Andrew Brenner is chairman of the House Education Committee in Ohio. He has a knack for making provocative and unfair statements. A few years ago, he said that public schools were “socialism.” He also regularly blocks people on Twitter if they disagree with his extremism. His critics have started their own Facebook page.
Denis Smith has written a genial open letter to Andrew Brenner. He thinks Andrew should revere the First Amendment even more than the Second Amendment, because it comes first.
He should listen to his constituents. He might learn that he is out of synch with their views.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
He’s been terrible for public schools. Actively harmful.
The political tide has turned in Ohio and it’s once again fashionable for politicians to support public school students, so I’m hoping we fire the entire ed reform echo chamber in the legislative branch.
We can do better – we can hire better public employees. This crowd hasn’t produced a single benefit to any public school student in the state and in fact they have presided over Ohio falling in public education rankings. They have a record of failure. Hire someone else.
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These far right wing libertarian dunderheads are shameless and intractable as long as they have the funding of the pro charter/school privatization billionaires. Vote them out of office. Public schools are “socialism?!” Ugh, I hate these libertarian talking points, they are so vile and perverse. I guess the police and fire departments are examples of socialism, too. Not to mention the judicial system, the legislatures, the military, FBI, CIA and NSA.
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I have an ed reform state legislator and I’ve started writing him and asking him to provide proof of any value he has provided to any of the public schools in his district.
I list the schools for him.
He has not responded and he will have difficulty responding because the answer is “none”- no value.
They have not done a lick of work in Columbus on behalf of the 90% of Ohio children who attend public schools IN YEARS. They were captured by ed reform lobbyists early in the “movement” and they simply stopped serving the public schools 90% of kids attend.
They all should be replaced.
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Like that action! You might want to resend it in a week with a little note stating that you hadn’t heard a response yet. But we all know what the response will be “Thank you for contacting me. As you should be aware I am for all children, blah blah blah.” Handily computer signed!
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Here is how far right Brenner is. I wonder if he believes everything public is socialism. https://twitter.com/sandytheis/status/1001633109442551808
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Hello Diane: The view that public schools are “socialism” reveals a (shall we say) shallow and dogmatic view of what both democracy, socialism, and capitalism mean.
Consider the alternative to having free, tax-supported schools in a political environment that has the rule of law, and OUR founding documents, including the first amendment and “We The People, in order to form a more perfect union. . . ” as our guiding principles.
That would be some version of “pay to play” (or don’t play at all) where “capitalism” becomes a governing political order (rather than merely an economic system); where Power and Money have NO relationship to the quality of the people who actually rule (think Putin–my way or the highway–to the morgue); and where the arbitrary biases of Those In Power govern who gets what, that is, MY family and LOYAL friends over actually-qualified persons; My skin color over any other skin color; my wants and level of intelligence (such as it is) over those who don’t go around embarrassing everyone with their ignorance. CBK
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So any public entity is socialist because it takes pooled assets through taxes to provide a service. So…doesn’t that make charter schools socialism? They take public assets. Why is it more acceptable for a private business to control a service, say, like power companies?
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He doesn’t care if he is out of synch with the views of voters, or reality. All that counts to him is that he does what his autocratic billionaire masters want him to do.
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Mr. Brenner blocked me when I kept asking him about his undemocratic decision to prevent the Ohio House Education Committee from voting on an amendment that he opposed. He admitted that he did not allow the amendment to pass, despite the committee’s vote in favor of it. His reasoning was that he was preventing the bill in question from being vetoed by the Governor. Apparently, Mr. Brenner believes that stopping votes is an appropriate action for a committee chair because he feels he knows better than other legislators AND the voters who elected him. Shame on you, Andrew Brenner.
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