Rachel Cohen writes here about the charter supporters backing Pete Buttigieg.
Billionaire Reed Hastings held a fundraiser for Mayor Pete. Hastings, CEO of Netflix, has given millions to the California Charter Schools Association. He has said he looks forward to the day when there are no elected school boards. He likes schools run by corporate boards. He says they didn’t discuss charter schools, which is one of Hastings’ causes about which he is passionate.
Cohen writes:
Linda Lucy, who has served as the president of the South Bend teachers union since June 2018, told VICE she had never met with Pete Buttigieg, and had “nothing to add” about the union’s relationship with the mayor. “Politicians have hijacked the teaching profession in our public schools,” she said.
Buttigieg does appear to have made time for Heather Willey, one of Indiana’s top charter school lobbyists, who co-hosted a fundraiser for Buttigieg in Indianapolis on October 4, according to an invitation obtained by VICE.
Willey served on the board of the Institute for Quality Education, an Indiana school choice advocacy group, for years, and co-chairs her law firm’s “Charter School and School Innovation” group. In 2019, the Institute for Quality Education, Teach for America Indianapolis, and Charter Schools USA, Inc., a for-profit charter company, all listed Willey’s firm, Barnes & Thornburg LLP, as a hired lobbyist. According to her professional biography, Willey “has been intimately involved in the charter school and school reform movements since the inception of the laws in Indiana in 2001.” She did not return repeated requests for comment.
In Silicon Valley, meanwhile, Buttigieg has also had fundraisers with several prominent charter school supporters.
Satya Patel, a venture capitalist who formerly worked as a vice president of product at Twitter, co-hosted an event for Buttigieg in the Bay Area in late August. Between 2007 and 2017, Patel served on the board of KIPP Bay Area Schools, part of the nation’s largest charter school network, which has received tens of millions of dollars in federal grants. He did not return requests for comment.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
He did not return requests for comments. He appears to be owned by the charter industry and big money in Silicon Valley.
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may his lack of commenting lead only to being asked many more questions
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At least we know now, earlier on in the election process, that he’s a school privatization stooge, and that once elected, his eduction policies and priorities will be identical to that of Trump & Devos..
In contrast, when it came to education, Obama was stealth in hiding his true motives and funders, but once he got elected, he turned out to be an arch school privatizer, teacher union buster, and charter stooge.
When he gave his press conference at a Chicago charter school announcing Arne Duncan and his Secretary of Edl. shortly before inauguration, it was a total horror show. He bragged about how Duncan had closed the former public school that occupied the site, fired all the teachers, and now a Neo-liberal charter educational paradise had taken its place. Duncan would now expand this strategy nationwide.
EPILOGUE: that same model charter school — again, the one where Obama & Duncan gave their press conference announcing Arne as Sec. or Ed. — imploded in scandal and chaos a couple years later. That same scenario has played out at countless Chicago public-to-charter conversion schools.
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There was no meaningful difference between the Obama Administration on education and Jeb Bush on education.
They lifted their entire agenda from Jeb Bush.
They brag about how they all agree on everything and attribute that to a “focus on the children” but I think the truth is much simpler. They agree on everything because they’re all identical. Many times they are the same people, because they all also exclusively hire from within the echo chamber.
There just isn’t a dimes worth of difference between “liberal” ed reformers and “conservative” ed reformers. It’s why we’ve seen so little dissent from them as to Trump and such ferocious opposition to someone like Warren.
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I am less concerned about whether pro-charter billionaires give money to Pete than why they give money to Pete. Is Pete an uncritical charter supporter like Arne Duncan and Obama? He should be put on the spot and have to answer that and go on the record as to whether he supports the NAACP moratorium or opposes any oversight of charters.
It certainly looks like he supports charters, but he should be asked his position – with follow-up questions – so he can’t get away with a mealy mouthed non-answer about how he supports “public charters” like we saw candidates doing in 2016. This time they need to make their position clear and I hope all of the candidates appearing at the education forum in Pittsburgh get asked lots of follow-up questions and are not just allowed to say platitudes without being challenged as they have in the past.
I do not believe that Bernie and Elizabeth Warren take their marching orders from the teachers’ union just because they may get donations from the union. I believe that they take their positions because that is what they have come to believe.
Likewise I believe the same about candidates who are pro-charter. I don’t care about who donates to them. I do care about what those candidates believe and if they continue to insist that charters don’t need accountability or oversight or that NY is the model state for oversight because NY charters are “only” allowed to give out of school suspensions to 20% of their low-income African-American Kindergarten students but the oversight agency would certainly object if 50% of a charter’s low-income African-American children were publicly denounced as violent Kindergarten children. That isn’t good enough oversight and if that’s what Pete is satisfied with, then he should be made to say so publicly and defend his view that if a white charter CEO says lots of African-American 5 year olds are violent and need suspending, Pete will accept that as the gospel truth instead of realizing what a racist view of children those who say that have.
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I hope Mayor Pete will be asked these questions at the forum on public education on Saturday, when he and other candidates will answer questions posed by advocates for public schools.
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I’m so thrilled that this is happening! Thank you!
Who is asking the questions of the candidates? Will there be follow-up so they can’t simply mouth the same old platitudes without being challenged with facts?
I hope Mayor Pete and others explain why they are not endorsing the NAACP’s charter moratorium, and I hope they are forced to point out a state where they believe oversight is “good” because they are sure to mention NY or Massachusetts where charters known for suspending outrageously high percentages of African-American Kindergarten children are rewarded by the supposedly “good” state oversight agencies instead of them demanding that such practices stop.
I hope Mayor Pete is asked a follow up question where the father of the Success Academy student’s NAACP testimony about how his child was targeted for removal the first days of school by a so-called “high performing” charter is read out loud and Mayor Pete is told that the oversight agency knows about this and has no problem with it and ask him straight out if this is a problem for him because the oversight agencies don’t have any problems with it at all.
It would be amazing if someone would play the video of Hillary Clinton at the South Carolina Town Hall in which – in just a few minutes – she sums up everything that is wrong with the pro-charter arguments of those who want to privatize public education.
Just 3 minutes played from the Orangeburg, SC town hall on November 7, 2015 (which is on C-Span)
beginning at 36:10 through 39:22. Three short minutes in which a passionate Hillary Clinton addresses every single pro-charter talking point offered up by her pro-charter interviewer Roland Martin.
It’s so important to watch this because Roland Martin’s comments are likely word for word the same comments that will be made by every pro-charter candidate on that stage in Pittsburgh, and in 3 minutes Hillary Clinton demonstrates exactly how to address those talking points. HRC was so successful at addressing every single talking point and defending public schools (with much applause from the audience of supposedly pro-charter folks) that Roland Martin changed the subject as fast as he could.
But at the Saturday forum, there won’t be a pro-charter moderator who can change the subject. Unfortunately I think too often the pro-public education candidates do a very poor job of defending public education and explaining what is wrong with charters.
HRC does it in 3 short minutes in a clip that I hope will be played at the forum so the candidates have to address what she said instead of offering up the same pro-charter talking points that Roland Martin offered with no one really informed enough to defend public schools the way they should be defended.
I was very disappointed to see Elizabeth Warren accepting the pro-charter propaganda that “poor African-American parents need good schools and they can only get them with charters” without ever questioning the premise. Warren needs to be forced to watch how Hillary Clinton addressed that in her forum so that instead of accepting the pro-charter propaganda as fact, she can point out that there can be choice schools WITHIN the public school system if that is what parents want instead of allowing private operators with no oversight tell their child “sorry, we decided you are too much bother to teach so we are dumping you and no one can stop us.”
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Buttigieg is a bright, articulate candidate. He appeals to many of the same people that were impressed with Obama, and this includes centrist teachers. I reposted this article on social media to reach out to fellow teachers that find Buttigieg appealing, and I hope others do the same. I don’t want to have to vote for any of the B-boys that are running, unless, of course, one of them is the last Democrat standing.
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As expected, corporate media puts the shine on Pete. And, since Pete uses talking points from corporate-funded CAP, we know he’s a neoliberal not a progressive. Maybe he and Bloomberg can form a ticket.
If the reports aren’t lies, at one time, Pete wrote that he admired Bernie Sanders. Pete was or has become everything that Sanders is fighting against.
Still, on election day, the worst Democrat is better than the best Republican.
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So agree, retired. Once again–& I don’t think I can say this enough–I think he’s the anointed Dem candidate. & I don’t find this appealing (obviously, not a “centrist”…I find it appalling!
Finally, the “bs” you’ve mentioned (certainly, Pete, Bloomberg & Bennett)–even though his first name is Bernie, not on that list!!!
(Has to be last name B, right?)
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Don’t forget Booker on ypur list of candidates with B last names that would destroy public education. I would probably include Biden on that list as well.
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If he’s surrounding himself with ed reform echo chamber members, we WILL get the standard ed reform policy- exclusively promoting charters and vouchers as far as “choice” (first priority) and then grim, joyless, testing -based “fixes” for the 90% of students who attend public schools (second priority).
This isn’t in doubt- it is guaranteed.
There are no other ideas in ed reform. If you hire from the movement, that’s what you get.
Expect no actual positive contribution to or support of children in public schools. They have no positive agenda for public school students and families.
Ed reformers believe the opposition to them is driven solely by their cheerleading for charters and vouchers, but their problem is much bigger than that.
They don’t offer anything of value to the 90% of students who attend public schools.
They can cheerlead for charters and vouchers all they want and this huge, glaring HOLE in the “movement” will continue to dog them, because the EMPTY SPACE in “movement” belief and ideology includes 90% of students. They can’t get around that.
The analysis is all driven by the exclusive focus on charters and vouchers, too. They don’t vet candidates on “public education”. They vet candidates on support for charters and vouchers. They don’t even bother to look at anything else, and there’s a REASON for that. Public school students are simply not included in their “vision”. Your kids aren’t there.
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You could put the charter school “movement” in a small board room. The rest of its advocates are very well recompensed hirelings. Unfortunately, there are a lot of those Vichy collaborators with the busting of unions and the impoverishment of public schools.
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If they do anything on public schools at all it’s 100% measurement and data collection and reporting. They have nothing else. Public school students are treated as a control group- their only value is to be used as test subjects to advance a preferred ed reform policy.
Them as individual students in a particular place and time? Irrelevant to the “movement”. Not interested. They are (and 90% of the time this is how they’re depicted) “students in district schools”- the control group.
None of the policy focuses on them. Most of it is irrelevant to them. After all, they don’t attend charters or private schools. The only time it becomes relevant to them is when it’s actively harmful to them.
No one even contemplates the possibility that there might be an actual benefit to a public school student- the BEST we get is assurances they won’t be harmed.
Why would I pay people for that? Why would anyone?
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People forget that politicians are people just like them. We all have our areas of ignorance, even of the willful kind. I suspect that Peter is profoundly ignorant about what charter schools have meant for public education, about the harm that they have done, and he is surrounded by charter-school advocates, including financial supporters of his campaign who tout such schools as instruments of positive change serving the poor (they aren’t). He really needs to read a couple books by Diane Ravitch. Better yet, he needs to sit down with her for a couple hours and THEN read her books. He seems clueless about how “nonprofit” charters siphon off public funds into the private pockets of those working for their management companies, about how many take federal and state funds and then close, about how they cherry pick students, about how they drain essential dollars from public schools. He has a LOT of learning to do.
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He could start by reading the Network for Public Education reports.”Asleep at the Wheel” and “Still Asleep at the Wheel.”
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Mayor Pete knows exactly what he’s doing. His life partner (or husband) is a teacher. Mayor Pete = HRC….. no difference in policy if you take away the names. The DNC wants Mayor Pete because they think he will bring a large voting block to the poles on election day. If it comes down to Mayor Pete vs. Trump, I will hold my nose and vote Mayor Pete for Prez. The DNC holds way too much influence about who makes it to voting time and it will only be with grassroots effort that the general public will be able to know ALL the facts about ALL the candidates. I think the people in the US of A have woke!!….and their pretty darned ticked off about the fleecing of their tax dollars over the past 20-30 yrs.
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We are at the beginning of a phase transition, like a pot of water just before it starts boiling. Compare the opinions of our young people to those over 30 on just about anything. The old guard has little clue that this is happening. But Obama did bring a whole division back from Iraq and give it the mission of civilian crowd control, and the US defense services, which annually does a few weeks of joint war gaming, recently did one based on a zombies scenario, with the help of a computer games company–perfect training for civilian riot containment. It’s going to be an interesting time, the near future. May you live in interesting times, goes the old curse.
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cx: which annually do, ofc
And, consider that creation of an Army civilian crowd control unit based in the US in light of the Posse Comitatus Act. Scary. Obama taught Constitutional Law at Chicago. He knew &$(@@#*# well that this was illegal.
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I know people like Mayor Pete and he’s charismatic but he just screams “phony” to me.
His abrupt lurch to the center was honestly one of the most calculated and cynical moves I have seen in politics. You almost have to admire it in one so inexperienced.
It seems to be working for him, so far be it from me to question elite political marketing and branding and re-branding, but, wow. Are we sure we want to continue to reward this particular brand of “smart” or “clever”? It may “work” for the candidate, but does it work for the country? How has it worked for us so far?
Of the centrist candidates I think I’d prefer Biden or Klobachur. At least I have some idea of what and who they actually are. Pete is whatever he needs to be, at any given point in the campaign cycle.
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We saw the same abrupt lurch, but to the far right, in Mitt Romney’s Presidential campaign, especially during the Repugnican primaries. I don’t thing that Buttigieg is quite that cynical. But he does have a lot to learn about charters. And his ties to the technokleptocratic oligarchical echo chamber are troubling.
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Forgive the typo
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I believe Culture Club with Boy George had a song about Mayor Pete…..Karma Chameleon.
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Oh, retired, I forgot Biden, the other B! How could I?! (Again, think the DNC has, as well!)
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Geez…Booker is another “B” not wanted by teachers (& now he’s whining, pulling the race card, because his %age points aren’t high enough to qualify for the debates.
Boo hoo, Booker.
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Pete: https://www.amazon.com/Slaying-Goliath-Passionate-Resistance-Privatization/dp/0525655379
Essential reading for Presidents to be
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Pete and Repeat
Pete is not to be
Never had a chance
Pete is O, you see
Whiteface and a dance
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Another great one.
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Pete will face the same problem that Hillary did. He’ll get the votes of die hard Dems but the Dem rank and file won’t make the effort to get their neighbors to the polls.
It’s tough to talk up to friends and family, a Silicon Valley sell-out. And, the CAP team isn’t smart enough (or committed enough?) to message on his behalf about the loss of court judges to the GOP machine (Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society).
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Speaking of charter supporters, there’s Paul Singer, a guy committed to Israel, and a major GOP donor.
Daily Beast reports Tucker Carlson (Fox) played the populist card (Wall Street bankrupts communities) while devoting a significant amount of airtime to an attack against Paul Singer and his hedge fund, Elliot Management.
Singer should be reminded that public schools act as a unifier, they don’t promote religious intolerance, nor discriminate based on religious belief. Too many in vulnerable groups are playing with fire.
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