Rebecca Klein, education editor of Huffington Post, broke the story that rightwing groups have infiltrated NAACP chapters in California to create a fake rebellion against the organization’s 2016 call for a moratorium on new charters. The resolution passed by the National Civil Rights Group demands a halt until charters agree to be accountable, to cease diverting money from public schools, and to stop pushing out students they don’t want.
When three local NAACP branches in California passed April resolutions opposing the national group’s call for a charter school moratorium, school choice advocates greeted the news with glee. U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVosvoiced her support in an interview. The Wall Street Journal published a flattering editorial about the move, describing it as a welcome “revolt.”
But leaders at the California state NAACP say this so-called “revolt” is fake news. They say the main member who pushed these actions ― a woman named Christina Laster ― is being paid by a right-wing group connected to the Koch brothers to infiltrate the organization and sow chaos. They also note that, despite the media attention, these resolutions were dead on arrival at the national organization for failure to follow proper submission protocol or rejection by higher committees.
In July, California leadership asked the national NAACP to initiate an investigation into the three branches ― Southwest Riverside, San Diego and San Bernardino ― and their leaders’ motivations.
“It’s definitely a funded and deliberate effort to try and do a hostile takeover,” said Rick Callender, the second vice president for the California Hawaii NAACP…
Laster works for the California Policy Center, a conservative think tank that’s an affiliate of the State Policy Network. According to a 2012 report from theCenter for Media and Democracy, the State Policy Network is a main driver of legislation created by the pro-business American Legislative Exchange Counsel and has deep ties to Charles and David Koch, the energy billionaires who spend vast sums of money to promote conservative causes and candidates. The California Policy Center is dedicated to pushing education reform causes, with a focus on beating back the state’s teachers union. The group has been behind a number of lawsuits designed to hurt unions’ bottom lines.
An officer of the San Diego branch of the NAACP is employed by the California Charter Schools Association, the charter lobby.
“These are people on the payroll of charter school associations and payroll of organizations that are trying to attack the greatest civil rights organization in the U.S.,” said Callender.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Hispanics in Texas are fed up with #45 and his lying, hateful rhetoric that is often aimed directly at immigrants and their families. As a result, more Texas Hispanics are registering to vote. The recent retirements of three Republican members of the House provides opportunity for Democrats in the coming election. There is the possibility that Texas could turn blue in the not too distant future. Of course, there are many hurdles to cross before this can happen. Gerrymandering is a large obstacle, and the many young people in the state need to show up at the polls for this to happen.https://washingtonmonthly.com/2019/06/17/if-texas-goes-blue-it-will-change-american-politics-permanently/
Sorry: I meant to post this about the Texas post.
I hope Hispanics vote this time and turn Texas blue again. Good people should not vote for bad people.
The full article is very nuanced and I hope everyone reads it in its entirety before posting comments…
I can not rule out the possibility that the woman mentioned went to work for the conservative organization because she sincerely believed that charter schools help inner-city black kids. San Diego tends to be a conservative Republican part of California.
The implication that she is a paid conservative plant comes from just one side of the dispute. The woman counters that she is just being vilified for expressing a dissenting opinion. Sadly, not being on the scene, I can not determine who is telling the truth.
“Vilified”?
It is clear from the nuanced article that this woman is being given a prominence that is far outsize what she should get.
I am sure there is an NAACP member somewhere who wants to shut down all charters immediately. Why is that outsize news? Why would that person get coverage as if they represent some view that is being “covered up” because the NAACP won’t support closing down each and every charter right now?
I’m sure there is an NAACP member who also believes extraterrestrials landed in America. Why isn’t the national organization promoting an investigation into that? How dare they cover that up!
The notion that there are ANY African-Americans who are demanding charters should be free to suspend their 5 year old children as many times as they want with no due process, no transparency, and if the parent complains their child will be publicly trashed with private records released in which his teachers write the ugliest things about him designed to make him look like a criminal, is outrageous.
The notion that parents who use charters are fighting because they WANT their child to have no rights at all because white charter CEOs are smarter than them and should be able to do anything they want to their children is outrageous.
Polls may show that African-American parents support charters but they also support in much greater number their charters having oversight and transparency and their own children’s rights being protected. Unlike this woman, most parents who choose charters don’t want to give up their children’s rights so a charter can be free to abuse them.
This woman represents no one and she is getting outsize attention as if she is.
“Polls may show that African-American parents support charters but they also support in much greater number their charters having oversight and transparency and their own children’s rights being protected. Unlike this woman, most parents who choose charters don’t want to give up their children’s rights so a charter can be free to abuse them.”
Where in the source article does this woman express that opinion about wanting to allow charters to abuse her children? Nowhere that I can see. This is a completely emotional, partisan response which is why I rarely comment on Diane’s blog anymore. This kind of reaction happens too frequently.
You state above that “polls show that African-American parents support charters” so her opinion IS representative of that segment.
She is obviously getting attention because she is opposing the national organization and has now attracted the attention of other conservatives. As a consequence everyone from both sides is piling on.
I learned a long time ago in my debate class in public schools that there are always two sides to every question, and a reasonable person will try to evaluate the arguments of both.
I fear for the future of our country because partisan bile and propaganda is now seen as the way to win arguments, and it has become almost impossible to determine what the facts of any issue really are….
That is all the time I intend to spend on this issue today, and will not be commenting further. I have work to do.
David Kristofferson,
Did you actually read the NAACP’s position? Because the NAACP is demanding transparency and accountability for charters. This article is about a single member who opposes that position.
If you had read the NAACP’s report that passed after a long period of hearings and thought, you would have noticed that the organization was concerned about the rights of their children being abused while charters were demanding that they should be able to do whatever they wanted with no transparency.
That’s why even parents with kids in charters support it.
It sounds as if you don’t, which makes me wonder why.
^^I should add that in re-reading my post, it seemed as if I was addressing you, but I had intended to just further comment on the ideas you brought up in your post. I’m sorry if my tone offended you.
I do think it is clear that she does not represent anyone but a very small group of people who have an opinion that just happens to align with the most powerful right wing billionaires and who get outsize attention.
Even parents who support charters support transparency and accountability and due process so their kid doesn’t get mistreated. That’s what the NAACP proposal was so when a person whose employment just happens to be subsidized by Koch gets attention as if she represents more than a handful of outliers, I don’t think she should be given equal weight with the members of the NAACP who supported this proposal.
Anything funded by the Koch family is vile.
No one works for them innocently.
Diane, I am no fan of the Kochs and agree with you that their influence has been very bad for the country. That said, unless there is definite evidence that this woman was engaged in a paid conspiracy (which I did not find in that article which was merely full of claims and counterclaims with few facts), I find your response surprising. Since the Kochs fund so many conservative causes
Accidentally hit reply on my phone – Since the Kochs fund so many conservative causes, your comment above basically implies that the vast majority of conservatives are vile… I hope that is not your intent.
To be clear, I am slightly left-of-center in my politics, and I am not a “plant” trying to defend any of them in this forum. I just do not think vilification of opposing views is a civilized response, and that is why I reacted this way today. I prefer winning debates on the basis of facts and logic.
Anything funded by the Koch’s is vile.
Facts: Laster is quoted in the HuffPo article spouting empty charter slogans. Three California chapters are being investigated. The charters are siphoning large sums of money out of public schools. Betsy DeVos praised Laster. She’s on the wrong side, the Koch side, not the NAACP side. There is a public good side and a wrong side; there is no center.
Almost 90% of Black voters voted Democratic in the 2016 election.
“Right-Wing Foundation Money Fuels Trump’s Racist Echo Chamber…The Koch’s …bankroll many of Trump’s defenders on social media.” (Truthout)
Ms. Laster could oppose the NAACP position on charter schools without being part of an affiliate of SPN, the Kochtopus. Her ties to the Koch network deservedly provokes disparagement.
I am not a huge fan of ballet, but I have a hard time calling the NYC Ballet company vile. The same with the United Negro College Fund, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New York City Opera, or the Smithsonian Museum.
And what is vile about this: https://www.charleskochinstitute.org/issue-areas/criminal-justice-policing-reform/
I forgot that the Koch brothers try to buy respectability by donating to reputable organizations. Since cultural institutions are always in need of cash, they take Koch money. Lincoln Center and major museums have taken Koch money, helping them to gain a veneer of respectability.
I’ll have to modify my statement that all those who take Koch money are vile. That’s obvuously not true.
It would be more accurate to say that the Koch brothers are themselves vile and use their billions to destroy the social safety net on which so many Americans depend, including Social Security and public education.
Read Nancy MacLean’s brilliant “Democracy in Chains.”
Diane It’s their intentions that are vile. What makes it even more vile is the way they use the good (like donating to truly good organizations) to do or hide their vileness. CBK
I think it is likely that you largely disagree with most of the political views of the Koch brothers, but I suspect that you and the brothers agree on criminal justice reform. Here are the areas they focus on:
Too many things are criminal offenses
Policies like civil asset forfeiture and the overuse of military equipment and tactics create bad incentives for officers and jeopardize people’s civil liberties.
When a person is accused of a crime, the government must uphold constitutional protections, such as the right to an attorney and the restrictions against excessive bail and fines.
Too many people go to prison—often for far too long—for low-level, nonviolent crimes.
Thousands of laws erect barriers for those with a criminal record to getting jobs and rejoining their communities with dignity, increasing the likelihood of recidivism.
I would expect the vast majority of posters here would agree with the Koch brothers on these points.
Just more sugar dust to help their PR campaign and rehabilitate their image as destroyers of democracy and oligarchs.
I don’t trust them, not one bit. They were behind the campaign to privatize Social Security and to destroy public education.
They are truly awful people.
te is trapped in concrete incapable of abstraction.
No surprise. Bet that dump is involved.
He’s the master of lies, deceit, immorality, manipulation, and pure scum.
It is up at OPEd. https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Alert-Koch-Brothers-Are-P-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Education_Koch-Brothers_NAACP-190808-253.html#comment741497
with this comment : The Kochs know that education is the key to democracy, and must be demolished so the a population of ignorant serfs will be created as they run the show.
the tech goal: drones, managers and oligarchs
ciedie aech “. . . drones, etc.” and apparently, fake educators brought to the student, sometimes in twos, by artificial intelligence. I’ll find the article and post it here later. CBK
David Kristofferson If you are still reading, in the case of the “reform-to-charters” movement, I think there exists an inherent conflict between:
(a) the “local” issue of parents (of course) trying to get what they see as the best education for their children (the short run), and so choosing a charter school with that hope in mind, but who don’t understand the larger public-private issues which flow from:
(b) the (long-run) base intentions of those who want to privatize education (and everything else) in order to (we can make a list here, but for instance) steer public funding to self-dealings, religious “education,” and places and means for covert biases of all sorts to thrive (racism, etc.); to badmouth and so slowly kill public education; and to take control of curriculum so that they can spread the Koch-type cancer-mentality; and the Gates’ ideas to “buy my technology/get a job/pay for yourself; and generally to avoid public oversight (how dare “the government” try to control the now-funded paternal US!)
I’m with you on making well-developed evidence rule number one. However, the charge of “planting” moles in organizations, even ones who are well-meaning themselves, would not be the first time the Koch’s have been involved in such questionable activities. Check out the student movement at George Mason University in Virginia (just outside D.C.) to “UnKoch our campus;” as well as their funding entire economics “departments” at universities that already have such departments, but who don’t follow the Koch ideologies. (I posted here on this a few months ago.)
‘
I’m busy too. But my point above is that, so are parents. And I worry that many have not taken the time or effort to understand just how insidiously anti-democratic the privatization movement and the Kochs, the Gates, and others like them have become, nor how systematic, institutional, and long-term are their efforts. Kudos to the free press, such as it is. CBK
This reminds me of when Michelle Rhee’s alleged pedophile husband, and then-Sacramento-Mayor Kevin Johnson, engaged in similar “infiltration” of an organization, with the ultimate goal being the expansion of charter schools nation-wide.
The story’s a bit complex, with multiple moving parts, but here goes:
Johnson tried to execute a hostile takeover of a national organization of mayors (of medium and small-size cities), by first infiltrating it, getting himself installed as its leader, and then using that power to expand and open as many charters in those cities that the organization’s leaders led. (Emails later showed that Rhee was a key figure masterminding this behind the scenes.)
Got that?
When Johnson was thwarted by officials within the organization half-way through this process, Johnson, presumably at his wife Michelle’s behest, went to Plan B.
Johnson and Michelle realized full well that — with such opposition from current officials within the mayors’ organization — he and his wife Michelle would never be able exercise any or enough charter-school-promoting control of this organization, so he then dissolved the organization, claiming it was bankrupt. Officials within the organization — again, those opposing Johnson and his plans — vehemently denied the organization was bankrupt or anywhere near being bankrupt.
Johnson then started a new clone mayor’s organization — one that no longer had the folks opposing his and Michelle’s charter expansion schemes— to replace the now-closed mayors’ organization, and unilaterally named himself as the new clone org’s “president.”
(Jesus Christ. You CAN NOT make this stuff up.)
Again, the goal was to use that position to open and expand charter schools in as many of those cities (whose mayors were part of this organization) as possible.
One notorious aspect of this was that paid mayoral staff, paid by the citizens of Sacramento, were doing all this while working in the Sacramento mayor’s office — which was completely illegal — both their doing so while working for the mayor, and getting paid out of the mayor’s budget.
It got even wilder after that.
Reporters from Deadspin and the Sacramento News & Review (SNR), the scribes who were writing about and uncovering all this, attempted to obtain all mayoral office emails pertaining to this hostile take-over of the mayors’ org and, and also related to the later attempt to close it and open the new clone mayors’ org.
In response to this, Johnson (again, presumably at his wife Michelle Rhee’s behest) filed a lawsuit attempting to bar the public’s and reporters’ access to those emails, which the reporters claimed were fair game for being released under California’s Public Records Act, as they were received and sent on Sacramento government computers and property, written and received by Sacramento government paid employees, with all of this done while being paid and employed by the city of Sacramento.
Pretty open and shut? Right?
Ehhhh, not so fast.
Johnson’s lawyers argued that, since the mayor was being sued by folks trying to stop Johnson from taking over the original mayors’ organization, and later stop it from closing it down and opening up a replacement mayor’s organization … these emails all now should be permanently sealed on the grounds that releasing them would … get this .. violate Johnson’s personal attorney-client privilege as then-leader of the now-closed organization. (???!!!). You see, he had earlier hired an attorney, who was cc:ed on all this email correspondence.
When the other officials of the original and illegally dissolved organization — the ones fighting Johnson’s initial coup taking it over — saw that their organization was listed, along with Johnson, as one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit attempting to seal the records which they wanted released, they blew a gasket, and rightfully so.
You can read about this here:
https://deadspin.com/how-kevin-johnson-destroyed-a-black-mayors-group-to-pro-1706908176
Perhaps the worst part of this — from Rhee’s point of view — were the emails, when they were eventually released, showing Rhee’s involvement in this. At one point, Johnson and his fellow co-conspirators attempted to publicly vilify one of the officials of the original organization, allegedly falsely claiming that her mishandling of the mayors’ org’s budget had led to its bankruptcy and dissolution, and Rhee typed “Amen!” in an email when responding after reading a forwarded copy of the email about this (allegedly false) public vilification.
Oh, and here’s the part about Johnson using attorney-client privilege to seal the emails from the public:
https://deadspin.com/kevin-johnson-sues-sacramento-hides-behind-group-that-1715330856
After. year of legal court battles, the SN&R (Sacramento News & Review) and Deadspin reporters finally got access to those emails, and they were not pretty:
https://deadspin.com/secret-emails-show-kevin-johnson-spying-on-attempting-1784042899
DEADSPIN: ” (the now-released emails) reveal lots of no-goodnik behavior from Johnson and his coup team, a clique of civil servants on the Sacramento payroll, staffers from Johnson’s huge web of nonprofit groups, at least three public relations outfits, volunteer hangers-on, and lots of lawyers from the firm of Ballard Spahr. (At least a dozen Ballard Spahr lawyers have worked pro bono for Johnson on NCBM litigation.)
“The records indicate that at some point Johnson changed his goal from running the NCBM to ruining it. Johnson’s team, for example, is found dispatching secret agents to spy on NCBM board members at hotels and restaurants while conspiring to sabotage a potential $2 million windfall for the NCBM scheduled to come just a few months before he filed to have the organization dissolved through the bankruptcy courts. The documents also appear to support detractors’ long-leveled allegations that Johnson mingled the NCBM’s mission with that of Michelle Rhee (i.e. expansion and opening of new charter schools, JACK), his wife and fellow school-privatization demagogue.
” … ”
“The bulk of the unsealed documents deal with Johnson’s takeover of the NCBM, a clandestine and ultimately disastrous effort that peaked in May 2013 when he succeeded in being named president of the group, only to be deposed by the group’s board of directors two weeks into his term. It’s been a non-stop legal battle ever since between Johnson and NCBM elders, with suits filed by and against the group’s executive director, Vanessa Williams, and a controversial bankruptcy petition all still pending. After civil litigation in Georgia courts, Johnson was restored as the NCBM’s president in early 2014, but was still clearly at war with his constituents.”
Anyway, this was and is a wild and woolly story that not many folks remember, as it was soon eclipsed by the story of multiple underaged girls claiming Johnson molested them back in Phoenix over a decade earlier, and whom he paid off. Since the statute of limitations had run out, they could not prosecute Johnson, but the disclosure was enough for him to withdraw from his attempt to get re-elected as Sacramento’s mayor.
Thanks for recounting this story.
Isn’t this whole story whack (as kids say these days)?
Here’s some clips from the third link ABOVE:
“It’s hard to put into words how diabolical Kevin Johnson is,” says Calvin Grigsby, a San Francisco-based attorney and activist. Grigsby is now representing Vanessa Williams and other anti-Johnson NCBM stalwarts who are working to remove the group from bankruptcy. Their main legal argument, made in filings in federal court, is that Johnson filed the bankruptcy petition fraudulently.
“Grigsby admits his side has been legally overpowered thus far by Johnson and (Johnsons’ attorneys) Ballard Spahr, but says the new emails should convince anybody who reads them how strong their case is. Johnson and his lawyers have taken steps that could prevent Grigsby and the NCBM’s old guard from ever getting a chance to use the new evidence, however: Johnson’s AAMA has entered a bid in bankruptcy court to buy NCBM’s name along with “any goodwill” associated with the historic group. Grigsby’s side conceded it does not have the money to outbid Johnson.
“ ‘The guy fabricated [a situation] so he could liquidate a company so he could start his own (charter-school-promoting) company,” Grigsby says, “and that new company could advance his business interests. We should have already had these emails. Kevin Johnson should have turned these over to us in discovery in the other cases. They hid them, claiming attorney/client privilege. We see that was false. What else have they hidden? The problem for us is, how do we get a court to listen to us?
““He’s a fake,” Mayor Robert Bowser of East Orange, N.J. and a former NCBM president, told me. “Kevin Johnson is a coward,” said Mayor Gary R. Richardson of Midfield, Ala. “He’s just a basketball player. A basketball player with no rings,” said Mayor Michael Blunt, of Chesilhurst, NJ. “He grabbed my butt,” said Vanessa Williams.”
All of the ABOVE is HERE:
https://deadspin.com/secret-emails-show-kevin-johnson-spying-on-attempting-1784042899
The saddest thing it that the other side didn’t have the money to fight, so Johnson and Rhee won, just as Johnson’s successor was taking the oath of office.
Read this epilogue to the story.
WARNING – it’s a depressing, perhaps infuriating read:
https://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/k-j-s-shadow-coup/content?oid=23078956
Diane About the DEPLORABLES: If there is one thing we can lay at the door of public education since WWII, it’s the absence of a political education–the slow loss of history and the humanities, philosophy, the arts, etc., but especially a POLITICAL EDUCATION. And I don’t mean propaganda–but rather a self-applied knowledge of how all of the different political systems that have emerged in history actually work, or don’t.
That’s what’s missing in Trump’s base; and probably precisely at the behest of those same long-term organizations where the line between “authentically conservative” and “totalitarian” is fuzzy at best. I don’t think it naive to say that, if MOST of these folks really knew what was at stake, and how Trump is using them, they would change their views in a New York minute.
Though SOME will always choose fascism over democracy, I think the vast majority of the Trump “base” is not “deplorable;” but rather does not know that they are shooting themselves in their feet, which are, unbeknownst to them, still standing in the spirit of democracy and its still-present institutions. These are the people who will be the first to regret the loss of democracy, if and when it is gone, and when, for instance, like Putin, our leaders start having their opponents poisoned–with impunity. The politically-unaware base are breathing the air of democratic freedoms while supporting those who are hell-bent on poisoning it–truly Pied Pipers.
We are living in a 50+year watershed of lots of good (public) education; but where the core of any good education–an understanding of the history of political orders–is the ignored elephant in the room. We cannot CHOOSE DEMOCRACY unless we know what it is and how it differs from other forms of government, and unless the greater WE can recognize the red flags of its potential demise when it comes on the horizon–as it is, as we speak. CBK
Don’t “lay it at the door of public education.” We teachers didn’t do this. If you’re meaning legislatures and state school administrators, then I will agree with you. But I don’t know a teacher in any of the humanities that hasn’t been doing everything to keep citizenship and the Constitution in what they teach.
Threatened Out West Exactly–I don’t know any history teachers who tried to get rid of history from the curriculum–had to be at a “higher” level. CBK
Threatened Out West A less-obvious but pervasive fact is that teachers’ voices have notoriously been absent from the political realm, while those who have more economic/political/cultural power have been systematically draining more comprehensive “worthless” (by their standards) curricula, like history and humanities courses, from our schools.
The absence of teacher-voices from politics is, in part, a result of the essential distinction between familial, educational, political and religious institutions; because “full time teaching” is just that–FULL time; because exercising that voice can easily become an unwanted hot spot of conflict between teachers and their students’ families; and because it’s enough what they already do in the classroom.
However, that absence, over the last several decades, has also left a vacuum of power that has been too-easily filled by those who, by omission, would drain education in a democracy of its democratic spirit, not to mention quash the potential for developing a fullness of meaning in and for students who will become the demos in their own democracy. Such thought frightens-to-death control freaks and shallow thinkers who cannot stand what, to them, is chaos in the classroom and who, themselves, are attracted to positions of control, oversight, and “master manipulator.” Then there are the predatory capitalists and religious zealots . . . need I go on. . .
But it’s heartening to me to see that voice finally coming out of the closet, so to speak, as it has recently. For all of the conflict, there is a super-sanity about that enlivened spirit. CBK
The more publicity the NAACP position, opposing charter school expansion, receives, the more difficult it is for CAP to spin arguments in favor of charter schools and for candidates to ignore K-12 privatization.
Here’s a Twitter thread from pro-charter school forces, full of confused, and even paranoid outrage, responding to this HuffPost article, and the focus of this thread
(with no mention of the Koch brother funding, of course; it also has an appearance from Ms. Laster):
Citizen Stewart – money from Chuck and David Koch or Walton heirs?
Citizen Stewart is quite the character.
He recently succeeded Peter Cunningham as the leader of the corporate ed. reform org, EDUCATION POST (Cunningham pulled down $300,000/year running ED-POST, if memory serves, so presumably Stewart’s compensation is comparable.)
Here’s Mercedes Schneider with a report on Stewart, detailing who pays his salary, his past use of colorful language ( … “your whack ass”), and sundry other things:
EdPost has a lot of money to throw around on salaries- I’m sure it buys targeted results.
Funders- Bloomberg, B&M Gates, Chan/Zuck, Emerson
Reblogged this on The Most Revolutionary Act and commented:
A woman named Christina Laster ― is being paid by a right-wing group connected to the Koch brothers to infiltrate the organization and sow chaos.
Apart from the questions about Christina Laster’s role in the charter school industry, readers should know that the NAACP and National Urban League are not agreeing about key issues.
The different views surfaced at the recent National Urban League conference in Indianapolis with several events staged by Roland Martin and Partners. Roland Martin has been organizing meetings around the theme: Is School Choice the Black Choice? His publicity campaign has been aided by the 74Million website (funded by The Walton Family Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation).
.
“School Choice Is the Black Choice: Black Excellence in Education — The Role of Civil Rights and Black Advocacy Organizations,” was part of the three-day summit created and led by the National Urban League Young Professionals. It also provided a forum that disclosed disagreements between, Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP and Marc Morial President of the National Urban League.
https://www.the74million.org/article/williams-school-choice-panel-at-national-urban-league-summit-shows-were-having-the-wrong-conversation-about-charter-schools/
The charter-loving 74Million website is advertising Roland Martin and Partners campaign to promote black ownership of charter schools and services to them (e.g., meals, transportation, facility maintenance). Part of the campaign is a series of “town hall meetings” in major cities, Martin’s message is on behalf of black ownership of charter schools. In other words, why should “white folk” be setting up charter schools that profit from educating black children who are living in poverty.
You can hear Roland Martin’s views at this Atlanta Town Hall on Education and Equity Is School Choice the Black Choice? I suggest you begin at 22.21 https://www.the74million.org/article/watch-live-is-school-choice-the-black-choice-atlanta-town-hall/
Roland Martin, is a journalist and entrepreneur with an estimated net worth of $3 million. Hen has written three books: Speak, Brother! A Black Man’s View of America; Listening to the Spirit Within: 50 Perspectives on Faith; and The First: President Barack Obama’s Road to the White House. He has a BS degree in Journalism from Texas A&M University and a Master’s degree in Christian communications from Louisiana Baptist University. His bio says he is a syndicated columnist with Creators Syndicate (but he is not among those pictured at the website of this ultra-conservative organization). He is also commentator for the OneAmerica News Network. Until December 2017, he was a host at News One Now, a three-hour radio show. He had been a contributor to CNN but he was suspended in 2012 for a controversial tweet about a Super Bowl ad featuring David Beckham. https://www.glaad.org/rolandsmartin
Roland Martin’s wife, Reverend Jacquie Hood Martin, is an ordained minister and founder of Jacquie Hood Ministries. The Reverend Martin is a Certified Leadership/Christian Life Skills Coach, and Six Sigma Green Belt Managing Professional/Personal Conflict expert. She is a certified yoga instructor and author of Fulfilled! The Art and Joy of Balanced Living. http://jacquiehood.com/coaching-certifications/
http://www.jacquiehood.com/
I have watched some of Roland Martin’s presentations on YouTube. He can seem to be perfectly reasonable in one and a version of Rush Limbaugh in others. There is no doubt that he and the 74Million, along with the Waltons and B&M Gates Foundations, are eager to promote segregated schools on condition that these are black owned and open to full spectrum profiteering.
How many millions has Gates given to the National Urban League?
79 grants, at least $23,368, 463 total, including 11 grants to local Urban Leagues in Austin, Houston, Memphis, Lexington (2 grants), Denver, Seattle, and Middle Tennessee and New York (3 grants). All grants were to promote the Gates agendas for K-12 and postsecondary education.
The organizations of Paul Weyrich, founder of the religious right, were funded by the Koch’s. Clarence Thomas, Roland Martin and Weyrich on the same page with Chuck and David Koch is a pact with the devil.
If you ever want to see someone speak truth to power, just watch Roland Martin interviewing HRC in 2015 as part of the primary campaign at a South Carolina town hall forum.
Roland Martin obviously believed that he had another pro-charter DFER Dem and then HRC started simply stating a few basic facts about charters that everyone in the audience — including the African-American parents who send their kids to charters — know is absolutely true but are never allowed to be talked about under orders from the ed reform movement.
The audience was totally rapt and engaged and clearly agreed, and Roland Martin’s squirming and attempts to immediately change the subject are satisfying to watch.
It is almost unheard of for a Democrat or progressive to directly challenge the myths of charter schools and actually say out loud what every parent in charters knows is true — that they do not want to teach the most difficult to teach students.
I hope that happens in this campaign but I’m not holding my breath. Even the most mild policy — supporting the NAACP’s proposals — does’t require the candidate to simply stand up and educate the public about what is wrong with charters. I am thrilled Bernie embraced that, but until I actually hear him saying the words out loud that charters refuse to teach all students and the “good” ones are the worst at cherry picking students, I am not even entirely sure that Bernie’s version of accountability is not simply giving every state a charter board like the SUNY Charter Institute because he agrees with Cuomo and the ed reformers that is a great oversight board. But Bernie is still an excellent candidate who would make an excellent President, just as he was in 2016. A candidate doesn’t have to perfectly reflect my view to still be a very good candidate.
After all these years of not playing an upfront role in the privatization of public education, didn’t you just know that eventually the Koch brothers were going to emerge and assume the precise role they’ve recently taken?
The Koch brothers’ dad was involved in establishing the John Birch Society and, contrary to claims the John Birch Society was only ever about combating communism, they have long been racist, anti-black and anti-integration. At the end of the 60s, I went to a local office of theirs to find out about what they stood for and the ONLY thing they talked about was their racist, anti-black, anti-integration stance. They said nothing about communism.
Black parents really need to know that the Koch brothers carry the torch for their John Birch Society founding father, and they are, most definitely, NOT on the side of African Americans!
The gild on the reputation of Chuck and David Koch’s brother, Bill Gates, is wearing off.
Orcs differ from wraiths, who differ from trolls, who differ from fellbeasts and drakes. Same with conservatives. Neocons differ from neoliberal DINOS, who differ from Libertarians, who differ from mere opportunists like Jabba the Trump. The Kochs belong to the Libertarian group. So, for example, the Kochs are big supporters of CATO, which advocates for decriminalization of drugs and sex work, and they oppose federal education programs like Race to the Top, with its Thought Policing via the Common Core and standardized testing, though they support charter schools and vouchers. Of course, contributions from the Kochs end up supporting organizations like ALEC that in turn support the Common Core, standardized testing, the so-called War on Drugs, and so on, so their money does not always serve their ideology. Libertarians, ofc, are folks with mystical belief in the so-called free market, which supposedly operates invisibly to weed the public garden and to allow only the most glorious specimens to survive. I often get the feeling, reading posts about the Kochs here, that folks don’t understand the differences among these types. BTW, a market in which only the few can participate (e.g., the dental care market in the United States) is in no sane sense “free,” but try explaining that to a doctrinaire Libertarian (or try bashing your head against a wall; you will have similar results).
Libertarians don’t have an ideology because, “Leave me the hell alone”, doesn’t qualify.
“Taxes are the price we pay to live in a civilized society.”
It’s like “keep your government hands off my Medicare and Social Security”
The Koch ideology is to get support by deceit.
By the way, the Kochs own so many Republican politicians that they could have halted some of Trump’s worst practices in a heartbeat.
They did not because their only ideology is power.
Interesting that the politicians they own manage to get all the Koch’s John Birch Society legislation passed, but not any of the other legislation that they pretend to believe in as “libertarians”.
A senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute (a think tank that is an associate member of the Koch’s State Policy Network) wrote on July 5, 2019 that he understood a New Orleans black mother/entrepreneur thought “New Orleans charter schools represented the latest iteration in structural racism perpetuated by a new generation of oppressors”.
There is no excuse for CAP to promote charter schools just as the right wing billionaires do.
All such issues are clearly explained in my new book SLAYING GOLIATH.
The rightwing took “progressives” for a walk, like the The Walrus and the Carpenter. Remember what happened to the oysters.
I’m looking forward to the book. The author is an American hero.
Correction- The date of the Manhattan Institute article was 2018.
I strongly recommend the reading of the all-you-ever-needed-to-know-about-the-Koch-dynasty: Daniel Schulman’s 2014, 372 (text pages), 424 (with source material) book, Sons of Wichita. It will tell you everything you need to know about the Kochs…& more
(such as, father Fred was a founder of the John Birch Society, worked in Germany {actually, for the Nazis, pre-war} & was supposed to return to America via the Hindenburg, which, unfortunately for all of us, he missed; there’s another fascinating fact about David but, honestly, you just have to read the book).
The Bros. like to donate to museums & such because they–like other villainthropists–think these “good deeds” will buy them their entrance through the Pearly Gates (oh–think Bill & Melinda!). And, of course, they enjoy having their names put on everything.
Unlike Democracy in Chains (which is also a must-read tome)–which is extremely
painful to read (at least for me it was), you will sail through this one, which reads like a novel of pure evil, twisted deeds & thoughts & sheer irony.
Everything they touch turns to…$@&T.
(Also see the Koch documentaries–I think they were made by Greenglass {forget the first name}. They were originally on PBS a number of years ago; you might find them on YouTube {because–guess what?–the Kochs partly fund PBS, as well, so you won’t see them there!} In one doc, they visit one of their gazillion $$$ apartment buildings in Manhattan, where David & Chas. sometimes live: the doorman was interviewed & said, every winter, the families go skiing, & expect the doorman & other lowly help to schlep all their ski equipment & baggage to several limos/private cars.
And, the doorman stated, in all those years they have never–not once— given anyone a tip.
I engaged with Ms. Laster on Twitter after seeing the article.
It started with a question to David Hardy, a charter founder from PA who retweets Citizen Stewart and Thomas Sowell. Mr. Hardy asked if the NAACP had any alternatives to charters. So I mentioned the harms of competing systems, cherrypicking and billionaire money corrupting the discourse. I said “shouldn’t we stand together against the corrupt Kochs, Waltons and Puerto Rico debt vultures” behind charters?
That’s when Laster jumped in to say “Don’t know “corrupt Kochs, Waltons + PuertoRico debt vultures” that’s their business. My business: black children/grandchildren historically-underserved, uneducated. & thingified vs treated w/ human dignity-respect.”
Like David K. above, I wondered how deep the Koch ties were. Is her financial remuneration explicitly tied to her anti-charter advocacy? So I asked “The article says you work for CA Policy Center which takes Koch money to pass ALEC bills. Do you really not know who the Kochs are?”
She wouldn’t answer, instead saying “I’ve addressed this-I’m confident @ my lack of corruption I refuse 2 waste any more time hearing rhetoric @ false narrative creation.”
I replied “Sorry I missed your rebuttal but I see the Kochs as racist due to support for voter suppression, corporate immunity, stand your ground laws + fossil fuel pollution. Their history of funding with “strings attached” is documented since their John Birch days.”
I added a 2016 link from CMD well worth reading which shows the racist past of the Kochs, including attacks on MLK, and their long history of funding “free market” black voices who are willing to cut against the majority on issues like civil rights: https://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/01/13017/how-charles-koch-backed-john-birch-society-height-its-attacks-martin-luther-king
She or Hardy have not responded yet. For anyone else on Twitter, the full thread is here:
I do believe in being totally civil and respectful and I believe both Laster and Hardy are well intentioned, but I told them I thought the strategy of improving conditions for just 10% of black and brown students is actually detrimental to the other 90%, the essence of the NAACP moratorium.
Jake, thank you for standing up to the Koch’s effort to destroypublic schools and democracy
I just found Laster’s rebuttal, on EducationPost. She claims never to have heard of the Koch brothers, but did speak in praise of Bloomberg. She said she chose a charter school because the district school had overly harsh discipline. She also complained about suspension rates.
The article is here but something is wrong with the comments field at the bottom. On my phone its not working, so it seems like a picture of comments box rather than being an actual comments box. I can try later on my laptop.
https://educationpost.org/theres-room-in-the-naacp-to-talk-about-the-importance-of-school-choice-for-black-parents/