Three political scientists have written a book about billionaires putting money into local school board elections. Typically, the wealthy are not writing checks for their own school board elections, but even if they were, they are able to swamp the spending of others.
The book is titled Outside Money in School Board Elections: The Nationalization of Education Politics. It was published by Harvard University Press. The authors are Jeffrey R. Henig of Teachers College, Columbia University, Rebecca Jacobsen of Michigan State University, and Sarah Reckhow of Michigan State University.
They examine the role of outside money in five districts: Denver; Indianapolis; New Orleans; Bridgeport; and Los Angeles.
On this blog, we have frequently noted this kind of activity in many districts. People like Michael Bloomberg, the Waltons, the DeVos Family, Reed Hastings, the Koch brothers, and Eli Broad, and groups like Democrats for Education Reform and Stand for Children (carrying money on behalf of wealthy donors) have intervened in local school board elections, always in favor of charters, vouchers, and high-stakes testing. The Network for Public Education Action Fund examined the intervention of wealthy elites in several districts in its report called “Hijacked by Billionaires: How the Super Rich Buy Elections to Undermine Public Schools.”
Here is where the NPEA report and the Henig book disagree. NPEA believes that the intervention of billionaires into local school board elections is fundamentally anti-democratic because it undermines the ability of local citizens to make their own choices. NPEA knows that the goal of the billionaires is to privatize public schools via charters and vouchers. Our view is that those who spend vast sums of money distort democracy and are trying to impose their views by the power of their wealth to buy advertising, staff, mailings, posters, and everything else involved in a political campaigns. When local people can no longer afford to compete for a seat on the local school board, democracy suffers.
Henig, et al. do not agree with NPEA. Their view is that the expenditure of large amounts of money by outsiders is neither good nor bad. It might be bad because the money drowns out local voices. But it might be good because it brings more media attention to the school board races.
They are agnostic. Looked at from their point of view, it really doesn’t matter if Michael Bloomberg and Alice Walton put a few millions into your local school board race and overwhelm your neighbors Mr. Smith or Ms. Jones, who can raise only $10,000 or $25,000.
They conclude: “The consequences of outside money are neither wholly good nor wholly bad. Outside money can bring greater attention to elections that have, for far too long, been largely ignored by local media. Increased attention, however, can be skewed in favor of those with the most financial backing, leaving voters with little information about many candidates on election day. Similarly, increased media attention usually includes more information on policy issues, potentially educating voters about key issues facing their local schools; however, this increased attention is not evenly distributed across all issues.” And increased funding may produce increased voter turnout. “But our findings suggest it would be false—or at least premature—to conclude that the consequences of outside money are uniformly and decidedly good or bad.” (pp. 175-176).
The authors speculate about how this outside money might affect teaching and learning. “For teachers, we suspect that the influx of outside money could bring national and state debates about teacher accountability to their classroom door. Teachers might feel additional pressure to focus on areas that appear on standardized tests, as accountability pressure is ramped up by local school boards that focus more heavily on this issue. The hot glare of outside money in school board elections could mean that board members, regardless of affiliation, focus more time and energy on this policy issue, leaving teachers bearing the brunt of these expectations. For those worried about teacher recruitment and retention in local districts, such a focus might make their jobs even more challenging, as new teachers perceive these environments as hostile workplaces. For those who believe teacher accountability policies increase the quality of teachers, drawing attention to this issue through outside funding might be seen as a chance to improve overall performance.”
In short, you can expect that if the money people prevail, high-stakes testing will assume even greater importance; the district will have trouble recruiting and retaining teachers, who are likely to see the district as a hostile workplace. You might also anticipate more closings of public schools and more openings of privately managed charter schools. These are not insignificant consequences.
Surely, you might think the authors would see these outcomes as problematic. But they prefer not to take a position. Is it too much to expect three political scientists who study the role of money in politics to look closely at the research about whether test-based accountability improves teaching? Shouldn’t they show that they are aware of the 2014 statement of the American Statistical Association that test-based accountability for individual teachers is invalid? Shouldn’t they give some thought to the consequences of replacing public schools with private management?
They prefer to be agnostic. Maybe ramping up the pressure on testing might be a good thing, maybe it might be a bad thing. Maybe letting the billionaires buy control of your district might be a bad thing, but then again maybe not.
Needless to say, I think the authors are wrong. It is okay for billionaires to buy up your local school district if it brings more media attention? I don’t think so. It is okay to stamp out local democracy if it brings more people to the polls and makes them more aware of the issues? I don’t think so.
If billionaires want to give money to underwrite hospitals, libraries, health clinics, or local schools, with no strings attached, then let them give.
But if they give money so as to take control of local decision-making, that strikes me as a blow against democracy. How can political scientists be agnostic? What am I missing?
The larger question, it seems to me, is completely ignored: the need for campaign finance reform in all elections.
I suggest that the authors of this book read Anand Giridharadas, Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World. Or Jane Mayer’s book Dark Money. Their indifference to the dangers of allowing plutocrats to buy elections is frankly shocking. I don’t understand their agnosticism. I assume they don’t care because they are not bothered by what the billionaires want to do. But maybe I’m wrong and they just don’t want to take a stand in defense of democratic decision making.
I have argued over and over that donors of money need to be residents of the district being affected. Speech, however, is free, so if you want to come into our district, rent a hall and deliver remarks, that would be allowed, but to pay someone to do it for you, nope.
Why would we want non-stakeholders be able to decide for us what will and will not happen inside our district?
What we are doing now violates the “one man, one vote” principle of our democracy. Just as people from outside of voting districts are not allowed to vote in those districts, nether should they be allowed to donate money, services, etc.
I think we need to amend the Constitution to overturn Citizens United or redefine what constitutes “free speech.” Our current system only works for the super rich, not the 99%.
Great points all, Steve.
You need to see Buckley v. Valeo (1976)
https://www.oyez.org/cases/1975/75-436
The SC ruled in favor of free speech.
And that ruling also favors the right to be free to lie and mislead without any need to prove the lie is not a lie.
When President Teflon Ray-Gun got rid of the Fairness Doctrine back in the 19802, he turned free speech into a lie-fest and gave rise to the vast right-wing talk show world that does nothing but spew lies designed to mislead people.
The Fairness Doctrine did not restrict the freeedom of speech. What it did was to attempt to make sure what was reported through the media was based on facts that could be used to support any allegations and/or opinions and that anyone with a rebuttal would be provided space and/or time to respond. The Fairness Doctrine was designed to expose the liars and frauds.
NO! NO! NO!
“They prefer to be agnostic. Maybe ramping up the pressure on testing might be a good thing, maybe it might be a bad thing. Maybe letting the billionaires buy control of your district might be a bad thing, but then again maybe not.”
I agree that they should should read Anand Giridharadas, Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World or see and think about his trenchant observations available on the internet.
They should also recognize that their own stance is a perfect mirror of the party of Trump…”there were good people on both sides” and it is ok with us if the billiuonaires want to rig local school board races and put more teachers in the pressure cooker of truncated and invalid policies parading as if “accountability” measures.
Perfect analogy.
The travesty is that MSU was a gift from citizens who believed in a government of the people, by the people and for the people.
Michigan’s charters- 80% are for-profit. One-fourth of students in virtual schools fail to complete even one class. The Detroit News reported charters have been “brutal on Black families”. What are the odds that MSU political science faculty live in an East Lansing cocoon without knowledge about how DeVos money impacted education?
If people like Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, the Waltons, the DeVos Family, Reed Hastings, the Koch brothers, and Eli Broad, and groups like Democrats for Education Reform and Stand for Children were countries (think Russia and how they helped get the Deplorable Donald Trump elected president of the United States — no matter how you cut it, Donald Trump is the first verifiable illegitimate president of the U.S. Even if Mueller can’t link him to what Russia did in 2016, without Russia, DT would not be president – case closed!), then Mueller and others like him would be investigating the billionaires and their fake-front groups for bribery, collusion, and/or subversion and treason.
In fact, what they are doing is justification for declaring war and sending in the U.S. Military to defeat them because it is OBVIOUS they are domestic enemies of the U.S. Constitution.
Hang on a sec while I think: uh, no.
If it were true that ed reform billionaires buying elections improved “public education”, wouldn’t “public education” (across the board) be getting stronger and better?
Ed reformers have dominated policy for 25 years, thru three presidencies. They have a track record. Shouldn’t we be able to look at “public education”, system-wide, and see the improvements?
Who holds THEM accountable? They’re quick to scold and blame and vilify public schools but given how powerful they are (three presidents in a row, at least 25 states, lockstep adherence to the dogma in policy circles) shouldn’t they be able to point to aggregate improvements in “public education”?
Gentile Correction: Ed Deformers have dominated policy since 1983 when President Teflon Ray-Gun released the misleading and fraudulent report titled “A Nation at Risk”.
Not One, I repeat, not one president starting with Reagan has supported the public education system.
Public Educations Presidential Enemies List:
Ronald Reagan
George Bush
Bill Clinton
G. W. Bush
Barack Obama
Donald Trump
Six, not three presidents (all guilty) — that public ed-deformer policy war started like a small snowball rolling down the side of a mountain with the release of “A Nation at Risk” and as the years slipped by starting in 1983, the ball grew larger and larger and larger following a planned agenda until it was big enough to support NCLB and all the nuclear fallout that has followed NCLB.
This is the sum total of ed reform:
“The central reform strategies of standards, accountability, teacher quality, and school choice are the path to equity for students of color, low-income students, and others who face disadvantages.”
Remove the endless cheerleading for vouchers and charters and what do you have left?
Standardized tests. The sum total benefit public school students received from 25 years of “education reform” is…..standardized tests.
They could have saved a lot of time and money and just mandated testing 25 years ago. It’s all they’ve accomplished for 90% of students.
So elect them to your school board if you must, but be clear what you’re getting. If you’re a public school student or family the one and only thing these folks offer you is standardized tests. And if you want standardized tests you can purchase those without hiring any ed reformers- they add no value to existing public schools. Just buy the tests and skip hiring the ed reformers.
At my grandson’s school today, huge posters from Scholastic: “The more children read, the higher their scores on standardized tests.” Where the best venue to protest such garbage?
much reminded of a famous quote from G W Bush along the lines of, “Teach a child to read and he can pass a literacy test…”
The adminimals in charge of the school will not listen at all, well they’ll listen and then laugh at you after you leave. You’d probably be best served by finding a school board member who is anti-testing, if one exists, which I doubt, and speaking with them.
That’s right, Duane. It’s such a hard road, trying to convince admin to relinquish beliefs that test scores matter, especially when their school board bosses were elected with millions from (most often outsider) billionaires. They are captured by the corporate ladder climbing mentality. When the money flows to take over elections, caring about students instead of data goes out the window for most. It’s beyond frustrating.
Write a complaint to Scholastic. Get six others to write. Write the CEO. He or she will notice.
I will write. It’s the least that people who care about America’s children can do.
Who among MSU professors will be sending letters?
Scholastic has a form submission for feedback. They reply promptly to complaints. Their reply to me said the info about the poster would be sent up the chain to management.
I advised Scholastic. If managers failed to anticipate the actions of ed reform’s tech and hedge fund billionaires, after public education takeover, they were poor strategic planners. The threat that privatizers and corporate monopolists will take the firm’s share of the market/ profit for themselves should be on radar.
I showed my class a video on the Marshall Plan last week. Part of the video discussed CIA involvement in the election in Italy in 1948. Afraid the Italian voters would elect communists the way Germans sort of elected their recently deceased leader, the CIA poured money into helping defeat the leftist parties in the Itallian election. A CIA person was on video suggesting that this was one of several times this was done very successfully.
On another matter, I have been researching the history of the creation of the school where I now teach. There was a huge fight against consolidation of all the high schools in the county into one. During the political battle, fought in the meetings of the boards of education and county government, a reporter from a Nashville newspaper began to cover the meetings from a different perspective than the coverage coming out of the local paper. The guy who did the coverage became friends with the foes of consolidation, often spending the night with their families after meetings. He recalled to me driving home with them in a car caravan because threats had been uttered.
In both of these incidents, outside influence was brought to bear on a local election. Do these stories speak in any way to the discussion of how outside influences should affect local elections? Is there a difference when dark money enters the picture? Should international pressure be Brought to bear to ameorliate the harshness of one or another repressive local policy? Am I intrioducing false equivalence?
Many thanks to NPE for its extensive, comprehensive research on how the super-rich are a gigantic thumb on the scale of democracy. The document goes into great detail in a variety of cities and communities to demonstrate how donations by wealthy individuals circumvent the will of the people. Privatization is a perfect example of what is wrong with our country. Most people value public education. Yet. our national policy is mass privatization without consent of the voting public.
Appreciation for the work of the two Michigan State faculty would be unqualified if they were working to make public the contracts that were signed that set up EPIC at Michigan State, which is Arnold funded.
If Michigan State’s Faculty Senate is involved in review of the contract then, support for its faculty, who aren’t at the ed. department’s EPIC, would be whole hearted.
Correction- my quick read led me to the the wrong conclusion about the book’s authors. With justice, they will be the first professors replaced with Gates’ digital learning.
The Engler and DeVos legacy lives on at Michigan State.
Does the book, which I hope sells zero copies, address the spending ($500,000) of Gates and his Microsoft co-founder to defeat the re-election of Washington State judges who rendered verdicts favorable to public schools?
It is too bad that the vested interests of these researchers must be questioned. This is certainly needed, given what appears to be the pretense of having only “good people on both sides” the effort to shut down public schools and redefine the public for public education. With not much effort I found this about one of the authors.
Jeffrey R. Henig of Teachers College, The New Education Philanthropy: Politics, Policy, and Reform. Co-edited with Frederick M. Hess. Harvard Education Press, December 2015.
This volume is advertised at the Kovner Foundation website. The Kovner Foundation says this about its interest in education:
“The Kovner Foundation promotes excellence in public and private education by supporting public charter schools that make measurable improvements in children’s lives and supporting educational choice and competition through vouchers, scholarships and other initiatives that give parents and students options.”
“Closing the Achievement Gap. The Foundation partners, including Achievement First, Success Academy Charter Schools, and Uncommon Charter Schools, are realizing extraordinary success on metrics ranging from test scores to graduation rates, college enrollment and completion. These organizations are closing the achievement gap for children in under-served communities that suffer because of inadequate traditional public schools.”
In addition, the Foundation supports the Charter School Growth Fund.
“The Foundation (also) supports organizations that advance educational excellence for every child through quality research, analysis, commentary and advocating bold solutions and comprehensive responses to education challenges. We support organizations that promote educational choice with a special focus on school vouchers, scholarship tax credit programs and education savings accounts.”
These Kovner Foundation supports these organizations: American Federation for Children Growth Fund, Institute for Justice, Foundation for Excellence in Education, Thomas B. Fordham Institute, and….
Program for Educational Policy and Governance at Harvard University. As it happens the book edited by Frederick Hess and Jeffrey R. Henig was published by the Harvard University Press. https://www.thekovnerfoundation.org/further-reading
Jeffrey R. Henig is also the author of The End of Exceptionalism in American Education: The changing politics of school reform. Harvard Education Press, 2013. Henig has long helped to legitimate, not just analyze, the takeover of decision-making about education by various federal agencies along with unelected corporate and non-profit organizations. That takeover is designed to minimize and eliminate the work of elected local and state officials.
Some time ago I read Sarah Reckhow’s research on the role of private foundations and networks of these in shaping educational policy. The aritcle was in Educational Researcher. She included network graphics to show some of the interlocking directorates and flows of money. You can find some of those graphics online. It is disappointing to see that she is a co-author of this “let’s pretend we are agnostic” book.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sarah_Reckhow/publication/263541538_EDUCATIONAL_RESEARCHER_The_Expanding_Role_of_Philanthropy_in_Education_Politics. This is a pdf. Goggle images has some of her graphics.
Additional understanding about the mindset of one of the authors is found in, “Local Ed Politics Far From Dead”, (July 29, 2014, MSU Today”). It reads like an advertisement for TFA. “TFA candidates (for local school boards) champion the core values of respect and humility.”
hmmm, ed reform, humble? Rick Hess wrote that they wanted to “blow up” the ed schools. Then, he set forth an alternate plan- that money be used to take over instead.(Philanthropy Roundtable- “Don’t Surrender the Academy”.)
Out of 6, “influential faculty”, as determined by Edu-Scholar, who are at MSU, Reckhow is one. Two others are associated with the Arnold-funded MSU EPIC center. One of them was formerly with the University of Southern California. Gates-funded Pahara boasted that the USC Dean was the organization’s first Fellow in an Ed Dean position. (BTW-The Dean omits Pahara from her posted USC bio. )
With justice and a concern for Michigan’s citizens, the new governor will rid the state universities of the billionaires’ ed reform money.
Rick Hess created and calculates the Edu-Scholar rankings.
Of course.
There’s a J. Schneider who co-authors with Jacobsen on occasion.
Professor Jack Schneider (no c.v. posted at his faculty web page to identify grants received), evidently, gets a paycheck from a northeast public university. Additionally, he’s associated with the Massachusetts Consortium for Innovative Education Assessment. (No site tab that lists funders.) On April 10, MCIEA is sponsoring, “The New Accountability: Lessons in Student Learning and School Quality for Massachusetts”. It’s free to attend and free breakfast provided. hmmmmm
Jacobsen also co-authors with a R. White.
A Rachel White wrote in a MSU Education Dept. article,
on 5-5- 2015 –
TFA prides itself in bringing smart, creative and innovative young adults (into schools, whereas) teachers unions have been charged with stifling creativity-
Presumably, reducing the discussion to two positions- the do-gooder billionaires vs. worker collectives is more effective than it would be to add a third villain- students, parents and communities who advocate for democracy.
“Charter School Growth Fund”- it’s “Executive in Residence, Finance and Operations Practice Lead-Impact Team” was formerly Metro Atlanta’s Exec. Director of TFA. Before that he was KIPP’s CEO in New Orleans and, Deputy Superintendent of the Louisiana Recovery School District.
Diane reported that New Orleans just closed its last remaining public school.
Laura,
The abstract at the researchgate link included “leverage” wording.
“Scaling up” is currently very popular vernacular for foundations as is “leverage” (SSIR) . Both terms are borrowed from Wall Street.
New donor class PR focuses on “rebuilding trust” in foundations and venture philanthropists. They are trying to foist the idea on the public that if billionaires prove their plots have efficacy, then trust must be given. It’s the weird world of PR messaging. Since the foundations decide the evaluation criteria and do the measuring, the scheme will have no value and won’t take the stench from villainthropies.
Predictably, there will be a plethora of messages that try to sell the public on the idea that billionaire political spending doesn’t have adverse impact which will coincide with a plethora of messages that boast of the positive changes billionaire spending delivers in schools.
And, coincidentally, the changes benefit hedge funds and the tech industry while robbing communities of democracy, middle class jobs and the economic multiplier effect of local education dollars spent locally.
Marc Andreesen, a Facebook board member, said India was better off under colonialism. His pronouncement was irrefutably wrong.
Andreesen’s self-serving, knowledge error is the same as that of self-appointed ed reformers, who rob democracy to fill their bank accounts.
It’s simple. If billionaires want to help education, let them pay more taxes. They have no more right to influence decision making than anyone else.
I wonder why thry did that. Seems thry would know better.
How many “important” links have I seen on Facebook that I ignore?
I think this would be true of increased advertising for school board elections and other education matters. No matter how much noise you make, there are going to be so many people who are going to just move on to another article. And the ones who do pay attention will often be swayed by the big money that’s been put towards spreading pro reform propaganda.
The concentration of wealth in the hands of so few has created a blight, both nationally and internationally, on our political systems. I agree with Donna: we need finance control laws in all areas of local state and federal governance. In my mind, it’s been the single most important political issue for decades now.
Bloomberg, Gates, Zuckerberg, Waltons, etc, have tons of money, but that alone does not make them “experts” in any field that they choose. They should not be setting our public policies. Yet the vast amounts of money that they spend are doing just that.
Gitapik,
I saw what you describe in Ohio. Local radio broadcasted advertisements for the state board of education candidate who the rich funded. His opponents who lacked access to deep pockets had no advertisements and no name recognition.
It’s just the way the richest 0.1% want it. They force the 99% to spend the little they have to counter the money the wealthy spend. The rich use consumer profits generated by the 99% to undermine the democracy of the 99%.
Correction- The MSU authors are in the ed. dept. not political science dept.
MCIEA, linked to Prof.Jack Schneider, is funded by the Center for Collaborative Education which is funded by Nellie Mae Education Foundation, New Profit, Next Gen Learning, and other richest 0.1% er’s foundations and, of course, Betsy’s U.S. Ed. Dept.
Prof Jack Schneider is a good guy.
He makes podcasts with Jennifer Berkshire.
One significant statement of goodness would be workshop sessions run concurrently with accountability sessions…. An indicator of social justice would be the midnight requisitioning of morning refreshments for attendees.
(1) Accountability’s Game Plan- Plunder the Common Good and Destroy Unions
(2) Toxic Snake Oil Fed to Kids and Communities – the Billionaires’ Political Graft
(3) The Menace in Our Schools- Profits Levied by Silicon Valley and Wall Street
(4) The Link Between Harm to to Mental Health and “Accountability”
(5) Identifying the Remote Child Predators – Villainthropists
(6) Defining Child Abuse in the New Age of Pre-School Readiness for Minimum Wage Jobs
(7) Billionaires Dragging Down the Economy e.g. Theranos, Enron, 2008 financial crisis, concentrated wealth, labor’s zero real wage increase, Oxycontin addictions, etc.
All we need to do is examine the Douglas County School District in Castle Rock Colorado. Americans for Prosperity came in and bought the school board elections. New board brought in a superintendent who threw out the collective bargaining agreement and instilled market based pay. What did this get the District? Today 55% of our teachers are in their 1st through 5th year. The churn continues. “For those worried about teacher recruitment and retention in local districts, such a focus might make their jobs even more challenging, as new teachers perceive these environments as hostile workplaces.” Even our new board does not seem to understand the damage that has been done and continues as experienced educators leave the system. Well I believe there are 20? charter schools to choose from so that must be good since choice is the latest and greatest fad. Beware of outside money. The only purpose I see is destroy the public schools so the American school system can be OPEN FOR BUSINESS!!
Kathy,
You are correct. And, too many are complicit, either by their silence or active support- the media, public university administrators and faculty, students, lazy citizens, bought and paid for politicians, faux “liberal”
groups like the tech monopolist-funded Center for American Progress and hedge-fund-financed DFER.