Patrick Wall of Chalkbeat reports here that the forces of privatization are spending big in Newark to squelch local independent candidates.

Mayor Ras Baraka, who once railed against charter schools, has now joined forces with their funders, which gives him access to their money and power.

Wall writes:

The top spender in Newark’s school board race is a special-interest group with ties to New Jersey charter schools, according to campaign filings reported ahead of Tuesday’s election.

The group, Great Schools for All PAC, has already spent about $46,000 supporting a team of three candidates backed by Newark’s political establishment. By contrast, a rival team has reported spending less than $3,300 so far.

Last year, the group spent nearly $147,000 on the board race — more than three times the amount shelled out by the next-biggest spender.

Great Schools for All is an independent group that can raise and spend unlimited amounts in elections, but cannot coordinate with the candidates it supports. It has paid for online ads, direct mailings, phone banks, and canvassers to promote its chosen candidates, according to the filings.

The group’s chairman is Kyle Rosenkrans, the former CEO of the Northeast Charter Schools Network who was recently an official at KIPP New Jersey, one of the state’s largest charter school networks. The group’s donors include the political arm of a group that wants to expand charter schools across the country and another group co-founded by a KIPP board member.

Great Schools for All is just the latest charter-affiliated entity to spend heavily on Newark school board races. In 2016 and 2017, a pro-charter advocacy group called the Parent Coalition for Excellent Education, or PC2E, spent a combined $380,000 supporting candidates, according to campaign filings.

The spending is part of a trend across the country where national funders pushing a vision of education change that usually involves more charter schools are playing an ever-greater role in local school board elections.

In Newark, both PC2E and Great Schools for All have backed teams of candidates endorsed by Mayor Ras Baraka and North Ward Councilman Anibal Ramos. The teams — originally called Unity, and now dubbed Moving Newark Schools Forward — have swept each election since the once-rival politicians and charter school advocates joined forces in 2016.

Defenders of the coalition say it has eliminated the divisive political battles and clashes between supporters of traditional and charter schools that once defined the city’s school board elections. But critics argue that the alliance and the outside money flowing into the election have made it nearly impossible for independent candidates to win seats on the board.

Denise Cole, a Newark parent and education activist who is running on a grassroots team called Children Over Politics, said the special-interest group has “smothered” the voices of Newark residents vying for seats on the board.

“School board elections are for the people and the people’s voice — not for outsiders to come in here and take over our schools,” said Cole, whose teammates include Saafir Jenkins and Leah Owens…

Rosenkrans’ new nonprofit is bankrolled by The City Fund, a national group planning to spend nearly $200 million to push cities to expand charter schools and give district-run schools more autonomy. An offshoot of The City Fund dedicated to politics and lobbying gave Great Schools for All $25,000 to spend on the Newark board race, according to campaign filings.

Great Schools for All received another $15,000 from Better Education for New Jersey Kids Inc., which grew out of a group established in 2011 to support education policies favored by then-Gov. Chris Christie and opposed by the state teachers union. The co-founders were New Jersey hedge fund managers David Tepper and Alan Fournier, a KIPP New Jersey board member whose foundation donated $1 million to KIPP schools in Newark.

To cut to the chase, a national organization–The City Fund–is bankrolling the slate of pro-charter candidates in Newark. The eight non-funded candidates have raised a total of $5,900. The point of this operation is indeed to “smother” the voices of local residents, unless they want to give their public schools to a corporate charter chain like KIPP.