Billionaire Reed Hastings of Netflix gave $5 million to the campaign to beat Steve Zimmer for the LAUSD School Board last spring.
The charter billionaires won control, and Ref Rodriguez was elected president of the board.
Now Ref is in legal trouble, and Reed came through for his legal defense.
Click to access LAUSD%20Board%20Member%20Ref%20Rodriguez%20Legal%20Defense%20Fund%2010.09.17.pdf
So good to have friends when you are in trouble.
Deep pockets.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Scoundrels stick with scoundrels.
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That could pay a teacher’s salary in parts of California.
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Here’s Reed Hastings expounding on his vision of eradicating 90% of public schools:
“And so the fundamental problem with school districts is not their fault, the fundamental problem is that they don’t get to control their boards and the importance of the charter school movement is to evolve America from a system where governance is constantly changing and you can’t do long term planning to a system of large non-profits…The most important thing is that they constantly get better every year they’re getting better because they have stable governance — they don’t have an elected school board. And that’s a real tough issue. Now if we go to the general public and we say, “Here’s an argument why you should get rid of school boards” of course no one’s going to go for that. School boards have been an iconic part of America for 200 years. So what we have to do is to work with school districts to grow steadily, and the work ahead is really hard because we’re at 8% of students in California, whereas in New Orleans they’re at 90%, so we have a lot of catchup to do…So what we have to do is continue to grow and grow… It’s going to take 20-30 years to get to 90% of charter kids….And if we succeed over the next 20 or 30 years, that will be one of the fastest rates of change ever seen around the world for a large system, it’s hard. [applause]”
Obviously, you can see he’s “agnostic”.
He states at the beginning that all charter schools are better than all public schools because they “get better every year” and then specifically says he needs 90% “charter kids”
Boy, I’d hate to be a public school family in a district he runs. His actual goal is to get rid your school based on nothing other than his personal belief that “a system of large nonprofits” is the best governance structure.
This is completely accepted and embraced in ed reform- that one billionaire should be dictating the eradication of a public system. They see nothing wrong with this.
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Oh, and he forgot the part about tying the profit motive to a ‘social good’ because that would blow his cover even more.
But, as he so eloquently puts it, avoid truth in advertising when you’re pushing charters and such. Best to use the stealth approach when you do something like getting rid of school boards so you minimize blowback…
And thank you for pointing out how comfortable the movers and shakers of corporate education reform are with engaging in “truthful hyperbole” and “fake news.”
As someone on this blog commented some time ago, they have no shame.
In part because they are their own biggest dupes and believe their own hype.
😎
P.S. Although he unwittingly eviscerates one of the central tenets of rheephorm when he touts the wonders of stability and being able to plan long-term. Whatever happened to that shibboleth of rheephorm thinking embodied in such meaningless catch phrases as “innovative disruption” and “creative disruption” ad nauseam.
I guess he forgot to read his own promo literature.
🙄
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I actually prefer the outright charter cheerleaders over the phony “agnostics”. I bet one could have a real debate with one of them.
I mean, please. Who are we kidding with this? The man says he wants to eradicate 90% of public schools.
He’s not an “agnostic”.
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Reed Hastings wants to eliminate 100% of elected school boards.
Switch to Hulu.
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We had a huge scandal in Ohio in 2005 on exactly this issue- “conduits”. A big political donor in the state was laundering money thru having smaller donors make political contributions and then reimbursing the donors. The operative went to prison for it but the initial “conduit” investigation led to an even larger scandal at workers comp that contributed to a complete rout for the group in power at the time in the next election.
So don’t be surprised if they turn up more. If there’s irregularities in campaign finance that’s a way of doing business, not an isolated incident.
The sad part is I don’t know that it will harm “ed reform”- after all, they own the board. They ARE Los Angeles schools. The harm will come to the district because voters won’t be disgusted with “ed reform”, they’ll be disgusted with “the school board”.
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OMG, Chiara.
Our election system is at risk…big time. Outside money from other states influence state elections. And now we know that even Russia can interfere in our elections. OY.
This is SERIOUS!
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Wow. I guess I’ll continue my boycott of Netflix after all….
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Diane, THANKS for this one. OMG.
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Thanks DIANE for posting this important info.
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Few who are wealthy ever get convicted in court or when found guilty punished equally to someone that did the same crime but did not have deep pockets to pay for the best legal defense.
Justice is not equal.
The poor get punished severely and are sent to dangerous prisons with electric fences, barbed wire, and crazy types who rape and stab you in the halls and showers.
The rich get a slap on the hand or end up with short-terms and are sent to country club prisons that often have no fences and come with tennis courts.
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Somedays, it just seems we just live in a strange world.
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From its inception the so-called non-profit model has been a means for the most wealthy to assert power in ways not subject to political participation. 501c3s are the perfect vehicle for the neoliberal consensus. I know I recommend this book all the time, but I will continue recommending it until everyone on the public school side reads it:
The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex
I also recommend this essay of mine
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Not just neoliberals but also Koch style libertarians.
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