The veil is beginning to fall away from the billionaire-funded charter activity. There are no grassroots in this billionaire-driven “movement.” It is all about money. Without the billionaires’ money, the demand and the supply would dry up.
Inside Philanthropy looks at the funding behind Marshall Tuck, and the article assumes he has won. But millions of votes remain uncounted in California and the contest is not yet decided. At last count, the candidates were less than one percentage point apart. We will have to wait to see who wins the contest between Big Money and teachers.
On the eve of the election, spending for this election had risen to $50 million. The total is likely to be even higher when final reporting is in.
The apparent winner of the contest, Marshall Tuck, is the former president of Green Dot, a charter school network. He wants to expand charters in a state that already leads the nation in the number of such schools. The other candidate, Tony Thurmond, argued for putting the brakes on charters to address issues of transparency and accountability.
Tuck ran unsuccessfully for the same office in 2014 in a race that cost $30 million. In both cases, Tuck outspent his opponent. This year, his campaign had raised $28.5 million by election day.
The money has come from a who’s who of charter school backers and K-12 philanthropists, including Eli Broad, Reed Hastings, Lynn Schusterman, Julian Robertson, Laurene Powell Jobs, Laura and John Arnold, Dan Loeb, Michael Bloomberg and his daughter Emma, and three Waltons: Carrie Walton Penner, Alice Walton, and Jim Walton.
Among Tuck’s biggest backers was Helen Schwab, wife of the finance billionaire Charles Schwab, who gave $2 million to EdVoice for the Kids PAC, which managed independent campaign committees for Tuck; Arthur Rock, the venture capitalist, gave $3 million to EdVoice, while Doris Fisher gave over $3 million. Along with the Schwabs, Fisher has been a huge backer of charter schools as a philanthropist and a consistent mega-donor for political campaigns in this space.
A less familiar name on the list of top backers to EdVoice is businessman Bill Bloomfield. In fact, Bloomfield was the single biggest supporter of the PAC this year, with $5.3 million in donations.
What is crucial in this article is that it recognizes that the push for charters depends on billionaires who have no direct interest in public schools other than to destroy them.
Elected school boards are accountable to the people. To whom are the billionaires accountable?
The most important line in the article is the last one, which recognizes an obvious fact:
Regardless of what you think of charter schools, this seems like no way to make policy on public education, long regarded as among the most democratic institutions in America.
Ed reformers waving away their losses in Michigan and Wisconsin:
https://www.the74million.org/article/midterm-post-mortem-was-the-election-a-repudiation-of-ed-reform-or-just-a-sign-that-its-going-under-the-radar/
They don’t offer anything of value to the vast majority of people, because the vast majority of people use the public schools ed reformers don’t support or value.
At some point they have to address public school families and offer something positive and practical and useful, despite their ideological opposition to the continued existence of our schools.
The same old group of ed reformers won in Ohio- literally the same set of 7 people – they play musical chairs and each incumbent moves over a seat and sits back down.
This is what Ohio ed reformers are offering public school families and supporters- they won’t push thru any more gimmicky measurement schemes. We get a respite. There’s been too much “chaos” (true) so they promise to completely abandon our schools and do nothing.
This is the BEST they can offer us in Ohio? A promise not to harm our schools? We can demand more than that. They’re supposed to add value to our schools or why hire them?
“To whom are the billionaires accountable?”
This is a question that has to be brought to the attention of everyone of the 99%. The obscenely wealthy are buying our country as if being fabulously rich qualifies one to rule. I remember Bob Shepherd saying something about how learning was something no one could take from him. That really resonated with me; I wonder if our children will have the same opportunity to soak up knowledge freely or if that knowledge will be carefully curated to suit the needs of the ruling oligarchs. We cannot afford to ignore their out-sized role in our society any longer. I wonder if the Supreme court would rule the same way (Citizens United) now that the effects of that decision are so plain.
what might amaze the country would be a simple line graph of years when course offerings like Civics, Government, Geography and Social Studies peaked and then notably started to fall…
We have an oligarchy. Government does not work for us anymore. The EU seems to have achieved balance with capitalism while the US creates a free market free for all in which corporations may poison, lie to, and exploit us at will, and we should have little recourse. The EU has much more stringent laws that protect the health and well being of the citizenry. The EU recently passed privacy laws and health laws that reject Monsanto and GMOs. The US continues to have high rates of cancer and limited access to health care. We are the in the dark ages of American democracy with our self proclaimed “nationalist” in the White House.
Billionaires also buying our elections! 99% WAKE UP!
The OLIGARCHS don’t like democracy. The OLIGARCHS want total control over the masses … thus the lies about public education. They know that public schools are bastions of democracy. How better to serve themselves than kill off public schools by spinning lies.
I suggest that teachers do everything they can to inform and work with parents. They are our allies.