Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom squashed the charter industry’s candidate, Antonio Villaraigosa, in the primaries despite huge spending by the usual billionaires for the latter. Newsom was endorsed by the California Teachers Association. While not anti-charter, Newsom pledged to call for a moratorium until laws are passed for charter accountability and transparency.
Now the same billionaires are dumping cash into Newsom’s campaign, hoping to buy him as their puppet.
Newsom is seen as a shoo-in, since he is running against a Trump Republican in a blue state. He doesn’t need the charter lobby’s money to win.
Here’s hoping it’s too late for them to buy influence.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It’s just amusing how charters and vouchers have become THE single issue for ed reform.
They’re single-issue. They can’t effectively challenge DeVos because DeVos supports their issue, and everything else has become second to the holy grail of privatization promotion. They cheered the Janus decision even though they supposedly support labor rights because Janus silences public school advocates, which advances their cause- charters and vouchers.
If one defines “public education” as “charters and vouchers” I suppose they are “education advocates” but I don’t think that’s how voters define it. I think that’s why they’re having trouble getting their candidates elected.
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Concerned public school parents should crowd source donations for public school advocacy. After they collect a significant amount, they should ask for an appointment with Newsom. If they get it, they should enlighten him with highlights from Burris’ research. If he agrees to be fair to public schools, give him the donation. If he prevails, they should let Newsom know they are watching him. Our system is so dysfunctional, the only way to get attention is through money.
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They will. Unfortunately, it will probably be the charter-funded astroturf group Parents SpeakUp, posing as regular public school parents.
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POSING. A word well chosen for describing the entire NCLB/R2T/ESSA school privatizing game.
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Here they come!
But also, Newsom’s campaign for governor was launched with charter money. John Scully, who sits with his wife on the board of Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy, wrote one of the first fat checks. https://www.alternet.org/kicking-charter-money-out-unifying-party
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Typical fat cat behavior: Fund both sides.
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$$$$$ talks, and BS walks.
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Exactly. Now we will see how Newsom responds.
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We can hope Newson takes their money and after he wins, he laughs at them, the corporate charter school pirates, and says, “Suckers!”
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They’re “agnostic” as to sector, Diane.
Which people might believe unless they read them or listen to anything they say, where they never. ever advocate for or promote a public school, anywhere.
Unless they’re selling us ed tech. That’s when they visit. When they’re selling product or running for office.
We had an ed reformer from the state legislature visit us once, but only to take credit for the new public school we built without his help, support or even slight interest.
Then he went back to Columbus and lobbied against our schools for the whole legislative session. Less informed parents were probably fooled by this performance. Those of us who read his statements and know his work were not.
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Beware of Gavin Newsom: As mayor of San Francisco, he was pro-charter schools, and his current “anti-charter school” stance isn’t that at all — that’s only the union wishful thinking interpretation of Newsom’s response to the CTA pre-election question to him as to whether or not Newsom thought that California needed more charter schools: He responded “no”, but that’s not the same as being anti-charter and he could later decide that “yes” California does need more charters and could the public give any number of reasons provided to him by the pro-charter billionaires who are now backing him. Newsom has in his not-do-distant political past supported charter schools, and with all the Big Money now flooding into his coffers from pro-charter billionaires, he’s likely to switch again after being elected. Public school advocates and teachers’ unions are in the same situation with Newsom that they faced with Mr. Pro-Charter School Obama: Take it or leave it.
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The alternative to Newsom is a Trump Republican who supports charters and vouchers.
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A Trump Republican will be worse because there is more at risk for our Constitutional Republic than a Democrat like Newsom that has a history of supporting corporate charter schools.
As important as the traditional public schools are, what good will they be when there is no healthcare, more wars, no Social Security, more wars, no freedom of the press, more wars, no freedom of speech, more wars, no rights for women, more wars, children or LGBT, more wars, abortions are illegal, more wars, no more freedom of religion, more wars, poverty doubles or triples, more wars, there are concentration camps for minorities (Oh, we already have that one …), unemployment climbs, more wars, stock markets collapse, more wars, banks fail due to trade wars with everyone but Russia and North Korea, more wars ….
Did I mention more wars? Trump wants to increase the military. How is he going to do that when recruiters are having problems finding enough willing recruits? The answer is a return to the draft.
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I doubt he could be worse than Jerry Brown on this issue. He seems very bright; maybe he could learn something from the NPE report Carol Burris wrote?
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That’s an excellent point. Jerry Brown is rabidly pro-charter.
Newsom certainly can’t be any worse than Andrew Cuomo, who is the Antonio Villaraigosa of New York. Cuomo also got ALL the donations and he isn’t just pro-charter, but he has specifically used every bit of his power to make sure Mayors like Bill de Blasio who are not pro-charter are punished severely for not being completely in the tank for charters the way Cuomo is. Cuomo is the charter billionaire’s main oversight agent who punishes any Mayor who doesn’t go along with the entire pro-charter agenda.
Newsom can’t be as bad as Cuomo. But I believe Villaraigosa would have been.
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Interesting that Hastings donated the legal amount of $29,200 to Gavin Newsom’s campaign. Unlike Villaraigosa’s campaign, Hastings did not give millions of dollars to the California Charter Schools Association to support the campaign “independently”. He just wrote a check for a somewhat reasonable amount to the official campaign. Maybe Hastings learned that California voters don’t like his “independent” meddling. Probably not, but maybe. Maybe he learned that giving millions to the CCSA is terribly unpopular. Probably not, but maybe.
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“A recently passed law known as the California Disclose Act requires greater transparency in political advertising and funding to help voters make informed decisions. The Disclose Act makes numerous amendments to the state’s flagship law that regulates campaign finance and electoral activity.” …
“California may have found a way to alleviate concerns about dark money.
“The Disclose Act requires independent political committees that support candidates or ballot measures to display information about who funds their advertisements prominently, either at the beginning or end of publicly-disseminated advertisements. Generally, the ads must display an independent committee’s top three financial donors that contributed $50,000 or more so that viewers can easily see them. Backers of the law say that this requirement should help end the current practice of burying disclosures in fine print.”
https://www.theregreview.org/2018/05/29/wong-california-shines-light-dark-money/
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This is a very good idea. I hope New York adopts such a law.
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Thank you, Lloyd.
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A simple election: Newsom or a Trump stand-in ….. I can’t help reminding my “friends,” refusing to vote for Hillary and staying on the sidelines or voting for Jill Stein gave us Donald Trump ….vote for Newsom, work for Newsom, contribute to his campaign ….
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This is not a discussion about who to vote for. Newsom will win. The question is about how to keep him, during the campaign, from making promises to the very powerful and very active charter school lobby. I can imagine the CCSA threatening to support some moderate Dems in state legislature races, which would make it difficult for the new and progressive governor to pass his agenda. So Newsom is vulnerable and could feel forced to cut some kind of deal with CCSA. What will he give in return? Seats on the appointed state board of education? A promise not to sign charter accountability laws?
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