Mercedes Schneider was interviewed for the documentary “Backpack Full of Cash.” At the time, the filmmakers did not have a title, and they called it “School Reform.” At their request, Mercedes signed a release to allow them to use her words and image in the film. The form is enclosed.
The filmmakers interviewed many other people, including Jeanne Allen, the director of the Center for Education Reform, which is virulently opposed to public schools. Before Jeanne founded the CER to advocate for choice, she worked for the far-right Heritage Foundation. She was among the first of the privatizers who saw the value of using the word “Reform” instead of the Center to Destroy Public zschools.
Allen didn’t like the documentary at all, because it did not praise her efforts to privatize public funding. She also doesn’t like that the filmmakers used her words, quite literally, as the title of the film.
Strangest of all is her complaint that the privatizers are vastly outspent by the unions. She says,
“The teachers unions spend $300 million a year on political races. We don’t have that kind of money.”
Bring out the world’s smallest violin.
The privatization movement is funded by a pack of multibillionaires, any one of which could outspend the unions.
Start with the Waltons, whose net worth is near $50 Billion. Aside from their contributions to political campaigns, they currently are spending $200 Million a year to open new charter schools. Then there is Billionaire Reed Hastings, who recently dropped about $5 Million into the Los Angeles school board race. Then there are Democrats for Education zreform, which pools the money of scores of hedge fund managers. Add billionaire Daniel Loeb, billionaire John Paulson, billionaire Eli Broad, billionaire Joel Greenlight, billionaire Michael Bloomberg, bilionaire Daniel Tepper, billionaire Rex Sinquefield, billionaire Betsy DeVos, billionaire Bill Gates, billionaire Philip Anschutz, billionaire Jonathan Sackler, billionaire JOHN Arnold, and many many more, all of whom have contributed to political campaigns to expand and benefit the privatization movement.
Teachers unions collect money from the dues of their underpaid members. They have skin in the game. Why are billionaires so passionate about defunding public schools?
A reader looked over the list of contributors to the Center for Education Reform. No teachers union has this many rich people contributing to its coffers.
The Achelis and Bodman Foundations
The Anschutz Foundation
The Apgar Foundation
The Laura and John Arnold Foundation
Mr. and Mrs. Dennis Bakke
Mr. Tim Barton
Mr. Brian Bauer
The Honorable and Mrs. Frank Baxter
The BelleJAR Foundation
The Blackie Foundation
The Bonsal Family
Ms. Katherine Brittain Bradley
The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
The Broad Foundation
Mr. Eric Brooks
Mr. S. Joseph Bruno and Building Hope
Mr. Kevin Chavous
Ms. Kara Cheseby
The Ravenel and Elizabeth Curry Foundation
The Daniels Fund
Mr. Angus Davis
Mr. Kenneth Davis
Mr. and Mrs. Robert Devereux
Mr. Philip H. Dietrich
The Honorable and Mrs. Pete DuPont
Mr. and Mrs. Terry Eakin III
Mr. John C. Eason
Mr. William S. Edgerly
The Doris and Donald Fisher Fund
Mr. and Mrs. John Fisher
Mrs. Maureen Foulke
Mr. Robert W. Garthwait
Mr. Randy P. Gaschler
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Mr. Philip E. Geiger
The Gleason Family Foundation
Dr. Charles J. Gorman
Mr. Jon Hage
Mr. John P. Hansel
Admiral Thomas B. Hayward
The Honorable Thomas J. Healey
The Shirley and Barnett Helzberg Foundation
The Christopher and Adrianna Henkels Charitable Fund
Mr. Donald Hense
Mr. Robert M. Howitt
Ms. Virginia James
Bob and Lynn Johnston
The Dodge Jones Foundation
Mr. William I. Jones
Mr. Melvin J. Kaplan
Mr. Robert D. Kennedy
The Kern Foundation
Mr. Norman V. Kinsey
Mr. Steven Klinsky
The Jean and E. Floyd Kvamme Foundation
Mr. Byron S. Lamm
Mr. Bob Luddy
Mrs. Maryann Mathile
Mr. Thomas McNamara
Mr. Anthony Meyer
The L & S Milken Family Foundation
Greg and Pam Miller
Mr. Michael Moe
Mr. and Mrs. Owen Moen
Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Moore
Mr. Gene E. Nicholson
Mr. and Mrs. Bill Oberndorf
Mr. Dennis Odle
Dr. Vivian Pan
Mr. and Mrs. Malcolm Peabody
The Ruth and Lovett Peters Foundation
The Pumpkin Foundation
The Honorable William J. Raggio
Mr. James S. Regan
Ms. Janice B. Riddell
Mr. Geoffrey Rosenberger, CFA
SABIS Educational Systems, Inc.
Michael and Ellen Sandler
Mr. Daniel P. Schmidt
Mr. Adam Shapiro
Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Sills
The William E. Simon Foundation
Ms. Shirley Sontheimer
The Smart Family Foundation
The Honorable H. Cooper Snyder
Mr. and Mrs. William B. Snyder
Mr. John R. Stambaugh
The John Templeton Foundation
Mr. Whitney Tilson
The Walton Family Foundation
Mr. Robert M. Weekley
The Honorable and Mrs. Ronald Weiser
Mr. Helmut Weymar
Mr. Chris Whittle
Jeff and Janine Yass
Ms. Marykay Zimbrick
And Jeanne Allen complains that her side is outspent by the teachers union!
Cry me a river!
How about a deal: Her side agrees to spend not a penny more than the teachers unions on political campaigns and advocacy?
Deal?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
BUSTED! Ed reform is like the mythological Hydra. Every time a head gets lopped off, another grows in it’s place. So this one is exposed. It will now morph into something else with all the central characters still controlling the narrative and the destruction.
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The Hydra with poison snakes for hair is an apt metaphor for ed-reformers.
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Right on, Diane! These are the facts that need some ink. I couldn’t believe that line about not having “that kind of money.” Thanks for digging to the truth and for your funny side that uplifts!
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It is absurd that “reform” has built an entire mythology about the “selfish” teachers’ unions. Unions are barely hanging on by a thread. Yet, “reformers” continue to see them as powerful, and this is all based on more false narratives from their bubble.
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The fundamental question should be “Why do so many billionaires support “school reform”?
This should be the main question on the minds of every American citizen as we quickly approach Election Day.
First of all, it is not because the billionaire class loves the American people, but it is about financial power.
Secondly, it is about purchasing political power through complicit governors and other “bought” officials.
And third, while this class has used every string available to it, whether legal (when available) to unethical (when all else fails), it seeks to destroy our public education system.
With the prompt theft of public tax dollars by one hand, and our democracy with the other, what better way than to write off our current concerned adults and parents, and professional public educators, over 20-30 years, as our children of today become their cookie cutters of tomorrow.
Demand answers from those who are running for office.
Hold them accountable.
Insist that they pass legislation to strongly curtail billionaires from influencing how we raise and educate our children, and from then financial and political gains they seek as our democratic foundations are destroyed.
Insist that they disassociate themselves from the billionaire class, and give of themselves entirely to the American people, not just on Election Day, but all year round.
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I assume that few of these donors are really stupid and am willing to assume that some of them have good intentions. What befuddles me is their apparent refusal to address the educational needs of poor children and their willingness to have all children be educated by unaccountable recipients of vouchers.
What are they envisioning when they talk about the importance of “parent choice?” Would they trust parents to choose the best medical treatments? Can and should we pay for their children to go to Phillips or Concord Academy? What are the limits to the choices they’re willing to offer these parents who know little about educating their children?
Have these reformers bothered to consider what the next generations of children will be able to do for themselves or society if they are home or church schooled? Just how well do they expect our citizens to be educated by untrained and uncertified teachers? No matter how rich their children might be, they are going to need accountants to count their millions and plumbers to keep their toilets flushing. How will those essential people be educated?
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The donors don’t know squat — they just respond to the pitch from the “reform” propaganda operation.
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But why this pitch in particular unless it’s just for profit and union busting. What other kinds of pitches get so much money and venom from them?
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Let’s stop calling them “reformers” which they are not. Like Gingrich’s “revolution” and the current alt-right, they are reactionaries. These education reactionaries are teamed up with the alt-right to divide us up and create a scheme that, in the case of education, will bring back legal segregation of schools with public money. Some Democrats are falling into the trap of allowing the party to be called the “Democrat” Party when it is the Democratic Party. Don’t let others define who we are. Real reform means funding public, community schools properly to create conditions where children can learn from professional teachers who know how to do it. WE are the reformers. The others want to bring our country into a 3rd world oligarchy.
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How many on that list belong to ALEC?
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It’s also not sound to liken “reform” operations like Allen’s — which are entirely propaganda and lobbying operations — to teachers’ unions. Teachers’ unions have a primary function — serving and supporting the teaching profession by negotiating pay and working conditions for their members. A separate, smaller part of their function is to lobby for legislation that best serves their members as well.
All of the “reform” operations like Allen’s (a very, very, very long list) are purely propaganda and lobbying organizations and have no other function. And by the way, “think tanks” are also purely propaganda operations. The very term “think tank” is propaganda and should always be challenged.
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I picked a random name from the above list to see an example of who is funding CER and found it pretty harrowing. I searched “The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation” and discovered they are a key right-wing group from Milwaukee that laid the groundwork for the dismantling of unions in Wisconsin. But it gets worse.
Documents recently posted online by Anonymous-affiliated hackers show the Bradley Foundation takes a “long term” approach in pushing conservative policies and is planning Wisconsin-style coups in Colorado, North Carolina, North Dakota, Washington and Oregon using the “Scott Walker model”.
This means long-term funding of think tanks, conservative media, opposition research, bill-writing groups (yes, I mean ALEC), candidate recruitment, legal centers and advocacy groups (such as CER).
They are currently pumping millions into anti-union advocacy, but also fund school choice and climate change denial among other causes. More here:
https://projects.jsonline.com/news/2017/5/5/hacked-records-show-bradley-foundation-taking-wisconsin-model-national.html
I wonder, should I look up another donor on the list now?
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The Bradley Foundation was the primary funder of vouchers in Wisconsin.
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“The teachers unions spend $300 million a year on political races. We don’t have that kind of money.”
Yes, the “we don’t have that kind of money” is clearly a LIE, but where did she get the $300 million figure from? Is it correct?
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The $300 million claim is a HUGE lie with a massive emphasis on HUGE!
Be careful when you fact check this. The Alt-Right media is all over the place spreading this lie.
I found my facts checked at Open Secrets.org.
“Teachers unions have steadily amped up their political involvement: From 2004 to 2016, their donations grew from $4.3 million to more than $32 million — an all-time high. Even more than most labor unions, they have little use for Republicans, giving Democrats at least 94 percent of the funds they contributed to candidates and parties since as far back as 1990, where our data begins.
“Two organizations account for practically all of the contributions made by teachers unions: The National Education Association (about $20 million in 2016) and the American Federation of Teachers (almost $12 million). Both groups — which compete for members, but also collaborate with each other through the NEA-AFT Partnership — are consistently among the organizations that contribute the most money to candidates and political groups. [Read more Background]”
https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=L1300
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I have no idea.
I know both unions give money to civil rights groups.
If anyone knows what they spend on political campaigns, which is s matter of public record, please let us know
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Here is what Open Secrets reports — way below the $300 million, the lying, scheming, conspiracy theory spreading, money-hungry, corporate reformers of public education claim.
“Teachers unions have steadily amped up their political involvement: From 2004 to 2016, their donations grew from $4.3 million to more than $32 million — an all-time high. Even more than most labor unions, they have little use for Republicans, giving Democrats at least 94 percent of the funds they contributed to candidates and parties since as far back as 1990, where our data begins.
“Two organizations account for practically all of the contributions made by teachers unions: The National Education Association (about $20 million in 2016) and the American Federation of Teachers (almost $12 million). Both groups — which compete for members, but also collaborate with each other through the NEA-AFT Partnership — are consistently among the organizations that contribute the most money to candidates and political groups. [Read more Background]”
https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=L1300
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Here’s another of those “hundreds of millions” claims.
It’s contained in this YouTube video of a livestream forum of well-paid panel of privatization / charter spokes-holes taking on “the myths and lies” being spread about charter schools:
It gets pretty rich when these well-paid spokes-holes lash out at opponents of charter schools / school privatizers … by claiming that some of the people and groups receive union funding.
The panelists are more mendacious than Ben Austin.
They are:
Peter Cook — Education Policy Writer
Derrell Bradford — 50CAN Executive Vice President
Romy Drucker — The 74 Co-Founder
and
Chris Stewart — Education Post Director of Outreach
and External Affairs
I know Peter Cook is world-class jerk, based on some of the vicious and unfair on-line attacks he has made on Mercedes Schneider.
Here’s a bit where they lash out at union funding:
( 13:22 – 13:29 )
( 13:22 – 13:29 )
CHRIS (“Citizen Stewart”) STEWART::
*”All roads* (of charter opposition) *lead upward to just a handful of entities that have very strong ideologies and a lot of money.”*
Boy, if that’s not “the pot calling the kettle black,” then I don’t know what is. I”m not sure about Cook, but the other three are all making mid-six-figure salaries, salaries that are, for the most part, paid by billionaires out to privatize schools and bust unions.
Earlier in the video, Peter Cook claims that the unions spend “hundreds of millions of dollars, every year, year after years” opposing charter schools
(Considering NEA & AFT’s total annual budgets add up to around $300 million, that’s a patently ridiculous claim.)
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
( 9:17 – 9:59 )
( 9:17 – 9:59 )
PETER COOK:
“Obviously, first and foremost, there’s the teachers’ unions, who obviously see charter schools as a threat, and they have a lot of money to spend, and they spend hundreds of millions of dollars (???!!!) every year, year after year, funding a vast constellation of organizations from these (sarcastic) community organizations that pop up out of nowhere that are all-of-a-sudden opposing charter schools, that are protesting … if you kind of dig through the data, if you look at tax forms, if you look at, you know, NEA and AFT’s annual reports, you’ll see that a lot of these groups are funded by … *the unions, or their allies.
“But a lot of them, most of them, are funded by the unions.”
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
None of the anti-corporate-ed-reform activists who participate on this blog or elsewhere — Mercedes Schneider, Steven Singer, Peter Greene, Karen Wolfe, Robert Skeels — GETS PAID A RED CENT for their activism, unlike the slobs in this video, who, again, are paid six-figure salaries, the money originating from billionaires out to privatize schools.
Cook’s claim that NEA & AFT “spend hundreds of millions of dollars (???!!!) every year, year after year,” opposing charter schools is truly an “alternative fact.”
I can’t tell you the times, at the NEA-RA I and others push to pass NBI’s authorizing funding of campaigns against charter schools, or campaigns to unionize charter schools … and we are met with resistance. We end up having to water down the resolution to where the cost is ZERO, or almost ZERO, and all that’s left is a symbolic statement.
Forget “hundreds of millions”
Forget “tens of millions”
Forget even “millions.”
I’ll settle for $100,000 or so.
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One more thing:
Jeanne Allen, in her recent interview about BACKPACK FULL OF CASH, makes a derogatory reference to those anti-corporate-ed folks who were interviewed in BACKPACKS, by claiming that they are “paid by taxpayers.”
In the case of full-tiume teachers such as Mercedes Schneider, Allen is presumably referring to Schneider’s teacher salary (which I’m guessing is around $50,000 for a 70-hour-minimum work week, if you add in grading tests, planning, record-keeping, parent conferences, and on on. Schnedier teaches English, so I think 70 hours is a lowball estimate, as grading student’s written papers takes freakin’ forever — that is, if you’re doing it right 😉 )
Privatizer Jeanne Allen, on the other hand, is riding a school privatization gravy train with biscuit wheels.
In one year alone, Allen pulled in $190,000 for a cushy 10 hours-per-week.
Nice work if you can get it. 😉
Here’s that comment from Allen.:
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
JEANNE ALLEN:
“The (anti-corporate reform) people praised in the film get paid from taxpayer dollars.”
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Mercedes Scheider responds:
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
MERCEDES SCHNEIDER:
“I’m not sure if I get ‘praised in the film,’ but I do get paid (as a teacher) using taxpayer dollars. However, Allen’s privately-funded salary has mine beat.
“According to CER’s 2013, 2014, and 2015 tax returns, as CER’s president emeritus, Allen earned $190,000, $115,000, and $95,000, in 2013, 2014, and 2015, respectively, for working 10 hours/week.
“And Allen might not have teacher union connections (in which teachers unions are funded by teachers who earn nowhere near $100K for 10 hours of work per week), but she does have Walton Family connections, with the Walton Family Foundation (WFF) an acknowledged CER funder, and the late John Walton Allen’s ‘dear friend’ who ‘used to say to me, (“me” being Allen)
” ‘Keep up the pressure.’
“As for those loaded teachers unions, well, Allen must have forgotten her more loaded Walton friends, two of whom (siblings Alice and Jim Walton) contributed $2 million of the roughly $19 million scraped together for a November 2016 ballot initiative supporting raising Massachusetts’ charter school cap versus the $12 million raised by those opposed, including the unions.
“Despite the 2-to-1 spending in favor of raising the cap, the Massachusetts cap remains in place. Voters rejected raising the cap 2-to-1.”
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
.. and on Mercedes goes at
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https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=mcafee&p=you+tube+diana+kroll+cry+me+a+river#id=1&vid=537c54fe1a455a6b458bb89453cfd532&action=click
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Yuck. Better link, below.
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