Suppose you are trying to decide who to vote for in your local school board election. You get a flyer in the mail from a group called “Public School Allies.” It lists three candidates. You vote for them.
Surprise! You were hoaxed!
“Public School Allies” is a billionaire-funded front that intervenes in local elections to support charter schools!
Matt Barnum reports in Chalkbeat:
The political arm of The City Fund, the organization with ambitions to spread charter schools and the “portfolio model” of school reform across the country, plans to spend $15 million to influence state and local elections over the next three years.
That political group, known as Public School Allies, has already directed money toward to school board races in Atlanta, Camden, Newark, and St. Louis, and state elections in Louisiana, Georgia, and New Jersey. Donations have ranged from $1 million to as little as $1,500.
The information was shared by Public School Allies and, in a number of cases, confirmed by campaign finance records. The $15 million comes from Netflix founder Reed Hastings and former hedge-fund manager John Arnold, the organization said.
In other word, this is a fraudulent organization that selected a name intended to deceive voters. They advocate for closing schools with low test scores and giving them to charters.
They are not “allies” of public schools. They are allies of privatization.
Their use of deceptive language is an open admission that they know the public wants real public schools, not privately managed charters.
Why are they ashamed to call themselves “Friends of Charter Schools?”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I keep wondering when exactly American Business Culture stopped skirting the edge of bunko, criminality, and deception and finally raced whole greased hog into utter fraud.
Or has it always been that way?
It started with Reagan. Bush wouldn’t participate. Then Clinton opened up the free market box of evil and it’s been all downhill from there.
I think it started here —
Reagan Era, yup, and first introduced in the DC area before spreading (sic!) across the nation …
such a way with words: when DID they stop skirting bunko and race whole greased hog into utter fraud….
They can only win by subterfuge.
Shameful tactic, but it is good that they are exposed. The fact that they use ‘subterfuge’ says they know that the public’s awareness is increasing and there are questions about their motives.
A week before the elections, one local news channel in our area amazingly took the time to look into dark money in the much-contested local school board elections. The mail in ballots came out a month ago, however, and many have already been sent in.
This is just dishonest. It’s deliberately deceptive:
“Public School Allies believes deeply in supporting local leaders running for office who share our belief in the need to create higher quality public school systems across our country,” Gary Borden, Public School Allies’ managing director, said in a statement.”
They support ONLY charter schools. In fact, Reed Hastings stated mission is to replace public schools with contractors.
They offer absolutely no support of children who attend public schools and in fact often work AGAINST their public schools, like when they join with Betsy DeVos’ group to gut public school funding.
They should tell public school families the truth. If your child attends a public school in one of these districts you will not only NOT receive any support or benefit from ed reformers, but your child’s school may be harmed.
They should just call themselves what they are- charter and voucher lobbyists. They don’t lift a finger on behalf of children in public schools and often actively lobby against their interests.
They don’t say it because if they did they would never win another election.
“The City Fund held a convening of like-minded organizations early this year in San Francisco, according to an attendee who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the event was meant to be private. Hastings himself spoke at the gathering, the attendee said, emphasizing the value of schools governed by nonprofit organizations — as charter schools usually are — as opposed to by school districts.”
Well, that’s very “good government” of them, I must say. They held a private meeting to determine the fate of tens of millions who attend existing public schools – the fate is apparently “close their schools and replace with Reed Hastings preferred contractors”- and the echo chamber members in attendance are forbidden to talk about it.
There’s no law against seeking to privatize public schools. They could sell this honestly and simply tell people that’s the goal, but they choose to hide it.
Why? Why not just run on converting every school into a charter? They all cheerlead charter and vouchers and they all clearly believe any privatized or private school is superior to any public school. This is an ideological belief of Hastings- he is OPPOSED to public schools. But they can’t say that, so they task the marketing department with coming up with a bunch of touchy- feely MUSH that means nothing but sounds vaguely “progressive”
I actually prefer DeVos to these people. At least she tells the truth. She seeks to replace public schools with the privatized schools her ideology demands. That’s her offer. These folks don’t even respect you enough to give you an offer.
People like Hastings choose to hide in the shadows and weaponize their wealth. They know their position is not popular. That is why they despise democracy. They prefer to hide behind positive sounding, but misleading, foundations and think tanks while they work to destroy democratic public education behind the scenes.
We have a pride of billionaires who despise democracy because ordinary people who are not rich can disagree in the voting booth with billionaires and win. That’s why democracy is precious. And that’s why billionaires want to buy it by funding phony groups like “The City Fund” to insert themselves into local elections and deceive people about their goals. They want to privatize public schools, yet call themselves “Public School Allies.” A complete lie. People who want to save their public schools are being hoaxed.
When did being dishonest become acceptable? Why don’t these organizations like this and Empower Texans just state that they want segregation ( economic segregation) and are willing to take away better futures for profits? Charters are not proving to be any better or more successful than well run public schools but they cannot admit this fact!
When I was a child, I read comic books, but I gave this up when I was about 11. Now, American adults flock to see comic books on the big screen, and Don the Con is President. I was quite pleased to read that director Francis Ford Coppola had slammed the Marvel movie franchise as “despicable” and that Martin Scorsese had described the Marvel films as “theme parks” and “not cinema.”
Sprinkled within the comic books I used to read were ads that originated with a fellow named Harold Von Braunhut. He sold little packets of ghost shrimp eggs as “sea monkeys. He also sold an “invisible goldfish.” The purchaser would receive a glass bowl, some fish food, and a written guarantee that he or she would never see the goldfish in bowl. My favorite of his products were his X-ray glasses, which ran with ads suggesting that people would be able to use these to see beneath other people’s clothes. These were cheap specs with feathered scratches in the lenses that introduced random distortion into whatever people were seeing, and people could read into these patterns whatever they wanted to “see.” The phenomenon is known as pareidolia and is the same one that leads people to see Jesus in their toast.
The flim-flam has a great history in America. John D. Rockefeller’s father–William “Devil Bill” Rockefeller, had wives in various places and earned a living traveling from town to town in the West and Midwest, running various cons and selling magic elixirs to cure everything and anything. He would show up, put on a show, sell a few bottles of cancer and whooping cough cure, and then skedaddle away just ahead of the law. Florida has a proud history of selling swampland and erectile dysfunction tablets and school grading schemes and VAM to the rest of the country. When I was a kid, rural Americans flocked to traveling carnivals to see “the alligator man” (some poor fellow with a horrific skin condition) and three-headed dogs in glass jars and “geeks”–typically severe alcoholics who were paid to chase chickens around a pit and bite their heads off.
So, Ed Deform is in a great tradition of the American flim-flam. Replacing kids’ interactions with teachers with interaction with machines is called “personalized learning.” Siphoning off resources from public schools into the pockets of charter school management grifters is called “school choice.” The childish, regressive Gates/Coleman standards [sic] are called “higher.” Organizations for destroying public schools are called “Public School Allies.”
Ohio has a big school funding plan in negotiations. This will impact every public school student in the state. In many ways, it will BENEFIT public school students.
Here’s how it’s viewed in the echo chamber: “does it benefit charters and vouchers?”
https://fordhaminstitute.org/ohio/commentary/cupp-patterson-funding-plan-gives-school-choice-cold-shoulder
This isn’t “public education”. It EXCLUDES public schools and public school students. They aren’t even considered in ed reform work. The one and only goal is to expand charters and vouchers. Public school students are not even considered in any of these plans.
The vast, vast majority of Ohio students attend PUBLIC schools. Yet. Every school funding plan must focus exclusively on charter and voucher schools.
It’s ludicrous. They are “public education advocates” who deliberately exclude 90% of students and families. Public school students are assigned so little value in ed reform they’re not even worthy of “analysis”.
I would urge the public to read about the districts that have been privatized and get a fell for what it’s like for the people who actually live there rather than listening to the paid ed reform cheerleading squad:
https://harpers.org/archive/2019/11/the-k-12-takeover-charter-schools-new-orleans/
You are listening to salespeople. They are selling privatization. There are real world examples where they have succeeded in eradicating public schools and it isn’t all sunshine and babies. In New Orleans, for example, the ed reform monolith acts as a “gatekeeper” to charter school funding and they can (and do) withhold funding to schools that don’t meet their ideological requirements.
You may not like your school board, but at least you can replace your school board. You give your schools over to 15 unelected billionaires and they will direct your schools. That’s what they do in New Orleans.
“Shame”- is that an emotion that a hedge funder and Enron manager can experience?
And, the ed. dept. and associated professors at the public Michigan State University saw no problem taking Arnold money.
Biden has decided to accept PAC money. Otherwise, he cannot run a campaign. People are not supportive enough to send Biden money.
In Cincinnati this week, “Trump Supporter Accused of Pretending to be Black to Get Votes for City School Board”. There is no ethical bar too low for the right wing.
The guy posted a stock photo of a black family at his site and claimed he was endorsed by the black firefighters association.
Yes. He has a bunch of other misleading information filed with the voting guide from the League of Women Voters. We also have the Director of the the Southwestern Region of Teach for America running for the school board, with major support from two sources. One comes from ONE extended super-rich family in Cincinnati. The other comes from the Teach for America arm that trains people to run for any governmental position. The Cincinnati School Board paid $100,000 to place TFA teachers in our schools. The conflict of interest is clear.
If Bernie’s elected, the “non-profits’ ” ripoff of taxpayers should be stopped ASAP as well as scabs who are under qualified with no long term interest in the classroom, preferring policy influence for rich people instead.
Did you notice there were no signatures from the University of Cincinnati on the public letter from ed departments that Diane posted a week ago, while Miami University had multiple signatures?
—But they’re not shamed enough tip stop relying on public $ via grants & federal programs. —Not to mention the finder’s fees for TFAers. They would crumble w/o public support.’
Their “public support” is not the people’s will. It is gratis of the bought and paid for legislators.
How many TFA’ers work at Fordham sponsored schools?
From Matt’s report link:
“Many advocates of the idea now bristle at the term “portfolio,” with its financial overtones. “System of schools,” “family of schools,” and “21st century schools” are often used instead.”
https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2019/03/08/portfolio-model-explainer/
My district’s superintendent and school board are sold on 21st century schools. They believe spending hundreds of millions to remake spaces will close the achievement gap and ensure jobs for graduates post high school and college.
Nonsense piled on nonsense.
I deduced awhile ago, after follow-up of the entries from an internet search of, 21st century leader education, that the campaign is about- self aggrandizement for administrators andl propaganda associated with the agenda of the rich.