Everything that you say is true but the parties are not really that similar because the GOP has gone far right wing bat sheet crazy. The GOP has morphed into a radical movement hell bent on evaporating FDR’s and LBJ’s programs and policies. The GOP wants to lower taxes on the rich and destroy regulations and cripple the agencies that execute the regulations. The GOP wants to return us to 1929 or 1829, the Democrats not so much. Corporate sell-outs that Clinton and Obama might have been, we still got Breyer, Ginsberg, Kagan and Sotomayor on the SCOTUS, that was crucial.
I’d be on my knees shrieking hosannahs to the heavens if Hillary were president. I voted for Bernie in the primary but once it was down to HRC versus the Nazi in the general election, the choice was obvious. Tom Frank voted for Hillary. Joel, I believe you also voted for Hillary.
Joe
And thus you are correct I voted for Clinton, I spoke to small groups of several hundred workers urging them to vote for Clinton and have not voted for a Red (LOL) since Jacob Javits . That does not mean I am happy with my dismal choice.
As Frank says I am captive. Those that have endured economic decline no longer feel they have to be . Those that never saw the promised change were not motivated to vote. Before our resident Hill bot attacks me for making excuses for the deplorables. As Lofgren says long term !!!!! economic decline has provided the fodder for fascism.
A key component of almost all fascist regimes is the demonizing minorities.
“the deindustrialization and financialization of America since about 1970 has spawned an increasingly downscale white middle class – without job security (or even without jobs), with pensions and health benefits evaporating and with their principal asset deflating in the collapse of the housing bubble. Their fears are not imaginary; their standard of living is shrinking.”
No longer is that farmer sitting on a tractor in Iowa outraged at injustice visited upon minorities, that LBJ appealed to King to demonstrate . He lost his tractor a while back.
Sadly education will not solve this problem or at least education whose aim is skills and work force development will not solve the problem . The problem is one of Political power ,education that was a threat to that power has been under attack since the early seventies as well
The late George Wallace said “There’s not a dime’s worth of difference between the two parties”
George Wallace, vicious racist, was not an authority on anything.
I could quote you Lester Maddox, dumb racist governor of Georgia, who said that what the state’s prisons need is a better grade of criminals
Yet LBJ knew how to take this “vicious racist ”
(I would have used a 4 letter adjective) and make him stand down long enough to pass the Civil rights and voting rights act. But then both LBJ and FDR knew that means testing their programs would create the divisions that would lead to their demise.
And FDR famously said
They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.
Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.
Something that Cornell West pointed out to Obama early in 2010 . Obama was never who we thought he was.
George Wallace was no saint. He was a vicious racist. Nevertheless, he was an astute politician. Even a blind hog gets an acorn, sometimes.
I am unimpressed by his wisdom.
If it’s an overstatement that “there is no distance between the education policies of the Obama administration and those of the Trump administration”, then could someone enlighten me on what, specifically, the differences are? As far as I can tell, the difference boils down to the fact that the Trump administration is perfectly blunt about the fact that they have no use for public schools (except maybe charter schools, which aren’t public anyway), whereas the Obama administration had to pretend to support public education while privatizing it. If there’s something that actually made the Obama administration better on education, I’d love to hear it.
The Obama administration didn’t propose to cut the education budget by billions. That’s different.
True. He did, however, make it competitive based on test scores, evaluating teachers based on said test scores, increasing the number of charter schools, etc., which meant that the very schools/districts which needed the money the most got the least. He also transferred a great deal of it to privatized charters. In both cases, the goal is to transfer as much public money as possible into private hands. Obama just had to go about it more subtly.
You really have to read the site to see how in the tank it is for charters.
https://www.the74million.org/
Every piece about public schools is negative and every piece about charter schools is positive.
They’re “agnostics!” Yeah, sure they are. It’s a complete mystery why they can’t find anything good to say about any public school, anywhere.
Support for public schools is really becoming an issue in the Ohio’s governor’s race.
Should be interesting to watch all the candidates suddenly discover a burning interest in the public schools they completely ignore.
It’s great to watch all the “government schools” and “dead end” vitriol disappear when they campaign locally. It’s really too bad so few public school parents pay attention to the national ed reform campaigns- it’s like night and day. It’s not surprising they keep voting for these people- the candidates say one thing here and another when they’re on a larger stage.
We had two “government schools” lawmakers appear for a new school opening- just for the opening- haven’t seen either one of them since. It is amazing how they change their tune when they’re standing in a public school.
At the 74 they love Rockethip. Despite its abysmal results. Imagine that.
Rocketship is designed for children of the poor. In the 19th century, they would have been called charity schools.
The audience for these billionaire publications is not the public, nor the laymen education community.
They are meant to produce the legitimate authoritative “scholarship” that is disseminated to the staffs of legislators and representatives to implement policy.
Like their funded “grassroot” astroturf groups, they create the climate that there is the groundswell of populist reasoning and passion behind their plans.
The men and women behind the curtain are the titans of American commerce. They speak to each other using the general population as human shields.
If there’s a billionaire sympathizer who comments on your site, I’d sure love for them to reveal themselves!
“Like their funded “grassroot” astroturf groups, they create the climate that there is the groundswell of populist reasoning and passion behind their plans.”
Could you please expand that throughout the economy . The perversion of the word POPULIST brought to you by Donald Trump and Steve Bannon , in conjunction with the Business Roundtable and the Oligarchy . While the term is derided by the “establishment ” and the media elites . Few politicians can be said “to be for the people “. Since “the party of the people” abandoned the people .
The whole education market is a sham. Not-for-Profit cloaks for profit. It’s very bad in the GED TASC market is owned by S&P Global formally known as mcgraw-hill . So not only aren’t we graduating students from high school, The lucrutive education market has the GED/TASC covered. You don’t even get to see the old tests. If you don’t release questions, you are not legit.
That’s right.
GED and TASC are both high-school equivalency exams. GED is owned and administered by Pearson VUE. TASC is owned and administered by CTB/McGraw-Hill, which is owned by S&P.