The charter billionaires pulled out all the stops to push their candidate Antonio Villaraigosa into the governor’s runoff last week, and lost.
Charter school supporters are deciding where to direct their considerable resources after pouring money into the California governor primary to support a longtime ally who failed to move on to November’s election.
The fallout may signal future uncertainty for the school choice movement in a state with some of the most robust charter school laws in the United States.
The front-runner for governor, Democrat Gavin Newsom, could hamper or threaten the progress of charters — privately run schools that use public money and have divided parents and politicians. He has mostly emphasized his support of traditional public schools and called for more charter school accountability.
Newsom’s campaign said it would seek to temporarily halt charter school openings to consider transparency issues but that “successful” charters would thrive under his leadership. In the June 5 race, he beat out former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a key ally of the California Charter Schools Association.
The powerful organization and its big-name donors, including Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Walmart heir Alice Walton, gave nearly $23 million to support Villaraigosa, who finished behind Newsom and Republican businessman John Cox.
Now, the group said it’s working on a new strategy that could include supporting Newsom or Cox, despite the Republican’s endorsement from President Donald Trump. The heavily blue state is helping lead a national resistance to his administration. The charter Advocates are in a tight spot after running attack ads against both candidates who advanced to the general election.
So look who is standing on principle! The billionaires will either try to buy the friendship of Newsom, with a handsome cash prize, or they will throw in their lot with Trump-loving Cox.
What do they believe in?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“We will have a look at the candidate’s point of view on broader issues, but we predominantly stick to an evaluation of their perspective on the charter school issue to help inform the decision on what to support and whether we’ll get involved in the race,” Borden said.”
This is good, though. It’s clarifying. It’s an admission by ed reformers that they are single issue- they don’t support “public education”- they support charter schools.
It’s pretty obvious when one lives in a state where they dominate like I do. They do absolutely nothing for public schools when they’re in government, and often actively harm children in existing schools.
Voters need to be clear on this- ed reform consists of two things- charters and vouchers (first priority) and testing for public school students (second priority)
If you’re a public school family you will get NO added value or benefit out of hiring these folks, and you may be actually harmed.
Maybe now we can get some actual reform bills passed and signed by the Governor. However this is not the whole story, because there remains a legislature many of whom were purchased by the industry. Last years’s transparency bill failed to pass in the Assembly.
This is what happened in Pennsylvania in which the newly elected Democratic governor was sympathetic to public education, but the legislature was owned by the charter lobby. The charter lobby continues to extract charter expansion concessions from the governor in exchange for a budget. In order to get rid of the charter lobby, the voters have to get rid of a lot of compromised legislators, and the lobby is backed by dark money. It’s a difficult task when money runs politics.
This is what happened in Pennsylvania in which the newly elected Democratic governor was sympathetic to public education, but the legislature was owned by the charter lobby. The charter lobby continues to extract charter expansion concessions from the governor in exchange for a budget. In order to get rid of the charter lobby, the voters have to vote out a lot of compromised legislators, and the lobby is backed by dark money. It’s a difficult task when money runs politics.
The 1% has 95% of the wealth, but they have 1% of votes. This is what they will be fighting, like purging voter rolls. They want to return to the times when only white men with considerable wealth or land – a.k.a. “the people” – could vote.
Yes. True democracy requires equally recocognized input by every faction, every culture, every sexual persuasion: what the “founders” argued was a democracy actually meant rule by the aristocracy, and the old wealthy White boys’ club is having tough times as it loses its hold over the nation.
The California Charter schools association could always go back to running secret anti-union campaigns:
“Documents, obtained by The Nation, show that Alliance’s leadership has made efforts not only to discourage pro-union teachers, but also to pit parents against these teachers. Emails from last May, for example, show that Alliance coached paid alumni, hired through the California Charter Schools Association, to phone-bank parents with an anti-union script and collect parent signatures against the union. The documents also show that Alliance has been working with top political consultants to mobilize “parent captains and parent supporters” against the union campaign.”
For people who aren’t anti-union, ed reformers sure spend a LOT of time and money running anti-union political campaigns.Which shouldn’t surprise anyone, given their financial backers.
Aren’t Democrats ashamed that they lie to rank and file labor union members like this? That they back secret anti-union campaigns while telling ordinary people they support labor unions?
https://www.thenation.com/article/the-struggle-to-unionize-within-las-biggest-charter-chain/
What was Newsome’s big sin that made the ed reform lobby line up against him?
Not enough mindless cheerleading for charter schools? Insufficiently enthusiastic pom pom waving and chant leading?
I know they brook no dissent. Hillary Clinton made a mildly critical observation about charters once and the echo chamber went bananas, demanding she retract.
They believe that buying politicians will eventually pay off their greedy desires.
You-all saw the teachers strikes this year, where whole state public education systems SHUT DOWN, right?
We all saw those?
Here’s what your elected representatives in the US Congress are working on:
“House Education Committee holding a hearing on “The Power of Charters”
They do no productive work AT ALL on behalf of public schools.
I used to joke that every public school in the country could shut down and ed reform would cruise along, completely oblivious, because “ed reform” is almost completely irrelevant to public schools.
That is actually TRUE, turns out. That was not a joke or exaggeration.
“What do they believe in?”
It isn’t our U.S. constitutional republic and democracy. They do believe in lies, fake conspiracy theories and how easy it is to mislead easy to fool people, and the power of money to buy anything they want.
I woke up this morning thinking about Sean Hannity’s claims of a Deep State Conspiracy. He alleges the Deep State Conspiracy is led by liberals like Obama and the Clintons. Hannity was wrong. The Deep State is lead by people like him, the Koch brothers, the members of ALEC, the Walton family, et al.
Yes, there is a Deep State Conspiracy, and the Alt-Right is that Deep State.
$24-million is a drop of water in an ocean for them and they understand that to win you have to be willing to lose. They will regroup, study what worked and what didn’t and spend more on the next battle. Their goal is nothing less than the subversion of the U.S. Constitution and much worse if they succeed.
Lloyd, I wish you’d go door to door in CA-10 (Tracy area) and evangelize for democracy and Democrats. We need articulate voices like yours to educate the benighted masses and save our democracy. What do you say?
What do I say?
Ha! fat chance of me going door-to-door for anyone or anything.
First, Tracy is 36-miles one way from where I live — 72 miles round trip.
Second, I have arthritis and “bone spurs” (my bone spurs — plural — are real, not fake like Donald Trumps were when he avoided the draft.
A few years ago, the VA x-rayed my feet and knees and verified they were there, but I didn’t have the bone spurs when I joined the Marines and ended up in Vietnam) and walking too much is not friendly to my knees and feet. Too much walking and the inflammation and pain are crippling.
I miss the long treks in the mountains.
Even long drives are hard on my knees because they are stuck in one position too long.
Here’s my take from San Francisco.
Pushing charter schools and hostility to teachers have been prominent parts of Villaraigosa’s political image. As I see it, the greater public is generally hazy on what charter schools are or what they mean, and is not hostile to teachers.
Newsom’s political stance is a little vague on education “reform” faddery, but he has never embraced it. Charter schools were not a big thing in San Francisco when he was mayor here, so he didn’t really have to take a stand. And he won the support of the state’s teachers’ unions in running for governor.
During this primary, the media prominently reported on the millions being poured into supporting Villaraigosa from billionaires who backed charter schools. Every time there was another of those reports, Villaraigosa dropped in the polls — it was really striking. I don’t think it was the charter school piece that hurt his popularity, because I don’t think people are aware of what they are; I think it was the millions from billionaires with a particular special interest. (It’s known that some of those billionaires are out of state and some are openly right-wing, too.)
In the comparatively obscure race for state superintendent of public instruction, there will be a runoff between Marshall Tuck — entirely a creature of the charter/”reform” sector — and educator/legislator Tony Thurmond, backed by teachers. Tuck came out ahead of Thurmond in the primary, and he was getting the same money from the same billionaires as Villaraigosa. It just wasn’t widely known, because the press paid far less attention to that race.
I do think this shows that the public no longer has an automatically positive reaction to “charter school,” which they really used to. And I think the evident harm done to Villaraigosa by the pro-charter millions will damage the image of charter schools further. The public is not inherently linking Tuck with charter schools and Thurmond with public schools, though, or at least it’s not harming Tuck if they are.
Alas, most of my teacher colleagues don’t know that Tuck is the creature of the charter lobby. CTA needs to make the message bolder and clearer; e.g. plaster the cover of the next Educator magazine with “MARSHALL TUCK IS THE CREATURE OF THE CHARTER LOBBY!”.
Betsy DeVos, as the most hated cabinet secretary and a known advocate of charters, has done a lot to change the public perception of charters from something “innovative” and “good” into just another vehicle for the rich to decimate public services and avoid taxes.
Antonio Villaraigosa, who’s that? Never heard of him. Oh well, whoever he is, he doesn’t matter now. Tony, Tony, Tony, photo op. of the past, we hardly knew ye… So, now back to brass tacks, in the run-up to November, Trumpy, Sleepy, Dopey, Bashful, Sneezy, Betsy and Doc are going to support longshot Cox for governor in order to get conservatives out to vote in an off year for legislators. The California Charter Schools Association of Five Billionaires is going to support legislators. Time to shine a light on campaign funding of candidates for legislator.
The bigger question is what does Newsom believe in? Will he cave to charter interests now that those folks are looking for a new receptical to pour their millions? He’s shown little real conviction about anything in the past, so I’m betting he’ll cave.
He will cave. Brown caved. Garcetti caved. The money is powerful. There is little that can be done to stop it. “Run from the Left and govern from the Right,” is how they do. Only Schmerelson doesn’t cave. Still, the fanatical L.A. Mayor Bringer of All Things Deasy is out of the race for the Governors Mansion. That’s a victory of noting.
Now we focus on legislators and on crazy Austin Beutner. I hope Howard Blume is ready to investigate funding. I am ready to walk.