Twitter lit up this morning with news of a disruption of an Elizabeth Warren rally by charter school “parents” in matching T-shirts. Hovering in the background was Howard Fuller, whose Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO) received millions during its lifetime of advocating for vouchers from billionaire foundations such as Bradley, Walton, and Gates.
Peter Greene has gathered the story of the funders of the “parent” disruption of the Warren rally.
The usual billionaire-funded suspects. The disrupters came from Walton-funded organizations, representatives of DFER, and other pro-charter groups, whose purpose was to embarrass Warren for having the audacity to propose a massive increase in funding for poor kids and kids with disabilities and a cutoff of Betsy DeVos’s slush fund for corporate charters known as the federal Charter Schools Program (which currently spends $440 million annually).
He writes:
As [Ryan] Grim [of The Intercept] tweeted, “A group funded by some of the richest people in the world, the Waltons, just disrupted an @ewarren speech on the 1881 Atlanta washerwoman strike. Can’t make this stuff up.” It’s not a new game; charter advocates have often loaded up parents and students, made them some t-shirts, and deployed them as citizen lobbyists.
There’s a lot of money and power behind the charter school movement. Expect more of these shenanigans if Warren continues to lead the Democratic pack. The charter industry is not gong to let her go without a fight.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Wealth and power of billionaires enable all kinds of dirty tricks and anti-democratic capers, disgraceful. Warren will need a rooting crew to shout down these disruptors at her rallies if this persists.
Justice in America-
Flynn pled guilty in 2017 and 2018. He probably won’t be sentenced to the DOJ’s recommended 1 year of probation in December as scheduled. He has a new lawyer.
Charters create their own constituency by rewarding parents with an exemption from public schools. It is a cynical appeal to self-interest. In New Orleans they show up with t-shirts that read: My child, My Choice, My School. So much for Martin Luther King’s call for the “Beloved Community,”
Lance,
I don’t agree.
Why would charter parents travel to demand more charter funding?
Their child already attends a charter school.
Whose interest is served when they protest?
Not theirs but the charter operators.
No, I don’t think they are demanding money for their own charters. The operators are telling parents that the public school advocates are coming for their charters. The parents are paying off their debt to the charters by doing the operators bidding. Plus they want to embarrass presidential charter opponents.
Sometimes I think that the other side – those who support public schools – needs to start playing hardball, too. Should people who believe in public education start disrupting their speeches?
When it Howard Fuller speaking next? What if a group of children were outside holding signs saying “Howard Fuller wants to take money from severely handicapped children and give it to rich charter CEOs”. ‘Howard Fuller only cares about the Waltons, not us”.
What if at the next rally, Cory Booker was confronted with a large group of children and parents holding signs saying “Why does Cory want to take money from our public schools and give it to rich charter CEOs?”
What if there were disabled children in wheelchairs outside of Howard Fuller’s next speech and Cory Booker’s next rally all holding signs saying “Howard Fuller wants to take away our schools funding and give it to rich charter CEOs who refuse to let us in their schools”. “Cory Booker doesn’t care about us – he only cares about rich charter CEOs”.
If that happened, the hypocritical Howard Fuller and Cory Booker would object and say it wasn’t fair.
NYCPSP,
That won’t happen, because no one will pay to transport them there, buy them matching T-shirts, and pay for their time.
I know that parents wouldn’t be paid, but I suspect that if someone knew how to organize them in local communities, at least some would gladly come out at their own expense (which would be minimal as it would be the people who lived in that community). I admit I don’t know much about community organizing, but I see parents organizing to protest ending the SHSAT or to protest excessive testing or about climate change or various other issues. Because they care about those issues. I think the recent elections have shown that people care about public education, too.
I admire people who figure out how to organize people to show up without the funding that those spewing corporate propaganda get. Is that what Leonie does regarding class size? It feels as if there are probably lots of parents out there who would provide a counter narrative to these paid protestors, but don’t know how to manage it or when and where to show up.
Someone has to organize them.
When parents stage a tiny protest of Betsy DeVos at a school visit, she has the U.S. Marshalls drop seven million dollars a year of taxpayer money to protect her from them. There is no justice.
Interesting that there are never any Walton-funded protests when public school funding is cut.
In fact, they fund the political campaigns of the politicians who cut funding to public schools. Enthusiastically support cutting funding to public schools.
Why the opposite stance for charters? Our schools and students don’t deserve funding?
Remember last week when it was alleged that ed reformers were targeting Elizabeth Warren across their lobbying groups and platforms?
And they all denied it? Insisted they were “nonpartisan” and very even handed?
So much for that, I guess. 🙂
Ed reform should just endorse Donald Trump and get it over with. They have zero interest in any education issue that isn’t charters and vouchers. They’re perfectly aligned with the Trump Administration, who also don’t lift a finger on behalf of any student in any public school, anywhere.
They’re irrelevant to public schools. Our kids and schools have no value in this movement.
I hope Warren is made aware of the funding source so she can tweet one of her pithy retorts.
Was a blatant lie perpetuated in the Chalkbeat Report about this incident?
“Carpenter’s group, the Memphis Lift, has received $1.5 million from the Walton Family Foundation since 2015. Carpenter told ABC News that the trip was not funded by Walton, which was singled out for criticism in Warren’s education plan.”
I would not be surprised if Warren will be hammered by “parents” and others organized by the billionaire funded charter industry. Same for every other candidate who threatens the entitlements that charter supporters have secured through federal and state funding, all in addition to funding from billionaires, usually through their foundations or LLCs.
I hope someone makes sure Warren rapidly and thoroughly learns how charter schools escape accountability, and which members of the Black community she might muster to support her, including the Rev. William Barber.
Bernie has done just that.
Our school system used to send us regular Chalkbeat articles. Softball. I used to think I was just jaded. Then I realized that Chalkbeat was not going to ask the tough questions, especially where Memphis is concerned. In those days, I found that many of the journalists were very young and inexperienced. Seems teaching is not the only field that requires experience. Who know?
I hope Warren stays strong and firm. She must not compromise. A friend of mine at the rally said that she was surprised with how easily Warren became flustered during the protests. Her campaign co chair had to come on stage to calm the crowd.
Warren said, “If I don’t have the pieces right, I’m going to go back and read it,I’m going to make sure I got it right”.
Lets hope she stays committed to her plans.
Here’s a video of Warren’s meeting after the rally with this group:
Um, sorry – that’s a video of Bernie poking fun at himself. Remember when we had leaders who were secure enough to do that?
Here’s Warren:
Biden- “Even the Ukrainians wouldn’t yield to Trump like Lindsay Graham did.”