Cory Booker has been a devoted promoter of charters and vouchers for many years.
He worked closely with Republican Governor Chris Christie and together they persuaded Mark Zuckerberg to pony up $100 million to promote the charterization of Newark. He often boasts about what he accomplished by privatizing public schools.
But now that he wants to be president, he has suddenly decided that he will be a champion for public schools, not charters or vouchers.
Could it be that he did the math and realized that 85-90% of students attend public schools. Only 6% attend charter schools. And he may have noticed that despite the efforts of his former dear friend Betsy DeVos, voters don’t like vouchers. They don’t want public dollars to underwrite religious schools.
Some of his allies are not at all happy about the new Cory.
It just goes to show where the wind is blowing: in favor of public schools, not charters or vouchers.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I’m not buying his “mea culpa.” Booker is an opportunistic chameleon.
DITTO!
Booker is a viper snake. Watch how he slithers ever so smoothly. I bought it with Obama. I’m not buying it with him. I’ve seen this movie too . . . . I’m with Bernie.
OMG! Read this list of Booker’s past:
https://npeaction.org/cory-booker-2020/
“Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) said that as president, he would prioritize public schools despite his past record of supporting charter schools when he served as mayor of Newark, New Jersey.”
That would be new and different. What’s it been now, 20 years since anyone at the federal level has lifted a finger on behalf of students who attend public schools?
There’s an entire generation of children who attended K through 12 in public schools while all the public employees they pay in government denigrated those same schools.
He may have to find an entirely new cohort of potential employees to find any who actually value public schools.
The only thing that matters is who they hire, and we don’t find that out until after they’re elected.
Did anyone who supports public schools and voted for Obama know he was planning on hiring exclusively ed reform echo chamber members? Probably not.
I doubt even the Trump supporters knew they were getting an anti-public schools agenda. It wouldn’t make sense to most people to hire “education leaders” whose goal is to weaken and then eradicate the schools 50 million children currently attend. Understandably. It’s nuts.
If the hireling is a Pahara fellow, like Santa Barbara’s superintendent, residents can expect charters. Pahara is funded by Gates. And, the organization’s founder claims she founded or co-founded TFA, New Schools Venture Fund and Bellwether.
Don’t believe him!!!
For the love of God and all that’s holy, DO NOT believe him!!!!!!!!!
For a funny take on the hedge-fund-owned Cory and his phony-baloney-temporary posturing as the candidate of the common man, THE ONION hit the nail on the head:
https://politics.theonion.com/cory-booker-apologizes-to-wall-street-bankers-for-the-m-1832268385
Consider this when evaluating Cory’s born-again love for public schools:
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THE ONION:
‘When You Hear Me On TV Saying You Need To Be Reined In, What I’m Really Saying Is I Love You,’ Says Candidate
https://politics.theonion.com/cory-booker-apologizes-to-wall-street-bankers-for-the-m-1832268385
Cory Booker Apologizes To Wall Street Bankers For The Mean Things He’s Going To Have To Say About Them
2/01/19 12:36pm
“WASHINGTON—*Sighing with resignation as he spoke to those surrounding him, Democratic presidential candidate Cory Booker reportedly apologized to a coterie of Wall Street bankers Friday for all the mean things he is going to have to say about them in the upcoming months. *
” ‘ Things are liable to get a little ugly out there on the campaign trail, but if you ever hear me attacking you guys, just know I don’t really mean it, okay?’ said Booker, squeezing the hand of several Goldman Sachs and Bank Of America CEOs in turn and making assurances that no matter what it might sound like on the campaign trail, they’ll never be far from his thoughts.
” ‘ These next couple of years are going to be a real strain, but just remember that I’m doing it all for you. And I swear that when this crazy race is all over, things will be better between us than ever before. Now, we’re not going to be able to meet like this for a while, but just know that I’ll miss you all every day until we’re finally reunited again.’
“A tearful Booker then reportedly left for a meeting with health insurance executives to let them know that ‘while my mouth is saying ‘Medicare For All,’ my heart is saying ‘increased profit margins for Blue Cross Blue Shield and Cigna.’ ”
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Ooooh, snap!
The “new Cory” my Aunt Fanny. The second we turn away, he’ll uncross his fingers and proceed as he always has.
Nothing in that article tells me that Corey Booker has changed his position.
I am still waiting for a candidate who is willing to state the obvious — the only charters that get better results are those that cherry pick students.
Once there is that recognition, perhaps this country can have a real conversation about education policy. If this country wants public schools that cherry pick students, they should set them up in every community as public schools. It is patently absurd that the profits from teaching the least expensive students in Newark were privatized when the city could have set up the same kinds of magnet schools that could cherry pick students and use the savings on schools that teach the hardest to teach students.
If the public wants choice schools, they can have choice schools that are all public.
I do think there needs to be a real conversation about this in our country. It is clear that in very poor communities, parents who are more involved and have some resources want their kids in schools that don’t have to teach every kid. In the past, those were often low-cost parochial schools. Then they were offered the equivalent of parochial schools that were free. The real problem was that those schools were run by people seeking power and money and they were very dishonest and presented themselves as miracle workers who could turn every student from a failing school into a high performing scholar. They lied to parents about their kids being welcomed when it turned out they were not unless the charter decided they wanted to teach them.
We know that segregating students in schools based on how involved their families are and whether their children are easy to teach is not a good policy. But we also know that when almost all the students in a community are severely at-risk, parents of those who can learn easily may seek out schools that don’t have to spend their limited resources to address the myriad of problems that happen when students are in severe poverty.
And I believe that parents with kids in no excuses charters would very likely choose a public lottery school that got millions in donations but treated their children the way private schools treat their kids instead of a “no excuses” school if that was their choice.
But until this country recognizes the big lie of charters, it will be much harder to win support.
I do think it is clear that the reason no-excuses charters do not exist in suburban communities with good public schools is because those charters could not churn through the students the way they do in huge urban cities with so many students to choose from.
“We know that segregating students in schools based on how involved their families are…”
This line really resonated with me.
The success of charters is based on their success in making that statement absolutely unmentionable in any kind of conversation.
Once you say those words — as HRC did during the South Carolina Town Hall — you have completely undermined the entire argument for why private money should go to charters. Once you acknowledge that charters teach only the students whose families are willing to do whatever the charter demands (and even then, if their kid isn’t “a credit” to their charter, out he goes), the entire conversation is changed.
When charters were started, they claimed they would address the most at-risk kids and instead they left those kids in public schools — or kicked them back to public schools if they needed more than a low-paid recent college grad could teach them — and lied about it.
The lie is what was so evil. The lie is why they get so much money from right wing sources. The lie is why their CEOs spend their time working to confirm Betsy DeVos because she will allow that lie to continue and reward that lie financially.
If they didn’t lie, there would be no reason for charters to exist anymore. They would have to teach the kids they promised to teach that they have failed so miserably at teaching but will not admit because they’d rather those kids suffer than to give up their money.
The greed is truly reprehensible.
If Corey Booker ever states publicly that he recognizes that lie and will no longer support it, I will believe he has changed. Otherwise, he is just a mouthpiece for the same ed reformers he has always been.
According to a black parent in New Orleans,”charter schools represent the latest iteration in structural racism perpetuated by a new generation of oppressors. Charter schools severed the connection between the schools and the community. Students are no longer taught by the down-the-block neighbors …they’re taught by twenty-something Teach for America types.” When the Koch-linked Manhattan Institute reports* the preceding in order to promote Catholic schools because “a higher authority” is required for “children to walk a proper path”, we should all tell Booker he’s done enough harm.
* “Catholic Schools and Truth Decay”, July 3, 2018.
In the news today in Cincinnati, the arrest of a storefront reverend, for instructing a child to perform oral sex on him, while he quoted Bible verses, in order to cleanse away the child’s prior victimization by sexual predators. And then, there’s the priest abuse covered up for decades.
You forgot the reports in abuses by leaders of the Boy Scouts.
The parent from New Orleans understands that private charters are a reiteration of more separate and unequal education for most minority students.
It strikes me hat any political leader is by definition of the job to be mistrusted. Since the nature of politics is to blow somewhat with the wind, we should expect this office to reflect the ambivalence in society. We should not trust political leaders to do what we want. Rather we should watch what they do and decide about their future employment based on their collection of decisions. The more someone like Booker piles up negatives for us, the less we should be inclined to support them.
Many good comments about remaining wary, but I’m hopeful this is a reaction to his straight F NPE Report Card.
I do think it’s hopeful, in the sense that Democrats (now) feel they have to mention public schools where before they were attempting to dodge the issue by talking about pre-k and college.
If he’s a weathervane, then the wind is blowing in a better direction.
Just like he was against Bernie’s bill to import drugs from Canada. His reason they might be unsafe. The scare tactic of big pharma one of his biggest backers. Just another say anything Dem.
What I took from the article is that Booker still supports “accountability” (closing schools for low test scores) and still supports the neoliberal idea that schools affect poverty instead of vice versa, with his Newark charter “beating-the-odds-schools, from high poverty to high performance.” He said he opposes “privatization” but did not say he opposes charters, at least not in the article. Does he intend yet to impose a moratorium on federal funding for all charters, not just “for-profit” schools? Probably not. Does he oppose high stakes testing yet? Not with Bill Gates writing him checks.
Also reading between the lines, Senator Harris seems to be talking about student loan debt help for only people who open charters in disadvantaged neighborhoods — more not less funding for charters — in the following Guardian article: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/09/black-women-deserve-better-from-kamala-harris-dont-take-our-vote-for-granted. As the title says, people deserve better than what some candidates are offering.
I’m glad you mentioned the ‘Bill Gates checks’. I hope people notice.
I was going to bring up that issue, but you did it for me. Please, people, notice who funds Booker, and then consider who will pull the strings on this puppet.
And we can bet that Booker’s hedge fund masters who are master liars similar to Trump but not as public as Trump told Booker it was okay to lie and pretend to support the public schools to give Booker a boost.
It’s terribly simple. Follow. The. Money.
Will Booker return the contributions he has received from the DeVos family, and renounce the pro-privatization agenda of DFER and the precursor to the American Federation for Children, for which he served as a board member?
How much do you want to bet that if Booker was elected President, he’d switch back to supporting the corporate charter school industry … with saying a word?
I don’t believe that fraud as much as I could throw him. He and raimondo are still friends and she is pushing charters now since Prov did not score well in last yearass brand new high stakes test modeled after the MCAS and yet students were not given enough time to actually prepare an know this new test… Booker is a loudmouth liar who does things for shock value ; everything out of his mouth is not to be believed as far as I am concerned…
On Fri, Aug 9, 2019 at 12:02 PM Diane Ravitch’s blog wrote:
> dianeravitch posted: ” Cory Booker has been a devoted promoter of > charters and vouchers for many years. He worked closely with Republican > Governor Chris Christie and together they persuaded Mark Zuckerberg to pony > up $100 million to promote the charterization of Ne” >
Oh, come one. The guy is using reformers’ double-speak, saying he is not about change:
“Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) said that as president, he would prioritize public schools despite his past record of supporting charter schools when he served as mayor of Newark, New Jersey.”
prioritize (v.) — To arrange or deal with in order of importance.
Now, guess where he’d put public education in his billionaire funders’ order of importance?
Hedge-fund-backed Cory Booker recently claimed that traditional public school and charter school teachers were better and more deserving of respect and compensation than were … hedge fund managers.
Yep, he recently said exactly that. (SEE Video & transcript BELOW)
When Cory did a Q & A at an education town hall in Iowa a few months ago, he said as much, and there’s video:
Re-watching this video, I am dumbstruck by his attempt to recast himself as …
… a proponent and protector of public education and …
… a lover of public school teachers, (whom he praises as “professionals.”
… and …
… a hater of … WAIT FOR IT, FOLKS .. hedge fund managers. (???!!!).
Aren’t those hedge fund folks the same people who’ve poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the expansion of non-union, privately-managed charters schools, with Cory helping grease that process in Newark while he was mayor of Newark, with the infamous “One Newark” plan implemented by Cami Anderson.
Now, apparently, Cory just hates, hates, hates those gosh darn hedge fund managers.
He goes on to say that those greedy, underhanded, hedge fund bastards, according to him, have found a way to weasel out and pay a lower percentage of their taxes than teachers are forced to. and ISN’T THAT AWFUL, EVERYONE??!!
Really? Seriously? He says this in the video BELOW.
Uhhh … Didn’t those same hedge fund mangers bankroll Cory’s Senate campaign, and are currently kicking tens of millions of dollars into this presidential campaign?
The stuff he’s saying at this education town hall is THE ONION parody, for real:
(a recap)
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CORY BOOKER: (parody from THE ONION .. from an earlier post)
“ ‘Things are liable to get a little ugly out there on the campaign trail, but if you ever hear me attacking you guys, just know I don’t really mean it, okay?’
… said Booker, squeezing the hand of several Goldman Sachs and Bank Of America CEOs in turn and making assurances that no matter what it might sound like on the campaign trail, they’ll never be far from his thoughts.”
END OF EXCERPT from THE ONION … at …
https://politics.theonion.com/cory-booker-apologizes-to-wall-street-bankers-for-the-m-1832268385
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Again, here is Cory bemoaning the state of low teacher pay, by contrasting their pay to that of … yes … those evil tax-dodging hedge fund managers, the latter of whom merit Cory’s and our contempt, apparently.
For Cory, this is a a newfound, and convenient position to take, and which contradicts everything he’s done to privatize and charter-ize Newark.
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( 12:35 – )
( 12:35 – )
CORY BOOKER: “We’ve gotta find ways to relieve the debt of those professionals (teachers & other school personnel). We’ve gotta find ways to raise their salaries.
“That’s the second part of my larger plan.
“For people who are making decisions to got into profession like public education, our tax code should reflect those priorities, and give those people (teachers & other school professionals) a chance to forgive their debt, and better tax treatment.
THE MONEY QUOTE
“We live in a country right now, where we have people who work for a hedge fund who pay a lower percentage of their taxes — their salary in taxes — than people who work in public education.
“And that doesn’t reflect either our values and priorities, nor does it reflect the impact that those people are making on the economy, and so I’m really working to increase peoples’ salaries, not just teachers, but school professionals as well as do a debt forgiveness program as well, hopefully to incentive more people to work in our schools.”
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Really now? This is the same slob that converted 30% of Newark’s schools to charter management, which adheres to a fast food business model when it comes to staffing this schools with teachers:
1) paying teachers like sh#%
2) treating teachers like sh#%;
and
3) firing them after two years, then replacing them new teachers … RINSE & REPEAT every two years.
If any of those charter school teacher staffs dares to challenge those three pillars, and attempt to unionize, charter orgs spend millions in union suppression, and typically hire Mercury, the sam org that Walmart uses to suppress any unionization at its stores.
And now, Cory suddenly cares about teachers, and supports their unions???!!!!!!
Later in the video, a teacher then holds Booker’s feet to the fire on vouchers. The teachers starts by stating how dire his district’s finances are, and that vouchers, currently under consideration by the legislature, will drain their schools even more.
Telling this crowd of public school teachers & parents what it wants to hear, Booker then attacks vouchers, and offers a qualified attack on charters, saying that they’re not for every community, citing his opposition to charters in upscale New Jersey city of Montclair. (but not in downscale Newark, apparently)
He even attacks Devos, whose actions are “threatening public school everywhere.”
“Most of our students attend public schools, so we have to stop her (Devos’) attacks on them.”
**** Sweet Mary, Mother of God. ****
*** Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death, Amen!’ ***
Does he actually believe that teachers are going to fall for this?
Let’s see. Now that he’s running for president …
Cory loves and wants to protect public schools.
Cory hates vouchers, and (many or most) charters.
Oh yeah?
Here’s video of what he said a couple years ago, speaking at an event for a privatization org, the American Federation for Children, that was started and funded by Devos (!!!!!!!!) speaking at an AFC convention invitation from his “friend” Betsy Devos, the same person who he recently attacked for “threatening public schools everywhere.”
SUMMARY of his message:
Vouchers & charters are great.
Public schools and its teachers are failing our kids.
( 0:15 – )
( 0:15 – )
CORY BOOKER: “When people attack school choice, whether it’s the Opportunity Scholarship Act (i.e. vouchers) or charter schools, I look at them and say, ‘As soon as you’re willing to send your child to a failing public school in Camden or Trenton, then I’ll be with you.’ “
Cory Booker reclaims his title as Sleaze-in-Chief.
For NJ’ans bewildered by this man’s occasionally impassioned and truly-progressive-sounding bellows from the floor of the US Senate, relax. Now you know those were just the mouthings of a pig wallowing in the butter slathered on his side of the bread– that piece of bread, that day . This is the Cory Booker we know. Promises, promises. When he promises you the moon, remember who you are: big$ backer? You get the moon. Voters get a slice of green cheese. Constituents get a faux “moon rock.”
““Newark, New Jersey, is now the No. 1 one school system in all of America for beating-the-odds-schools, from high poverty to high performance,” the senator said.”
Careful Cory, you’ll break your arm patting yourself on the back like that.
That lie right there should be enough to seal his fate with most all here, eh!! (not that it already wasn’t sealed)
LOVE The Onion! & on Diane’s post “Which Democrats are the 1% Supporting?” the Forbes article cites Booker as the #2 (after Buttigieg) recipient of billionaires’ donations. # TWO.
So, how has he changed?
Oh, he’s gotten worse!
& then there’s the saying, “Promises were meant to be broken.”
Especially by politicians who talk out of both sides of their mouths.
The Bay Area, hotbed of privatization, is the target of Calf. Attorney General, Becerra. He says the school district was “warped and wicked” when it created for minority students a public school and deprived it of resources while, nearby there was well-funded charter (contractor) school for white kids. Associated Press – Janie Har (Yahoo) 9-9-2019
Bill Gates owns privatization.
Maybe a soothsayer told Booker, you are going to need union support to be President and teacher’s unions do not like charters because they take away jobs from certified teachers and most charters fair no better than their public school cousin and in many cases perform worst .