Last May 10, Jeanne Allen of the Center for Education Reform sent a tweet my way. Allen is a big advocate for every kind of school choice, except for public schools. Before she started her current gig, she worked for the far-right Heritage Foundation. For years, her organization has been a big cheerleader for charters and has opposed any effort by states to regulate them or hold them accountable.
In case you are not on Twitter, she wrote:
And she never mentions the millions in her bank account that pay for her Brooklyn brownstone. Didn’t come from writing books or academia. Perhaps the union?
I responded that I paid for my home myself.
But there is more to the story. I bought the Brooklyn brownstone in 1988, at a time when I was allied with conservative groups. In other words, I was on Jeanne Allen’s side. Checker Finn and I had formed the Educational Excellence Network, to advocate for standards, testing, accountability, and a liberal arts-focused curriculum. Charters did not exist. In 1991, I went to work for the George H.W. Bush Administration.
Jeanne, why would “the union” have purchased a home for me in 1988, given the fact that I was widely seen as a conservative and was on your side?
In another tweet, Jeanne asserted that she visited my home, but I couldn’t remember that she did. I hosted a few gatherings for conservatives, so it is possible she was there. It was thirty-one years ago, so I hope she will forgive me for not remembering her being there.
It was indeed a beautiful home. I sold it six years ago and now live in a beautiful apartment. I paid for that too.
Behind her insinuation that the union paid for my home is the assumption that everyone is motivated solely by money. Everyone is for sale. She projects her own views. The opposition to charters and vouchers is not motivated by money but by a commitment to the common good. Jeanne sees only self-interest and personal pursuit of gain. She has no idea what the common good is. Like her idol, Betsy DeVos, she scoffs at the very idea of society and commitment to ideals larger than self-interest and pecuniary gain.
This is what the Corporate Disrupters can’t understand. Dedication motivates people more surely than money. There are rewards in this life that are greater than money. Neither she nor DeVos nor the Waltons understand that.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Great post, Diane. Ms. Allen provides us with a classic case of a “self own.” I hope your explanation allows others to see her projection and its wrongheadedness.
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Projection is exactly the right word. It would never occur to me to ask who bought her home—or anyone else’s. Among other things, it is just bad manners.
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Allen’s comment reflects poorly on her, not you. A lot of “reformers” have a distorted perception of unions. Certainly some unions are guilty of the same corruption found in many corporations and some governments. Those of us that actually members of a union see things differently. We are frustrated because we see the teachers union as a paper tiger that is often complicit with those in the destroy public education movement.
Allen’s comment is the result of her anger because you left the so-called reformers, and you have spent the past ten years or so as an activist exposing the lies and false assumptions of “reform.”
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Retired Teacher, You’re mistakenly assuming actual honesty. it’s pretty impossible to known what “reformers” ACTUALLY think, since they’re largely paid actors mouthing lines from a script. Jeanne Allen certainly knows perfectly well that unions aren’t buying homes for “reform” critics.
(My take is that teachers unions have flailed a lot in trying to figure out how to respond to the “reform” attacks, and that their creaky, traditional messaging isn’t fully up to the task, especially against the “reformers’ ” billionaire-funded, ultra-sophisticated, polished and ethics-free publicity mechanism.)
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Clearly she doesn’t understand teachers, who if they were motivated by money would never have gone into teaching, a poorly paid profession with little in the way of prospects to make more.
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There were a lot of workers in the last generation whose homes were purchased by union contracts that demanded fair wages and sensible working conditions. My wife’s Uncle Ira was not one of these. When he was a small boy, his father got his legs caught in a potato digger in the fields near Torrington, WY. He spent the next winter in a wall tent heated by burning cow manure in nearby Mitchell,NE. That was welfare in the 1930s. By contrast, a worker for a union shop in that same era would have had a roof over the head.
So it seems to me that a union paying for a house is not such a bad thing.
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“There were a lot of workers in the last generation whose homes were purchased by union contracts that demanded fair wages and sensible working conditions. ”
The homes were purchased by workers guaranteed fair wages by a union contract. Or workers could afford to buy homes because they had a union contract… They still had to do the work to earn the money to be able to buy their homes. I know that is what you intended me to hear. The wording just bothered me as if there was no individual agency involved.
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That was my intent. However, it was with the help of people banding together. Otherwise they would have been like Ira, in a wall tent Ina Nebraska winter.
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Behind her insinuation that the union paid for my home is the assumption that everyone is motivated solely by money. Everyone is for sale.
Wow. That’s powerful writing!!!
Thank you.
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The word “idiot” comes from he Greek “idios,” meaning “one’s own”–not being able to see beyond one’s own nose.
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In Merchant of Venice, one of Portia’s suitors intones the word thus: “…a blinking idiot presenting me a scroll” footnotes explained that this was a word for clown in those days
Our present usage, as I get it, comes from a classification of score on the intelligence tests that grew out of the WWI draft. Moron also came into usage then as well, just like phrases like ADD and the short bus have recently come to deride those who are less fortunate.
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Agreed. That’s why I think we should bear in mind the original meaning of this term. It is a terrible thing not to be able to look beyond one’s own short-term interests.
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Thanks, Bob, I didn’t know thsi about the root of idiot.
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If you go to Jeanne Allen’s twitter, her top or “pinned” tweet, of which she is presumably most proud is her editorial — in the right-wing WASHINGTON EXAMINER — smearing teachers unions in general, and recent attempts by charter school teacher staffs to form unions. She also attacks charter school parents who Allen insists were duped into supporting those teachers in unionization. This is part of her false dichotomy frame: either you’re for the students, or you’re for the adults (i.e. part of the evil “status quo” that refuses “release its iron-clad grip”, and thus must be “fought”):
https://twitter.com/jeanneallen?lang=en
To Ms. Allen, teachers are “the help,” much like the lawn maintenance workers, or domestic workers, and not trained, college-educated professionals. They need to just shut up and accept their lousy wages and working conditions, a convenient position which aligns perfectly with the money-motivated school privatization industry, which … pure coincidence, of course … has paid her six-figure salary for the last 30 years or so.
During last January’s successful teacher strike in Los Angeles, Allen urged management to just fire all 35,000 teachers and fill their jobs with 35,000 replacement workers. Peter Greene wrote about that here:
http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2019/01/jeanne-allen-on-lausd-fire-them-all.html
PETER GREENE: (go to the above link for all the hyperlinks Greene includes in the text backing up his piece)
So that’s what a leading charter advocate thinks about the strike.
It’s a union trick to hold onto power. Los Angeles would have terrible schools if not for the awesome charters. Teachers just want to hurt students so they can keep raking in the big bucks.
There are, of course, no slices of evidence in the real world to back up any of this. Nor will turning LAUSD into hundreds of tiny districts serve anyone except the children of the wealthy.
But Allen’s big solution is super dopey– fire them all. The Reagan nod is not completely out of left field; Allen’s website notes proudly that she was “the youngest political appointee to serve at the pleasure of the president, Ronald Reagan, at the US Department of Education.” But of the many anti-reality arguments I have seen from Allen, this is one drops the jaw the furthest. Replace over 25,000 teachers? In a state with a persistent teacher shortage? In the 2016-2017 year, there were under 24,000 students enrolled in teaching preparation programs in the state.
Talk about hurting kids just to score a victory– Allen’s nuclear option would trash everything just to teach those damned teachers a lesson.
Allen’s position is worth noting only because she and the CER are not some fringe element. She gets to sit on reformy panels. CER gets Gates money (and in 2016 the organization took in a whopping $ million in contributions from… somewhere). She gets into the Wall Street Journal. And lest you think she’s strictly a GOP phenomenon, Kara Kerwin, who filled the president role while Allen was on hiatus, started out in public policy in the offices of Chuck Schumer and Daniel Moynihan.
Allen and the CER have one virtue– where other charter advocates may play a game of making nice with teachers and their unions, Allen leaves her mask off most days. If you wonder why teachers and their unions sometimes act as if charter advocates are out to get them, and you’re one of those folks asking “Where does that come from?” well, Jeanne “Fire Them All” Allen is Exhibit A.
This is not a one-off. Allen was quick to decide Trump was okee-dokee after all and became a Trump-DeVos cheerleader. Allen has periodically issued announcements of renewed commitment to privatization. Allen put a $100K bounty on John Oliver’s head for besmirching the charter brand. Allen whinged when her phrase “backpack full of cash” became a movie title. Allen blamed the GOP 2018 drubbing on a failure to keep a charter hard line.
One can only hope that nobody on the administration side of the LAUSD strike is considering listening to Allen’s advice. It would neither solve the strike nor improve general health of the LA school district. It’s just a more extreme statement of the very distinct policies that brought them to this strike in the first place; wiping out the school district and the teachers who work in it is not a path that serves the students of Los Angeles.
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The “reform” crowd is discovering that privatization is not as popular as they thought. Parents and communities are resisting and fighting back. People are tired of their failed agenda. Angry people lash out at others they perceive as impediments.
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In reading Jeanne Allen’s writings and the bio posted on her organization’s website, it is clear that she is a legend in her own mind.
I think her embrace of Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos speaks for itself. And it certainly seems that Jeanne Allen is just as upright and just as concerned about children as Trump and DeVos are — something she will no doubt consider a huge compliment.
So it certainly isn’t a surprise that Jeanne Allen would have modeled Trump’s behavior and bashed you on twitter using lies.
Consider it a badge of honor. When people like Trump or Jeanna Allen are lying about someone on twitter, you know that person is doing something very, very good.
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As I noted in a comment above, Allen is a paid actor mouthing lines from a script. It’s unknowable and irrelevant what she’s really thinking.
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Just saw this….Allen’s obviously a jerk.
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Diane, I have read your digest-posts off and on for years and had no idea about your time on the other-side. I’d like to know more about that part of your history and the transformation that you made. Do you have any other blog posts on the topic that you can guide me to? Thanks for all of your dedication! Stevie
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Stephanie,
I wrote a book about my changing views.
The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education. 2010
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Jeanne Allen’s Heritage Foundation (funded by Charles and David Koch) was founded by Paul Weyrich who also founded ALEC and the religious right. His training manual, including a call for parallel schools, is posted at Theocracy Watch. Some congregants of church denominations (about 80% of evangelicals, 60% of white Catholics, Mornons, etc. voted for Trump. It seems likely that the richest 0.1% drive the Republican Party and they are using religion as cover to replace democracy with oligarchy.
“Freedom and liberty” verbiage is the wealthy’s bait and switch for oligarchy.
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Good morning! I am just seeing this now. I’m just so fascinated by all the hatred and meanness, misstatement of facts, character assassination, and more, that you all – allegedly on behalf of good education – are spewing out there.
Diane, I was in your home, for a personal visit. At that time, you introduced me to Mary, who lived with you and worked for the union. More on that another time.
But my comment as you well know about the union paying for your house was deliberate – you have received fees and contributions to your various efforts from them. Houses don’t get bought overnight, nor maintained, nor fees paid, on nothing.
I’m sorry you’re no longer in that beautiful brownstone, and I’m sorry that you no longer believe in the primacy of a parent’s right or the need for every child to get a great education, no matter what their stage in live, right now, today, regardless of who is working to improve the system and how long it will take. I’m sorry you’ve organized yourself around a group of people who believe that they must know another person simply by where they work or what they list in their bio.
I know for my own part that while I vehemently disagree with you and while I believe you have taken the wrong road and it’s been influenced by many different factors not all of which you publicly admit, I do not hate you or wish you any ill will. I do not spend my time thinking about you or writing about you as you all seem to do about me and people who may share some of my beliefs. But as an historian you know that life is complex, and the simplicity of these comments and answers about the work that is being done and about me but disturb you deep down. At least I hope you still are that very deep soul I once was proud to call an ally. And if not, so be it.
The education we offer our children as a nation should not be determined by zip code, race or stage in life. It should be a matter of finding the best fit, involving the people who carried or are the guardians of that child in life. To deny that in favor of an idyllic system that has never worked for all the children is irresponsible. In that statement I am not only confident but will continue to succeed in ensuring that education opportunity increases. It’s a big country, and we must all do what we think is right.
God Bless you, Diane.
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Excuse me – errors in typing so fast – end of second to last paragraph – MUST disturb you deep down….
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Jeanne,
I’m sorry that I forgot your visit to my beautiful brownstone.
Many people visited, and I don’t remember everyone who did.
Yes, my partner Mary (now wife) worked for the union. She worked in the NYC schools as a teacher, principal, and administrator for 35 years. She also worked for the AFT in D.C. when I was Assistant Secretary of Education in the George H.W. Bush administration. I don’t think you ever visited our beautiful home on Fessenden when we were in D.C. I was good friends with Al Shanker, also with Sandra Feldman and now Randi Weingarten. I have never been anti-union, even when I worked in the Bush administration for Lamar Alexander, even when I was a senior fellow at the Hoover administration.
You asked in a tweet whether “the union” paid for my home in Brooklyn Heights. Do you think that was a friendly inquiry? I did not. You implied that I was bought by “union gold,” a phrase from the 1930s with which you may not be familiar. Plutocrats then insisted that anyone who was supportive of unions must have been bought by union gold.
I paid for the house in Brooklyn in 1988 with money from my divorce settlement in 1986. Does that answer your question?
I know you are feeling besieged now, with the backlash against charters growing stronger by the day. But you should not express your rage about the collapse of your school choice crusade, now firmly tied to the Trump administration, by lashing out and attacking people with whom you disagree. Stick to ideas and policies. Don’t go low. It is unbecoming.
I will continue to defend public money for public schools. You will continue to attack them and to argue on behalf of funding anyone who wants to open a school, whether for-profit or nor, regardless of their qualifications or experience. We differ. Get over it.
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Someone whose career is paid for by right-wing billionaires accuses someone who supports unions (associations of working people — in this case teachers, mostly women, joining together to advocate collectively for their rights and for schools and students) of selling out … it’s such Trumpian behavior. (“No puppet. You’re the puppet!”)
There’s a whole lot more money on the right-wing-billionaire side, so if Diane were just in it for the money, wouldn’t she have remained on the side of Jeanne Allen (as well as so many supposed “progressives” who’ve sold their souls to the education “reform” sector)?
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Although it’s true that Allen is apparently a genuine right-winger (as I recall, I used to see her name among those advocating eliminating public education entirely, a movement — “separation of school and state” — that was more visible when I first started following so-called education “reform” circa 2000). It’s the army of so-called “progressives” who talk a liberal game while doing the bidding of right-wing billionaires whom I would actually accuse of selling out.
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Jeanne Allen never sold out.she began her career as an education analyst at the far-right Heritage Foundation. She now runs an organization that advocates for any choice except public schools. Her group is opposed to any regulation or accountability for charter schools. She judges state laws by the extent to which they do not hold charters accountable. She supports for-profit charters, online charters, and vouchers.
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She’s someone who, as I envision her, would hold those same views even without fat paychecks from the billionaires. Which — even though I disagree with the views, which I see as destructive and wrongheaded in so many ways — I admit that I respect more than people who style themselves as progressives but then sell out so that far-right policies can be portrayed as “the new civil rights movement.” When questioned, they give you the “stopped clock is right twice a day” line (as long as the checks keep arriving).
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