Sometimes it helps to solve a mystery when you put it out there for public review. Like posting photos of the “Ten Most Wanted Criminals” in every postoffice. Tips come in.
An hour ago, I learned the identity of the person who named the members of the Task Force that is supposed to propose reforms to the state’s notoriously weak charter law. Seven of the 11 members of the Task Force are connected to the charter industry. The choices are so brazen that the chair of the board of the charter lobbying group (California Charter School Association) was named to the Task Force, along with another CCSA employee.
A tip came in. It makes perfect sense.
Governor Newsom’s chief of staff Ann O’Leary selected the Task Force.
O’Leary served as a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, which is unflinchingly pro-charter school.
She was education advisor to Hillary Clinton during her campaign in 2016. Early in the campaign, Carol Burris and I met with her at the Clinton headquarters in Brooklyn. We tried to persuade her that Clinton should oppose charter schools because they are the first step towards privatization. We mustered all our evidence about the dangers to public schools, the risks of deregulation of public money, persistent corruption, suspicious real estate deals, profiteering, etc. She was unmoved. She was insistent that Hillary would not oppose charters. We came back for a second meeting, and the best we could get was that Hillary would oppose for-profit charters. Hillary would not oppose charters.
During the campaign, while in South Carolina, Hillary was asked about charters, and she spontaneously spoke critically about charter schools, saying that they don’t accept everyone. O’Leary must have gotten loud complaints from some funders, because she quickly wrote an article for “Medium” walking back Hillary’s mild critique and reassuring readers that yes, indeed, Hillary supports charter schools, just like Arne Duncan.
Don’t worry, California charter lobbyists and billionaires, corporate charter chains, and entrepreneurs! Ann O’Leary will protect your charters!
Why would the Superintendent of Public Instruction not be tasked with forming the charter school oversight committee? What can public school supporters do? We worked so hard to get our pro public education candidates elected, while the billionaires continue to defy the public will and block transparent democratic processes.
There are several actions that you could implement. You can call the media to complain about the unfair practice or air your complaint on social media. You get a petition going against the composition of the task force, but this is time consuming. Time many not be on your side. If you can mobilize enough people, you can go picket in Sacramento and call the media, or meet with people in the governor’s office to call attention to this injustice. Whatever you do, do not remain silent and allow corporations to hijack your schools and laws.
Diane has clout with Thurmond and probably some with Newsom, so addressing them directly would be a start. Lighting a fire under the CTA president to address them would be really good too.
Newsom was never pro public education. Many of us tried to warn voters.
I’m not totally cynical about Newsom. I think he is pro-public education but doesn’t know that much about it (which would explain how he let this happen). I feel like I’m pretty familiar with him.
When Newsom first ran for mayor of San Francisco in 2003, there was a ton of excitement on the left about his opponent, Green Party member Matt Gonzalez. I was super single-issue at the time (well, maybe I still am), and Newsom talked a lot about supporting and respecting our public schools, while Gonzalez ignored them and if he ever mentioned education at all, spoke approvingly of charters. (This was at a time when charters were hip cool groovy on the left because whoopee, no rules.) I got in a number of debates with my fellow lefties over that — both over Gonzalez vs. Newsom and whether it mattered if they respected public schools and public-school families, and over charters. I know that’s just talk, but it’s still something.
Newsom got big boosts in his young life by becoming close to wealthy insider families in San Francisco’s old-line power structure — white upper-crust Catholics — especially the Gettys. All those folks went to the city’s elite Catholic power high school, St. Ignatius (just say SI in San Francisco). But Newsom didn’t go to SI with his privileged pals — he went to public Redwood High in Marin County — and I’m convinced it’s because he has (openly acknowledged and discussed) learning disabilities, and SI wouldn’t touch him after he struggled in Catholic K-8. That may have affected his attitude somewhat.
Outside of education, I don’t consider Newsom a deep thinker, but he was really bold with the breakthrough same-sex marriages in 2004, and seems to be on the same path with his recent declaration that he will refuse to enforce the death penalty.
He did seem to have a good team of education advisers during his campaign, including the well-known Julian Vasquez Heilig and two longtime activist friends of mine, from whom I learned much of what I first knew about charters and so-called education “reform” (former SFUSD school board member Jill Wynns and children’s advocate Margaret Brodkin).
Newsom is great on many issues. So was Jerry Brown.
But the fact remains that his task force on charter reform is in the hands of the charter lobby.
I have it on reliable sources that Ann O’Leary named the task force.
Newsom surely knows that charters are a very big deal in his state.
Yes, Julian Vasquez Heilig was on Newsom’s Education advisory team during the campaign.
Yes, he was on his transition team.
No, he was not named to the task force nor to the panel of expert advisors.
How did that happen?
Why was a scholar who worked so hard for Newsom excluded from the task force while charter lobbyists were named?
It’s not just the billionaires blocking the public will. It’s the “pro-public education candidates” we elected. Let’s give credit where credit is due. That is, don’t give them a pass.
As long as they treat charter schools as “public schools,” which they are not, they can claim to be pro-public school.
I hope that this discovery will lead others to really close scrutiny of the staff for local, state , and federal candidates for elective office, not just the main candidates. I know nothing of the case in California but I know that my local school board has acquired a TFA alum and that a representative from PIE is getting press for marginal wraparound services. In addition, a new nonprofit called Ohio Excels is determined to give “the business community” a larger voice is pre-K to higher education. The President of this new non-profit is a long time shill for the B&M Gates Foundation and other charter- loving entities in Ohio. She succeeded in rigging the public voice in an online survey and a dozen regional meetings for Ohio’s ESSA plan. Neither of these activities allowed for serious attention to the scandals of charter schools. Ohio Excels intends to push for “choice” and attention to job prep as the major mission of public education…forget the rest but keep the tests.
One precondition for democracy’s survival is the dismantling of the role of public employees in SETDA. There’s a paragraph at SETDA that begins with, “SETDA, CoSN*,… contributed to this resource (it appears to refer to a handbook). The paragraph continues, “ESSA elevates technology’s use in education in unprecedented ways”.
At the CoSN website, NEA is identified as a supporter of a forthcoming 2019 CoSN report.
Ann O’Leary is Newsom’s Chief of staff? Game over, edu-friends. Game over.
All Newsom’s equivocating during the campaign now makes perfect sense. CTA leaders should have listened to their members and endorsed John Chiang.
^This right here is the truth
You can tell a lot about a person — far more than what they say — by the folks they choose to surround themselves with.
It’s really irrelevant who chose the task force because Newsom had the final say.
Either he was fully aware of what was going on or he was clueless.
Neither scenario is particularly flattering for someone who ran on the promise of charter reform.
He looks to me like another actor. California seems to choose a lot of them as governor’s.
truly scary to see who gets actual power AFTER the election
Third Way, CAP and its sister organization, DFER, are gatekeepers who make sure the richest 0.1% stay in power. By talking a good game, they create the impression they are on the left. For example, CAP proposes teachers should have a raise while meanwhile they undermine teaching as a profession. CAP talks about improving women’s economic situation while they help to destroy the career that lifts the most women into financial independence. Third Way’s candidate, N.O. Mayor Landrieu, established his bona fides as a “liberal” with the civil war monument removal. About the worst of them all is Tom Daschle, who chairs the CAP board and founded Bipartisan Policy Center.
DINO’s want candidates like Cory Booker and, they use identity politics to sell them to the targeted voters. Hillary and Obama were in CAP’s stable.
The founder of CAP, John Podesta, is in a video sitting on a dais with Chester Finn and Jeb Bush. The three call on donors to fund privatizing candidates. O’Leary, formerly with CAP, advised the Silicon Valley fund… same team. Podesta when interviewed about the Mueller Report appeared blasé.
If a Dem establishment candidate runs for President in 2020, instead of a real progressive, Dem voters will hold their noses and vote for the person. But, just like last time, they won’t bring friends and family to the polls with them.
And, the DINO’s will orally absolve themselves of blame for electoral losses.
Diane Ravitch is the best friend a teacher can have. Thank you! Sounds like Gov Newsom has made a questionable choice for his chief of staff. What are we going to do about it? Sulk? I think not. Break out the pens, folks, they’re mightier than the sword (and the money).
Yes, indeed LeftCoast Teacher. We are indeed fortunate to have Diane. Thank you, Diane.
The pen is mighty. Diane has proved that right here.
I won’t forget her name. Just can’t write it.
See how everything is connected?
Has Kamala Harris been given too much credit for her opposition to charter schools? She is doing well with the general public…if the 12 million dollars she has raised in reportedly mostly small donations mean anything…….The media is more fascinated with Beto and the Biden and Bernie Sanders.
If CAP backs Harris. She is bad news.
Thanks for your complete, unchallengable summary, Bernie. Is AG Barr conducting seminars?
She likes Netanyahu & AIPAC. Enough said about KH.
You and Linda don’t like her very much. I did some searches on CAP Aipac…….and what she has said and done in that area. All I have so far, is that you don’t like her. Hope you have reasons. I kind of like comparing her interview of Kavanaugh and comparing it with the way Biden handled his duties with Anita Hill.
I want to hear from David Tokofsky [former LAUSD Board Member] who apparently reads this blog.
David, why do you favor Newsom, and why did you say to give him a chance three weeks ago? Why shouldn’t we begin a recall effort at the end of June, after the Charter Task Force has published its (undoubtedly lousy) report?
Newsom is a friend, but he needs a new chief of staff.
Newsom obviously subscribes to the old saw:
Keep your friends close, but your chief of staff closer.
I think that means Ann O’Leary is in control of Governor Newsom’s puppet strings. She is the power behind the curtain.
The real governor of California isn’t Newsome who is a governor in name only.
The real power in California is Ann O’Leary. I wonder what blackmail details she holds over Newsom’s head to get him to sit when she says, “Sit, do as I say, and shut up!”
Speaking from San Francisco, I don’t agree. I think he delegated in an area in which he didn’t know much. Newsom hasn’t been a wimp since he was elected.
Speaking also from the East Bay near San Francisco, Newsom has to prove who he is and letting Ann O’Leary have that much power is a check mark against Newsom’s ability to lead the state.
It’s obvious she was the wrong person for that task. If Newsom does nothing to correct what she did, then he isn’t the leader you think he is.
The Charter Reform Task Force should be made up of people that clearly can be unbiased.
By the way, I was born in California in 1945. I’ve lived in California my entire life except when I was in the Marines and was sent to Vietnam in late 1965 through 1966 when I rotated home in December of that year.
Newsom was also born in California but I’ve lived in California longer than he has.
I agree about O’Leary and with everything your second post said, Lloyd. I just don’t agree that Newsom is a governor in name only and she’s pulling the strings, despite the fact that he obviously used terrible judgment in delegating this education panel to her. And I don’t think there’s a basis for believing he has given her all the power because she’s blackmailing him. (Age 65, lived in Bay Area all my life.)
Newsom will have to prove me wrong. Until he provides that proof through his actions and not his words, I will continue to allege that he might be a governor in name only — meaning, he sold himself to the highest bidders, and one of them was the charter school industry.
Lloyd
I think your assessment is correct
As I said above, either Newsom knew what his chief of staff was doing and agreed or he didn’t know and has now effectively lent his seal of approval to her insubordination by not firing her.
Either way, he is simply an “acting governor” — and he will certainly not win any Academy Award for such a performance.
An interesting note: Ann O’Leary’s father, the late Charles “Chick” O’Leary, was a union man, in a big way. He was the President of Maine’s AFL-CIO for 20 years!
She apparently went to public schools in Maine. I hope one day she will explain why she is passionate about a sector that is 90% non-union.
Neusom (and, O’Leary) can easily prove he’s not the puppet of tech monopolists. (1) Neusom can direct the California Board of Education to cease involvement in Gates-funded SETDA. (2) He can reconstitute the obviously biased charter task force and, make Vasquez Heilig a member.
O’Leary fell far from the tree, similar to Gov. Cuomo.
Kinda makes you wonder about the biological father, doesn’t it?
Like Marian Wright Edelman’s Children, the Apple fell far from the tree and rolled away. One worked for Rhein DC. The other runs Stand for Children, which funnels billionaire cash into school board elections to promote charters and attack unions.
So disappointing. Everything with these charlatans has to be a grift, a riff, a game of three card monte. The light of truth is disinfecting and these privatizers know how to stay in the shadows. Democracy dies in the darkness within which the charters dwell.
Sadly, like Trump, they do heinous things in broad daylight e.g. the composition of the charter task force.
At the Global Philanthropy Forum this week, Larry Diamond of the Hoover Institute, described America as in dire shape relative to democracy. Fordham’s Chester Finn and Stanford’s Hanushek are at Hoover.
Another guy who spoke at the Forum was from PURPOSE. He said the same thing about democracy. PURPOSE is partnered with Bill Gates.
It was reported last week that GPF scheduled Charles Koch as the keynote speaker for its conference.
Contempt for Democracy
Contempt is in the open
For everyone to see
But rest of us keep hoping:
“Contempt is not for me”
True Dems know the GOP and establishment Dems contempt is for them.
GOP voters don’t think the contempt is targeted at them until someone like Romney tells them- “47%”.
How do these people, like bad pennies, keep turning up?
Does anyone have a real job to offer this woman? I really don’t consider pandering to billionaires real work.
Just sayin’.
Is O’Leary’s daily log of activities available through FOIA?
Oh, come now.
It takes years of preparation along with deals with unsavory characters to become a philanthropanderer
The Philanthropanderer
Pandering to billionaires
Is really not that easy
Most would find the dank affairs
Would make them very queasy
To disregard the queasy feel
Takes years and years of prep
Philanthropanderer made a deal
A deal with Devil kept
Beauty, SomeDAM!
At this point, I think, indeed I am convinced, if I looked up “extemporaneous” in a thesaurus(particularly in the sense of the dictionary definition “Skilled at or given to unrehearsed speech or performance”), I would find as a synonym “SomeDAM Poet.”
Poet is the blog’s creative genius commenter-
Philanthropanderer- it should be the new word for the year!
The descriptor applies to most of the article writers at the Stanford Social Innovation Review. When I comment there, I’m going to use it, with permission?
Maybe you meant hackstemperheinous?
Here’s an idea. Let’s do like we did for 8 years with Obama. You know, pretend he was the greatest thing since sliced bread, while acting as if Arne Duncan wasn’t appointed by Obama, but by Satan.
Newsom was lukewarm and hard to pin down on public education during the election. He pretended to be vaguely in our camp, but then surrounds himself with people like O’Leary. This isn’t by accident. It’s not as if Newsom is clutching his pearls and wondering what happened. I’ll bet Thurmond knew who appointed everyone when he told Diane to chill and give peace a chance.
And calls for CTA to step up and DO SOMETHING are hilarious. Those people should work for The Onion. One year ago, CTA was giving most Democrats in the Legislature an A or B including the folks who voted against public transparency in the financial dealings of public charter schools. All my union dues money going to send the CTA Board to the Democratic Party convention to kiss a$$. Look how well that’s working! Here’s an idea. Let’s pour money into candidates who vote against us. I mean, why change the plan now?
What many of us don’t want to acknowledge is that this path to hell was paved by Democrats as well as the GOP. Yet we keep looking to them. And I’m told my vote must be used for whomever gets the nod, even someone like Booker. Because Trump. Ok, just remember that you voted to put another nail in the coffin of public education.
I hear your anger and it is shared. Michael Moore showed in his film, Fahrenheit 11/9, that teachers had to fight their own unions for the solidarity that would win the day. If the NEA is supporting digital learning, it is inexcusable.
BATS should certify as a union. The idea that candidates seek counsel from Randi, in light of the hacked DNC recordings is an insult.
All of that said, from Prime Minister Trudeau, you judge a candidate by his opponent, not by God Almighty.
The GOP will rob the 99% and leave them dying in gutters like feral dogs. The establishment Dems are like bad boyfriends who steal from your purse and bad mouth you to their friends.
Booker is CAP’s guy.
Funny, I thought Booker was DeVos’ Guy.
Good one.
DeVos is rich and the CAP backers are rich- it’s what bonds them to Booker.
What is CAP?
CAP is Center for American Progress, the think tank of the conservative establishment wing of the Democratic Party. It opposes vouchers but supports charters and testing. Like Duncan.
Shouldn’t the newspapers be reporting this? I emailed the education reporter at the Sacramento Bee. What else can we do?
My two cents worth-
Both Tony Thurmond and Gov. Neusom have contact submittal forms at their government sites. If you live in Calf., write to your state house representative and senator.
If your U.S. Congress member is Susan Davis, she’s DFER’s gal.
Find a primary candidate to run against her in the next election.
So who hired Ann O’Leary? We all know the answer to that question. The governor is not innocent here.
Unacceptable! As the public & educators grow increasingly disgusted with the unwanton proliferation of unregulated charters, our incredibly fierce educators on this Taskforce are outnumbered. Leaving many wondering how the forces who worked so hard against the election of the current SPI were actually rewarded.
Charter enthusiasism is basically the Republican Party in an attempt to take over the secular school system while enjoying the tax collection system that is set up and running to support public schools. It is an insidious plot to reinstate “private” schools as another way around the discredited voucher program. No to Charter Schools!
Betp just lost me!
Charter Schools are to education what Scientology is to religion. Charter Schools contribute to educational choice the way Fox Network brings alternative facts to broadcast news..
At some point I hope someone will ask Beto if his children attend a Charter School. I will, given the chance. Still the answer will determine my support for him or not. We certainlly don’t need a Charter School advocate as FLOTUS.
Diane,
I believe you have a lot of power with this blog. Why not do a post on Ann O’Leary and her hand-picked co-opted task force every day? There are a few good journalists who read this blog and if you post about Ann O’Leary’s choices for the charter reform task force so frequently that it will be impossible to miss, maybe the news media will pick it up. Maybe the LA Times will run an article or someone will write an op ed saying “why would Newsome allow his rabidly pro-charter Chief of Staff appoint a majority of rabidly pro-charter people to this task force?”
When Ann O’Leary’s name becomes synonymous with the entire pro-charter movement, then either Newsome will have to publicly acknowledge his own love and support for charters and school privatization or limit O’Leary’s power to non-education issues.
I notice that it was only Ann O’Leary’s op ed that walked back HRC’s truthful statement about charters during the campaign. Maybe someone can reach out to HRC to see if she is really as anti-public school as Ann O’Leary and if she is not, perhaps she would be willing to publicly chastise O’Leary. Maybe HRC believes in public schools more than she believes in a co-opted pro-charter Ann O’Leary who appears to have no concern for doing what is right but only concern for doing the bidding of billionaires who demand more charters with little oversight.
NYC PSP,
I’ve been thinking about a repeat. But not daily.
Yes, journalists in CA read this blog.
Thank you!
The Republicans are very successful in keeping any issue that benefits them in the news. How often in 2016 did the press write about “e-mails”? It was non-stop. Helped by prominent Republican politicians making speeches or giving interviews about it.
I think the only way progressives can fight this is to use some of the same methods. Getting their prominent people to get on message and repeat it over and over again.
One reason the pro-charter movement is so powerful is there is almost no prominent politician willing to take them on. Not Bernie. Not Warren. The person who seems most likely is AOC — she seems to get it. I believe things would be very different if the politicians who claim to support public education actually used their bully pulpit instead of enabling the privatizers by remaining silent.
They had their chance when the NAACP called for a moratorium. AOC was not a politician then, but the other so-called progressives completely ignored it. If they had been talking about it often, it would become an issue.
If Bernie Sanders made a campaign trip to California and made a speech about education and asking about this charter task force and why it was stacked with pro-charter people, the media would start to look closely at it. Same with Warren. If they used this charter task force make-up to pivot to why Democrats must embrace the NAACP’s moratorium, it could even be a campaign issue — at least in the primary.
Apparently Ms. Ravitch, your over-generalizing, anti-charter posture fails to consider kids whose lives are literally at stake. Wake-up call: kids with high anxiety and depression suffer so much more in the large, highly concentrated student populations of traditional schools- particularly high schools. These kids NEED small schools and charter schools are overwhelmingly small. Charter schools are literally saving them from dropping out and committing suicide. If you had actual experience with charter schools you would know this.
Mayor Bloomberg closed most of NYC’s large high schools. Students have hundreds of small public high schools to choose from. I never heard anyone claim that charters are a refuge for anxious, depressed students. I wonder how they respond to “no excuses” iron discipline.
Honestly, the “magical miracles run by saints” hooey about charter schools lost its cachet a good 15 years ago.
Mike, I taught from 1975 to 2005 in California and the district where I taught had a small, alternative high school that existed to teach students that needed a smaller school environment with flexible classes. That alternative HS is still there.
Here is your wake up call, Mike, most corporate charters don’t want anything to do with “kids with high anxiety and depression”. Most corporate charters want kids who are easy to control and earn high test scores. Most corporate charters do not want any children who offer a challenge of any kind.
In addition, even public schools with large student population often had smaller class sizes for special needs children like those with “high anxiety and depression” The high school where I taught for sixteen years did. Those classes often had only 12 students with a teacher and an adult aid. Those classes often started a little later than the rest of the classes and ended a little earlier so those children with “high anxiety and depression” left campus without having to deal with the wave of students that left at the end of the school day.
I don’t think you know what you are talking about — possibly you are an alleged shill for the charter industry spewing misinformation and lies to help keep those vampires alive.