Charter school supporters have dropped an unprecedented $25 million into Marshall Tuck’s campaign to become California’s next State Superintendent of Public Instruction.
His opponent Tony Thurmond is far behind in fundraising, having raised less than half that amount, “only” $10 million, mostly from educators.
“Independent committees supporting Tuck have raised $20.4 million as of Monday compared to $7 million by a committee supporting Thurmond. Likewise, Tuck is ahead in direct contributions to his campaign, having raised $4.2 million compared to Thurmond’s $2.8 million, as of the most recent campaign finance filing deadline Sept. 22.
“Thurmond is a former social worker, school board member and council member in Richmond. Tuck is the former president of Green Dot Public Schools, a charter school organization based in Los Angeles, and CEO of the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, a district-city initiative that runs 18 district schools. Most recently he’s worked for a nonprofit to develop effective teachers and principals.
“As early voting ballots are mailed to California voters this week, record levels of funding continue to pour into the contest primarily from advocates of charter school expansion who favor Tuck and organized labor groups backing Thurmond. Independent committees that support the candidates combined to raise almost $12 million in the last three weeks alone, with Tuck’s supporters accounting for the vast majority of that money.”
Tuck is a financier who entered education as a charter school executive. The big money behind him anticipates that he will continue the privatization of public schools and the expansion of charter chains into suburban and rural areas. Tuck is supported by Eli Broad, Reed Hastings, the Walton Family, and other prominent billionaires.
Thurmond is a social worker and legislator who has devoted his career to helping children. He has been endorsed by the California Teachers Association, the Los Angeles Times, and the California Democratic Party.
This election will test the proposition of whether billionaires can buy a statewide election for a key education leadership position.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The wealthy neo-Liberal leaders of the New Feudal Order in the United States will not be satisfied until they have entirely gutted all public goods. They’ve almost completely eliminated unions (today, only 11 percent of workers are unionized in the US, and these are mostly in government work). They are trying to eliminate public schools. Mitch McConnell just announced that we need major “entitlement reform.” Why? Well, his party gave a big tax break to corporations. Corporations file quarterly returns. Because of the tax break, federal revenues from corporate taxes are down BY 30 percent, which will add trillions to the deficit. Mitch McConnell’s answer to that? Cut Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare. Rob the poor and elderly to give to the rich. Break any institutions by which government serves the public good.
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I should have said “the Un-tied States.” The Russians have played their cards well. They gave us the guy who would divide us against ourselves.
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CLASS WAR going on in our schools. SICK.
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take EVERY penny….
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Yes, it is a class war, and Democrats need to loudly and clearly teach about this assault instead of playing identity politics which is a big loser for them.
Bob,
The facts you give are true and damning. How do we get these facts into the electorate’s head? It seems to me school should lay a strong foundation of general knowledge about how the world works. This builds CAPACITY for absorbing new details. What I find is so many voters lack the capacity for absorbing and processing information because they lack this foundation. They despair of understanding. Many admirably admit they can’t understand. Many hide their ignorance with blanket claims like “They’re all corrupt”, “Voting is pointless”, “My vote doesn’t count” and “There’s no difference between any of them.” Conventional wisdom holds that such “apathy” is a result of the failures of Democrats to offer appetizing fare. There’s a little truth to this, but I think it speaks more to the failure of schools to impart the strong foundation of world and civics knowledge you need to be fluent in the language called Politics. “Apathy” is often ignorance in disguise.
Teachers and Democratic politicians and activists need to be PEDAGOGUES if we’re going to foil the demagogue-in-chief.
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Keep hammering on this, Ponderosa!!! You are soooooo right. When does the Democratic Party recognize that it needs to start teaching?
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may many new-to-office candidates win and start doing just that
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What’s New on the Political Midway This Carnival Season?
The current crop of extremist Repugnicans are masters of the shill game–of distracting attention. Right now, they have the entire country debating whether Elizabeth Warren has the right be be proud of having some small percentage of Native American ancestry. MEANWHILE:
The Republicans are preparing their legislation to gut Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare, which they will put forward when/if they retain power after the Midterms.
Keep them looking at the moving hand so they won’t see where that token actually went.
That’s what these people have mastered. The carny conman shill.
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I wish journalists would reorient themselves to stop tracking what’s NEW and instead track what’s IMPORTANT.
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Wow. You nailed it there.
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What’s the annual education budget in CA, maybe 60 billion? Not that the state sup controls all that money, but a huge budget for one person to have some influence over.
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Tuck winning the election in California will be another cash cow for the charter school industry just like Betsy DeVos flooding the crooks with public money.
And what does the GOP want to do: cut Social Security and Medicare to free up more money to keep funding the frauds.
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Tax cuts for corporations and the 1% require cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.
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Since Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid are paid for by a separate tax that workers and employers pay out of their earnings, that money does not come from income tax or sales tax.
When the GOP and Dumb Dumb Twitter Fingers Trump cut those social safety net programs, are they going to also cut the tax rate that workers and employers pay into those programs or will they be using taxes that were meant to fund those programs to make up for some of the money lost from the tax cuts to corporations and the wealthy.
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Of course, they will not lower our taxes, and continue to collect Social Security and Medicare taxes. They will then find a way to funnel that money to defense, corporate welfare, charter schools and of course, more tax-cuts for the beleaguered, overtaxed billionaires. Sad ….
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Trump just ordered every federal agency to cut its budget by 5%. Not clear if that includes military. Deficit growing fast due to corporate tax cuts.
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Isn’t it illegal for a president to ignore the budget the Congress approved and revise it after Congress passes the budget?
Trump has been doing this repeatedly, cutting funds Congress approved for federal agencies and shifting them to mostly ICE.
I read he cut funds from the IRS’s investigative division and now the IRS can’t investigate tax fraud.
I read he shifted funds from FEMA to ICE.
Then there is his control to limit the FBI investigation into BK.
How is he controlling the investigation into the Saudi murder of that journalist that was tortured and then dismembered?
And the deplorable Always-Trump mob eats it all up and shouts, “Lock her up!”
To Trump’s deplorables, “Lock her Up” probably means more than one woman now: Hillary, Elizabeth (Pocahontas), Ford, Stormy (Horseface) Daniels … If Trump targets a woman, any woman, she is added to the list Trump’s mob wants to lynch.
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