Heather Gautney and Eric Blanc warn in the Guardian the Michael Bloomberg’s ideas about education would be a disaster for the nation. He is the only candidate whose ideas about education are in synch with those of Donald Trump, Betsy DeVos, and Arne Duncan. The authors are both supporting Bernie Sanders.
Affer persuading the legislature to give him total control of the city’s 1.1 million public school students, he hired three non-educators as city Chancellor. One of them, a publisher out of her depth, lasted 95 days.
Like Trump and his inept Secretary of Education Betsy Devos, Bloomberg is a fervent backer of privatizing and dismantling public schools across the country. Education, in their view, should be run like a business.
While other establishment Democrats have begun changing their tune in response to the “Red for Ed” movement, Bloomberg’s campaign spokesman has made it clear that privatization will be a core message of his 2020 presidential run: “Mike has always supported charter schools, he opened a record number of charter schools as mayor of New York City, and he will champion the issue as president.”
Indeed, Bloomberg succeeded in massively expanding privately run but publicly funded charter schools during his term as mayor, increasing their number from 18 to 183. His controversial push to “increase school choice” closed over 100 schools in low-income communities and entrenched New York City’s education system as the most racially segregated in the country…
If anything, the main difference between Bloomberg and Trump is that the former has spent far more of his immense personal fortune to boost corporate “education reform” and local candidates driving this agenda. The New York Times reported last week that Bloomberg has spent millions to promote charters in the state of Louisiana alone. And this is just the tip of the iceberg: Bloomberg’s foundation in 2018 announced its plan to spend $375m to promote charters, merit pay, and the sacking of “failing” teachers, among other reforms.
Bloomberg is also an active promoter of high stakes testing. Despite abundant evidence that an excessive testing regime does little to improve real educational achievement, Bloomberg has vociferously sung the praises of this system in op-eds such as Demand Better Schools, Not Fewer Tests. Accordingly, as mayor he fought for a merit pay system through which teachers’ salaries would be pegged to student test scores.Like Trump and DeVos, Bloomberg has also viciously attacked teacher unions and scapegoated educators. He spent much of his mayoral tenure fighting with the powerful United Federation of Teachers (UFT), which he compared to the National Rifle Association. As he put it, “if the UFT wants it, it ain’t good”.
Actually, Bloomberg has poured money into charter school campaigns across the country, not just in Louisiana. He donated big money to school board races in Los Angeles and a charter referendum in Massachusetts, among many other state and local races.. His daughter Emma is one of three billionaire board members of TFA’s political action arm, called Leadership for Educational Equity.
Though his Republican roots are less evident on some other issues, Bloomberg’s personal and political similarity to Trump will make it very hard for him to win in a general election. Trump’s base remains solid – we need a candidate who can increase turnout by energizing the Democratic base and involving new voters in the political process.
That’s why having Bloomberg as the Democratic party’s standard bearer would make defeating Trump exceedingly difficult. At a moment when a wave of successful teachers’ strikes has captured the imagination of millions and changed the national discussion on education, a Bloomberg nomination would be a sure-fire recipe for demoralizing educators and teachers’ unions, an indispensable bastion of organized labor and the Democratic base.
They conclude:
You can’t win in November without teachers. And nobody should expect educators to be won over to a billionaire who has spent much of his career and fortune demonizing them. If you want to save public schools and defeat Trump, Bloomberg is no choice at all.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“Despite abundant evidence that an excessive testing regime does little to improve real educational achievement….”
Little??? How about “nothing”? How about, in fact, not only does it not improve real educational achievement, it destroys it?
Concur with what you say, Dienne, except that I would not use “real educational achievement” although I believe I know what you are saying (and that you were using the author’s own language).
“How about, in fact, not only does it not improve THE TEACHING AND LEARNING PROCESS, it DEFINITELY destroys it!”
As I’ve said many times before, I don’t give a damn and never did when I was in the classroom about “raising student achievement” whatever the hell that means. What I do give a damn about is how the teaching and learning process can be improved in each teacher’s classroom. And in many cases that process shouldn’t be tinkered with except by the individual teacher as the teacher has spent the time and effort to perfect his/her own craft.
hear, hear
I linked to the original post at OEN https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Michael-Bloomberg-s-educat-in-General_News-Educational-Crisis_Michael-Bloomberg_Public-Education_Worse-Than-Worthless-Education-200219-100.html#comment756647
with this comment:
I was there, in NYC when Bloomberg did his thing. He destroyed NYC public schools. Period.He will end Public Schools in America. Only the scions of the wealthy will have a chance to succeed.
Income inequality https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM will be the result.
Go to the link and see what is afoot.
“Bloomberg is also an active promoter of high stakes testing. Despite abundant evidence that an excessive testing regime does little to improve real educational achievement, Bloomberg has vociferously sung the praises of this system in op-eds such as Demand Better Schools, Not Fewer Tests. Accordingly, as mayor he fought for a merit pay system through which teachers’ salaries would be pegged to student test scores.Like Trump and DeVos, Bloomberg has also viciously attacked teacher unions and scapegoated educators. He spent much of his mayoral tenure fighting with the powerful United Federation of Teachers (UFT), which he compared to the National Rifle Association. As he put it, “if the UFT wants it, it ain’t good”.
Bloomberg ain’t good for our nation.
I looked for K-12 policy on his site. He doesn’t have any. He has early childhood, career and technical and college.
https://www.mikebloomberg.com/getting-it-done?gclid=CjwKCAiA1rPyBRAREiwA1UIy8CRcMZCzIO3_Bdjn-FB8hfUHTx5la2NbPvPAzau3gGVrmluDxVrIRBoCWOgQAvD_BwE
It seems to me a lot of ed reform Democrats took this approach after 2012, when ed reform became less popular – they promoted early childhood plans in order to avoid addressing their K-12 plans.
I maintain that the biggest difference between ed reform candidates and candidates who don’t identify with the “movement” will not be what they say or don’t say, but the people they hire. Bloomberg would hire exclusively ed reformers, just as Trump did and Obama did and Bush before Obama. I don’t think they even consider the possibility that they could hire outside the echo chamber, so dominant are they in national (elite) policy circles. Bloomberg would the fourth anti-public school president in a row. It would be terrible for students in existing public schools. They really haven’t been served well.
The best thing we can do as advocates for legitimate public education is to re-post all of Bloomberg’s misdeeds on social media. It is the only way we can attempt to sway middle of the road democrats away from Mayor Mike who is trying to buy the election. Many non-New Yorkers are largely unaware that Bloomberg’s policies would further undermine public education. We do not have Bloomberg’s money, but we can use what we have to deter the public from being bamboozled by another billionaire.
This will sound familiar to all of you:
“The Bloomberg Philanthropies 2019 annual report explains the charity’s work on what it calls “K-12 education reform” by saying that Bloomberg “supports education reform throughout the United States. He personally backs pro-reform public officials who work to enact meaningful policy changes that will ensure accountability and high standards in schools. This work is grounded in the belief that the solutions required to improve education need broad coalitions that put students’ interests first.” It further explains, “to measure progress, this work focuses on increasing high school graduation and college enrollment rates as well as improving academic achievement. The work has been focused in states like Tennessee and Louisiana, cities like Washington, D.C., and Indianapolis, Indiana, and other communities across the country.”
The standard ed reform list- Tennessee, Louisiana, DC and now the newest ed reform miracle city, Indianapolis. Notice they never mention Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania or the rest of the ed reform disasters.
It’ll be boilerplate, lock step echo chamber. The names are the same too, as always. Michelle Rhee even reappears. Apparently the plan is just re-run the ed reform script from 2000 to 2010.
https://www.educationnext.org/on-education-michael-bloomberg-is-everywhere-philanthropy/
Bloomberg is a true believer in the test and punish regime of NCLB and Race to the Top.
Here is more from the horse’s mouth and from an analysis of one IRS 990 form for the Bloomberg Philanthropies.
“Mike Bloomberg’s 2019 NAACP Convention Remarks” make it clear that he wants more of the standards and testing regime of the last two decades and more charter schools. The writers at the 74million (funded by Walton, Bloomberg and others) were crowing with delight. They cannot wait for tonight. They are hoping education will come up as a topic. There is no ambiguity about his position. You can see how he uses education in this recent pitch to the NAACP. If you don’t like podcasts, there is also a text version at this link https://www.bloomberg.org/blog/follow-data-podcast-mike-bloomberg-110th-naacp-annual-convention-remarks/
I spent some time looking at the 2017-18 IRS 990 form for Bloomberg Philanthropies (BP). It clearly shows the extent of his deep-pocket philanthropy. The total grant making reported for that tax year was $841,657,980, including some grants to foreign nations.
The IRS form also shows that BP received $14 million as a “contribution” from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (B&MG). The only other contributor in that list was Mike Bloomberg, for $450,000,000. I could not find the $14 million grant in the B&MG database, but since 2013, B&MG has sent $1,235,826,921 to Bloomberg’s alma mater Johns Hopkins University, for the “Bloomberg School of Public Health.” Bloomberg invests huge amounts in family planning, tobacco control, and obesity prevention. The Gates’ have similar interests. Imagine Bloomberg as President and Bill Gates as his advisor in chief on education or EVA whom he surely knows as master of stop and frisk for tots.
Several flavors of “mayor challenge” grants illustrate Bloomberg’s faith in mayoral control of policies and key decisions. BP sent 20 innovation grants to mayors in ten cities. This press release shows the extent of this initiative. I wonder if these and related “mayor challenge” grants are a way to prime the pump for national support in a then nascent campaign for president. https://www.bloomberg.org/press/releases/bloomberg-philanthropies-expands-innovation-team-program-12-new-american-cities/
That press release for mayor challenge grants refers to “Bloomberg Philanthropies’ tested Innovation Delivery approach” for managing cities. I looked that up. This Innovation Delivery approach refer to a scheme for managing people who are in a position to address and solve the problem. The illustrations in this playbook illustrate Bloomberg’s attraction to micro-managing. https://www.bbhub.io/dotorg/sites/2/2014/08/Innovation-Team-Playbook_2015.pdf
I created a spreadsheet of the BP education grants for 2017-18.There were sixty-eight awarded and future approved grants. These summed to $841,656,780.
The largest grants went to the Baton Rouge Area Foundation ($11.2 million), DC Public Education Fund ($9.4 million) and Stand for Children Leadership Center ($4.9 million).
Bloomberg also supported the following at $1million or more: Jeb Bush’s Chiefs for Change, Denver Public Schools Foundation, Foundations for Excellence in Education, Foundation for Tulsa Schools, Inner-City Scholarship Fund (in NYC), College Possible also National College Advising Corps (both are for high achieving low and middle class families), New Venture Fund, Mind Trust, and Youthforce Nola (Formally known as Educate Now). https://990s.foundationcenter.org/990pf_pdf_archive/205/205602483/205602483_201712_990PF.pdf
Bloomberg is supporting these and other organizations, all dismissive of public oversight of public schools and opposed to collective bargaining, including teacher unions.
Readers at this blog and Diane’s books will recognize that many of the beneficiaries of Bloomberg’s money are out to make public schools private. He should be called out for these views and others that are likely better known to native New Yorkers.