A letter from a friend in the Bay Area about the California Gubernatorial primary, won handily by Gavin Newsom, with Republican John Cox coming in second.
In the California governor’s primary, pro-“reform” Democratic former L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa got knocked out despite millions in pro-charter money from billionaires poured into Villaraigosa’s campaign (via a California Charter Schools Association (CCSA) PAC. In the runoff, Democratic Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom will face Republican (endorsed by Trump) businessman John Cox, in a state where Republicans are heavily outnumbered.
California’s primary is “top two” — regardless of party, the top two finishers face off in November if none gets 50%+ of the primary vote. It was generally expected early on that Democrats Villaraigosa and Newsom would face each other in the general election.
Partway through the campaign, pro-“reform” billionaires started pouring millions through the CCSA PAC into Villaraigosa’s campaign, making it look like suddenly he would have a fabulous, huge edge — but the more there were reports of pro-“reform” billionaire millions pouring in through the pro-charter PAC, the more Villaraigosa dropped in the polls, and the polls were accurate.
Newsom does not have a pro-“reform” history, though he’s highly debated in California and Bay Area Badass Teachers Facebook groups, and some people have pointed out that he has made comments praising TFA and he says he supports good charters. In this campaign, Newsom had a panel of education advisers that included two San Francisco leaders who are strongly anti-charter and are friends of mine; as well as anti-“reform” academic Julian Vasquez Heilig.
But the most fascinating thing is that the more pro-charter millions coming from the billionaires poured into the Villaraigosa campaign, the more he dropped in the polls — it was practically proportional. I don’t delude myself that the voting public dislikes “reform” or charters or even know what they are, but I suspect that there are negative connotations to millions from the billionaires, especially since some were out-of-state billionaires.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Now those same billionaires will pour money into Marshall Tuck who is now in a run-off with Tony Thurmond for State Superintendent of Schools. Cross fingers that the billionaires will lose again.
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I wonder if the campaign funding from charter groups skews the campaign- not making it pro-charter, they never actually run on charters, but making it impossible for the candidate to say anything positive about their plans for existing public schools.
That’s what’s really missing from ed reformer’s campaigns- public schools. I know, that sounds like it would be obvious, but apparently, it’s not.
I notice it in national ed reform Democrats. It’s almost comical. They’ll say they want to expand pre-k or subsidize college and there’s this giant gaping hole in the middle there, almost like they’re barred from mentioning public schools unless it’s w/in the phrase “failing public schools”.
It’s true for the voucher crowd in DC, too. I don’t know what percentage of children attend private schools but I believe it’s single digits. DeVos spends 90% of her time promoting schools the vast majority of children do not attend.
It’s just odd- inexplicable- and when something is inexplicable it’s often driven by some external factor, a factor like “money” 🙂
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I live in the WashDC metro area. The public school system in the city of Washington DC has one of the lowest participation rates in the nation. In the wealthier neighborhoods, like upper Connecticut Avenue, 73% of the children attend non-public schools. see
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2014/08/where-private-school-enrollment-is-highest-and-lowest-across-the-us/375993/
When public schools are good, and parents are satisfied, they send their children to public schools. When public schools are terrible, parents seek alternatives (when they can).
The public schools here in Fairfax VA, are excellent.
It is truly a “tale of two cities”.
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I agree. I get these surveys from the Democratic party intended to help them identify talking points and issues–free or debt-free college and universal preschool but nothing in between, no clear support for public schools, no awareness of the charter industry and damage of DeVos/Trump choice policies.
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School choice/vouchers/ESAs, all of these pre-date Trump/DeVos. This president and his SecEd have not (yet) been able to implement any new school choice programs in the USA. There is a move to offer school vouchers to military families, who choose to opt-out of the public schools near military bases. But it is only a proposal, and it does not have much chance of seeing reality.
Be Fair. Do NOT blame school choice on Trump/DeVos, it was in operation long before those two ever came to power.
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We know that, Charles. We don’t blame them for starting Choice. But we want to stop them from increasing it exponentially. Especially since unregulated choice does not produce better results, actually produces worse outcomes. And encourages waste, fraud, and abuses.
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As I always state, everything associated with Education is about making money for Wall Street elites, politicians . None of these talking heads know anything about education, nor do they care to. Ed Reform Educators are like politicians quickly move onto the next position so that they are no longer in charge when the chickens come home highlighting there poor performance. Mayor’ control in DC, ten years of kids who were the victims of cheating by administrators and Ed Reform superstars who needed to be on the cover of Time and every Sunday morning program. School System in New York City run by a lawyer under Bloomberg. Georgia, teachers who went to jail because they were part of a cheating scandal. Charter schools shutting down because of low education performance, missing funds. The list just goes on and yet we keep this farce going. Parents need to mobilize in the same manner that we are addressing guns Maybe with this recent election we are finally waking up become serious about education and get off the slogans. What type of country are we becoming. Facebook fooled everyone for years and people lost there privacy for the opportunity to look at kittens and Ed Reform is destroying the economic future of our children.
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The voting public should be concerned with education issues, to the degree that it represents what portion of the state budget? It’s a lot of money, it’s a big deal.
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The same billionaires poured money into other elections like Nick Melvoin’s school board campaign with more success. I think the reason was that voters didn’t find out about the money until after the fact. It’s the dark money we have to fear. This time, the five billionaires behind Villaraigosa — whose campaign is dead dead dead and so it’s time to celebrate — were in the news with a month to go before Election Day. People do not like having their opinions bought. Was there a campaign funding transparency law I missed enacted in California? If not, could the legal troubles faced by dark money billionaires behind Question 2 in Massachusetts have been the cause of openness and press diligence this time? Could this be the end of dark money in elections? I sure hope so… Big time cheers to California voters! Hip hip, hooray!… Gavin Newsome, remember who supported you and who spent millions to oppose you. Remember how that worked out.
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I hope it was implicit in my comment that I completely agree with the analysis in the letter from the Bay Area of this post.
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Gavin Newsom got a lot of money from the tech. Industry. I really think this is bad news for the Democratic party. Villaraigosa would have been infinitely worse but this is another neoliberal Democrat with deep pocketed billionaire sponsors. Having an affair with his staff chief’s wife while he was Mayor is a significant stain on his character. Democrats had two better options on the ballot, but it is all about winning in the short run and that probably means they will make the conservatives once again viable in California. We need progressives who care about people not liberal politicians who wield power.
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I agree, except that I have so much reason, based on past experience, to despise Villaraigosa. He brought us Deasy and iPads, just for example. The California Charter Scams Association had its reasons for supporting him. He’s the worst of the worst. I’m glad he’s out, plain and simple.
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