The charter billionaires spent about $62 million to push their single issue in the state elections but lost the two big statewide races. They did better in legislative races, unfortunately, where it was easy to swamp their opponents.
Advocates for charter schools outspent almost everyone else trying to sway California elections in 2018.
Pro-charter groups helped break spending records trying to swing the race for Superintendent of Public Instruction, the most expensive down-ballot fight in California this year. They were also the top sources of outside spending in the race for governor — and even state Senate and Assembly races.
In total, charter school advocates made $62 million in independent expenditures on this year’s elections, according to a KPCC/LAist analysis of campaign finance data.
But most of that money was spent on losing efforts.
Last week, Marshall Tuck conceded the superintendent race to outgoing State Assemblyman Tony Thurmond. Pro-charter groups — most notably the advocacy group EdVoice — spent a total of $34 million trying to elect Tuck.
They were up against significant opposition: the state’s largest teachers unions and the California Democratic Party spent about $20 million to support Thurmond.
The loss comes after a disappointing gubernatorial primary in June. The political wing of the California Charter Schools Association spent $22 million trying to get former L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa into the general election for Governor. Villaraigosa didn’t even come close.
They will now curry favor with Gov.-Elect Newsom.
Pro-charter groups fared somewhat better in state legislative races.
Combined, EdVoice and the California Charter Schools Association spent more than $5.9 million on those races. CCSA Advocates was the largest single source of independent expenditures in state legislative races.
In a down-ballot state legislative race, an independent expenditure of several hundred thousand dollars “is a lot of money,” Sonenshein [of Cal State L.A.] said.
In all, charter groups spent money trying to sway 17 state Assembly or Senate contests. In 13 races, charter school groups supported the winning candidate; eight of these winners were safe incumbents who held their seat by a double-digit margin.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Speaking from San Francisco, where I’m a mainstream journalist: The charter sector suffered a huge, crushing, significant defeat when Tony Thurmond beat Marshall Tuck for Superintendent of Public Instruction, close though the race was.
The source of Diane’s report, the LAist blog, is basically falling for charter propaganda in writing as though the charter sector had some successes too — treating other races where the charter sector’s preferred candidate won as a victory for charter schools — since those races weren’t at all about charter schools.
In the governor’s race, the charter sector also suffered a crushing defeat in the primary, since they were avid, high-profile backers of former L.A. Mayor and eager education so-called “reformer” Antonio Villaraigosa, who was soundly defeated by former San Francisco Mayor and Calif. Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom.
As governor, Newsom will probably be somewhat centrist on charters, but he doesn’t really have a record of backing them, and his team of education advisors includes several strong anti-charter voices (academic Julian Vasquez Heilig, former longtime SFUSD school board member Jill Wynns, San Francisco children’s advocate Margaret Brodkin). He lives in Marin County, where several communities have or have had pitched battles over charters, so he has to know they’re not the heaven-sent miracle that the ignorant and gullible often think they are.
Reposting a comment I made on the EdSource site: An interesting point is that the education “reform” sector has worked very hard over the years to portray right-wing, free-market ideas (privatization; freedom from regulation; hostility to unions, especially female dominated unions) as liberal/progressive. For decades now, the “reform” sector has made a great point of hiring people with Democratic party credentials — dating back to the late ’90s, when once-hailed, now-fizzled for-profit Edison Schools loudly trumpeted having hired executives who had worked in the Clinton administration; once-hailed, now-obscure Parent Revolution did the same thing; it was always conspicuously pointed out that once-hailed, now-vanished Michelle Rhee was a Democrat; and on and on. (Can anyone think of other right-wing ideas that are so carefully and cunningly packaged that way?) The Tuck campaign certainly tried to apply the same strategy, so it’s particularly interesting that a lot of voters from the blue parts of the state did see through that and the Tuck support generally came from conservative areas — though given the close numbers, it’s likely that a lot of liberal/progressive voters still didn’t clearly get the picture.
Thanks to writers like yourself, the truth is getting out to voters. People are starting to understand that privatizers seek to destroy public schools and move this public asset into private pockets. The core value of democracy is on the line in these elections.
I hope Newsom remains an independent voice rather than a coroporate stooge. I am glad that Juilian Vasquez-Heilig is in the picture. Hopefully, there will be some pursuit of equity in California.
“Pro-charter groups helped break spending records trying to swing the race for Superintendent of Public Instruction, the most expensive down-ballot fight in California this year. They were also the top sources of outside spending in the race for governor — and even state Senate and Assembly races.”
Remember, too- if ed reformers get their way and eradicate labor unions their message will be the ONLY message anyone hears. With politicians reciting ed reform slogans like trained parrots and massive amounts of charter money flowing in, the ONLY funding for political speech that questions the ed reform line is labor union spending.
There won’t be any political debate at all if they get their way- we’ll hear Eli Board’s political speech and no one elses.
Imagine these races without teachers unions pushing back. All we would get would be political speech approved by the echo chamber and the politicians they bought.
A constant trope of ed reform is that teachers union spending in elections means teachers unions “bought” the politician.
So does this apply to charter lobby spending? If they’re consistent it has to.
If union backing candidates mean the union owns the politician then charter lobby backing means the charter bought the politician. They can’t apply their theory to one side and not the other.
It has struck me that the Citizens United decision is not coming out like the conservatives planned. More money was supposed to get more votes. This election seems to suggest that selling cow manure to a dairy farmer is harder than some thought. This election cycle suggests that you need money, but a good platform that makes sense might even be more powerful under the right conditions.
When the plutocrats realize this, perhaps they will put their dollars into other ventures. Where will these dollars go? What will they do to make the world safe for plutocracy? If you cannot buy a school board, will that oblige you to buy a senator? Or is that item already gone from the shelves?
Without the massive amounts of billionaire bucks spent in California on portraying Marshall Tuck as the enlightened progressive and slinging slime at Thurmond, there’s no way Tuck would have come so close in the blue parts of the state. So more money kind of helps, but it does backfire on them when it still doesn’t succeed. It seems like sooner or later the billionaires will start to wonder if their push for privatization-friendly candidates is worth the money.
The billionaires could have easily spent three or five or ten times as much money on the Tuck-Thurmond race, but I think their PR people told them not to exceed a ratio of 2-1 because it might backfire.
My guess is that the more people understood who was funding Tuck, the more it hurt him.
Interesting that Tony Thurmond won in the Bay Area, by a large margin, because folks there know him.
Equally interesting that Marshall Tuck lost in the Los Angeles area, by a large margin, because folks there know him and know the charter agenda.
Those are also areas that are more liberal overall, so people who didn’t know much about either candidate may have just seen past the fake packaging of Tuck as liberal/progressive. I’ve definitely heard from people who just saw who was funding Tuck and how much they were pouring into his campaign and chose Thurmond entirely for that reason, without knowing much about either candidate otherwise.
Money doesn’t always win!
may there come a day when carefully explaining to the voting populace that such-and-such candidate it taking massive money is explanation enough
From your mouth to God’s ears, as we say.
The day when reporting to California voters that a candidate took massive donations from a small cabal of billionaires causes the candidate to lose is nigh if not already upon us. Villaraigosa was close in the polls until Reed Hastings flooded him with millions, at which point he sank. All we need is diligent free press, as the Founding Fathers (at least the Antifederalists) knew when they wrote the 1st Amendment. Even if speech is equated with money in Citizens United, a free and independent press can still buttress democracy. Connect the CCSA’s candidate for school board in March to Ref Rodriguez’s bloated billionaire support and the privatization lapdog will lose. Bigly.
This is a wonderful awakening if the Public knows to vote against the billionaires. The billionaires are never on the side of the little guy.