Candidates for Public office endorsed by NPE Action won big.
We didn’t give them money.
We gave them our valued Seal of Approval, demonstrating that they are the real deal, genuine supporters of public schools.
We also celebrate the apparent victory in Kentucky of Andy Bashear and the apparent defeat of Governor Matt Bevin, who mistreated teachers and sought Betsy DeVos’s approval. Kentucky has a charter law but no funding for charters.
And we congratulate the brave Democrats in Virginia, who won control of the legislature.
And salutations to the new school board members who won control of the Denver school board. Aloha to Senator MIchael Bennett and other pseudo reformers.
November 5 was a great day for public schools and teachers!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Will more Democrats finally learn this lesson—that much is to be gained from standing up for a core set of values and a natural constituency? I’d prefer a true commitment to public education for the sake of the common good, but for now I’d settle for enlightened political expediency. Thanks to this blog, other bloggers, and hundreds of thousands of public school teachers, the days of selling out public schools—and getting away with it—appear to be over. It’s time to make the like of Cuomo, Malloy, Booker and Emanuel pariahs, and to pin Betsy DeVos squarely upon these donkeys.
Yesterday, Bill Gates helped clarify the lesson that the privatizers (Charles Koch) want us to understand. Bill and Charles loathe taxes.
Bill proclaimed he is opposed to Warren. He said he may vote for Trump if Elizabeth is on the ticket. His decision rests on, “Who has the more professional approach”. It’s further proof that neither evidence nor national interest influence Bill Gates.
After the reporting about Gates and Jeffrey Epstein and, the added revelations from his pronouncements yesterday, there’s no Gates’ veneer left that masks his duplicity and greed.
The spin ball is in the court of the pseudo liberals like CAP. CAP’s board chair sits at the top of the Bipartisan Policy Center, a lobby shop that hosts events sponsored by Gates and Arnold..
Gates makes it ever more difficult for establishment “liberals” to pretend their interests are anywhere but concentrating wealth for the richest 0.1%.
Boo Hoo. The wealthy just got a huge tax break and they’re complaining about having to pay more in taxes. How much money does one person need when there are homeless, starving people? Many have no healthcare or can’t afford the insurance that they have. Infrastructure is falling apart and K-12 public schools are underfunded. None of this matters. It is a false race to acquire more and more money.
I think this is one article that substantiate what you are saying. Poor Bill Gates will have to count what he has left. Boo Hoo.
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Mega-Billionaire Bill Gates Doesn’t Want To Pay Warren’s Wealth Tax
Microsoft founder Bill Gates has joined the chorus of famous billionaires who are skeptical of Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s plan to raise taxes on the wealthy, claiming it would leave him counting what he has left.
Speaking at The New York Times DealBook conference on Wednesday, Gates didn’t sound excited by the prospect of the senator from Massachusetts clinching the Democratic presidential nomination….
Forbes estimates that Gates has a net worth of $106.8 billion. He has the second-largest fortune in the world, just behind Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.
Gates joins other mega-wealthy people in his criticism of Warren’s tax plan. Billionaire investor Leon Cooperman sent the senator a letter last month saying she had “proceeded to admonish me (as if a parent chiding an ungrateful child) to ‘pitch in a bit more so everyone else has a chance at the American dream.’”
Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, said Warren “vilifies successful people” and said we should instead “applaud successful people.”
Article: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bill-gates-elizabeth-warren-wealth-tax_n_5dc35c7ee4b0055138825814?ncid=engmodushpmg00000006
Here’s more on the warped thinking of the wealthy. They remain inside their highly oxidized bubble and have no idea of what average or poor people do to exist. It is good news that the media is outing their ridiculous statements. I believe public opinion is in favor of higher taxes on the wealthy. Of course, there are always those who oppose it because some day they will become wealthy. Fat chance of that happening.
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The cohort of financiers going public with their sky-falling claims about Warren’s economic program continues to grow. Just this week:
David Rubenstein — the billionaire co-founder of the Carlyle Group, the private equity giant, said Warren’s proposed wealth tax wouldn’t alleviate income inequality “if one could ever actually be implemented.”
Billionaire hedge fund manager Leon Cooperman teared up on CNBC while discussing the issue, saying he doesn’t “need Elizabeth Warren telling me that I’m a deadbeat and that billionaires are deadbeats. The vilification of billionaires makes no sense to me.”
(Cooperman earlier accused Warren of “s—ing” on the American dream.)
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, also in an interview with CNBC, criticized Warren for using “some pretty harsh words” and vilifying successful people.
And former Obama treasury official Steven Rattner, who now manages Michael Bloomberg’s wealth, wrote in a New York Times op-ed that a Warren presidency is a “terrifying prospect” because “left to her own devices, she would extend the reach and weight of the federal government far further into the economy than anything even President Franklin Roosevelt imagined, effectively abandoning the limited-government model that has mostly served us well.”
Add this to your list of angry billionaires:
Billionaire Paul Tudor Jones predicted the stock market would drop 2750 points if Warren is elected
The projection based of Fed. Reserve data- 33 years- all national U.S. wealth in the hands of the richest. All Americans should want either Bernie or Warren as President. No one should want a country where the 99% are slaves controlled by surveillance- a place where men like Epstein are in the highest circles of power and where the situation is minimized with the description that he has decor that appeals to some rich.
The wives of Bill Gates and Charles Koch- pathetic.
BTW- Larry Summers is a senior advisor at CAP.
Public Education is the BEST … this is not a belief, but instead a FACT. Thanks, NPE, Diane, and all the rest of you.
Teachers are smart and caring and all good things. May sound “simple” but it is true.
I’m doing my celebration dance. Yes! And there are not enough thankful notes in the universe to thank Diane Ravitch for leading us.
Stay tuned…big events are in the works regarding Charter attempt to take over the Houston Schools…this is for your eyes only….Billy
Billy R. Reagan
(713) 795-9696
(832) 215-8877 cell
More later…….br
Billy R. Reagan
(713) 795-9696
(832) 215-8877 cell
Good news is hard to find. Critics still abound. For example….
TNTP. Us teacher were required to read an excerpt from The Opportunity Myth. It reads to me as a test-based criticism of modern teaching. What is this organization? Their web site does not list its donors that I could find.
TNTP is a spin-off of TFA, founded by Michelle Rhee. A corporate reform org
Thanks so much. The interesting thing about the reading was that the reformer rhetoric was so apparent in the first few sentences.
Teachers in Indiana are still grumbling but not doing the final act of striking to get political attention.
Dozens of Indiana districts cancel classes for teachers to rally for higher pay
So many teachers asked to take Nov. 19 off to rally at the Statehouse for higher pay that nearly 30 districts across Indiana have canceled school or scheduled e-learning days.
“We’re going to support our teachers,” said Beech Grove Superintendent Paul Kaiser, who plans to join teachers at the rally that day while students work online from home. “I think it’s important for our leaders and decision-makers to understand that this is a crisis in the state of Indiana.”
The Indiana State Teachers Association and the American Federation of Teachers Indiana both plan to show up in force at the Statehouse on the ceremonial opening day of the legislative session. The unions want to urge lawmakers to find ways to increase teacher pay soon, although it remains to be seen whether legislators will be willing to act when the state’s budget is already set for two years…
https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/in/2019/11/06/dozens-of-indiana-districts-cancel-classes-for-teachers-to-rally-for-higher-pay/?utm_source=email_button
This sweet child knows that teachers don’t make enough money but politicians haven’t figured that out yet. His parents are doing something very right when he has learned that being nice is better than being mean. Trump never learned that lesson.
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Little boy decides to use his birthday money to give his teacher a ‘pay raise’
Lauren M Johnson
By Lauren M. Johnson, CNN
Updated 7:29 PM ET, Wed November 6, 2019
(CNN)Nine-year-old boys usually spend their birthday money on toys or video games, but one Florida boy decided to do something different.
Parker Williams got $15 for his birthday and instead of buying something for himself, he decided to give his teacher at Gorrie Elementary in Tampa a pay raise.
“I think more people should be nice because it’s a nicer thing to do than being mean,” Williams told CNN affiliate WFLA. “I think she’s a really kind teacher…and she spends time on everybody.”
Williams gave his teacher the money along with a note that said: “Dear Mrs. Chambers, I don’t think that teachers get paid enough for what they do, so, will you accept this gift?”
Williams’ parents didn’t know about the third-grader’s plan and his mom said her eyes welled up with tears.
They found the note afterward with Mary Hall Chambers’ kind response: “I can’t accept this but appreciate the gesture, Parker. Students like you are the reason I teach.”
Even though his teacher didn’t keep the gift, Williams said he still felt like he paid it forward. “It made me feel really nice and good,” he said.
Parker’s dad Darrell Williams put the note on his Facebook page, where it quickly made the rounds.