Thomas Ultican continues his investigation of the tentacles of billionaire reformers, this time focusing on the tumultuous career of John Deasy, who resigned as superintendent of the Stockton, California, school district.
Ultican shows how Deasy rose to become superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, how Justin tenure there was marked by controversy as he walked in lockstep with the Eli Broad-Bill Gates agenda of charter school expansion, high-stakes testing, and huge investments in technology. His controversial decision to spend $1.3 billion on iPads and tech curriculum led to the end of his tenure in L.A.
On to Stockton, where the Mayor and three school board members were closely allied with the billionaire agenda.
A sad and cautionary tale about the destructive billionaire-funded movement to gut public schools.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Ed reformers silence all criticism of their “rock stars” by preemptively announcing that the “status quo” caused all the problems.
Their people are all innovative geniuses. It’s just that the stodgy locals, with their sentimental attachment to “buildings” (public schools) failed to recognize the brilliance of “disruption”.
Ed reformers can never fail. They can only BE failed- by “the status quo”, by malicious teachers, by the dreaded labor unions, by the “moms” who think their children are all exceptional. There’s no structure within which to criticize or question ed reformers- no possible valid way to question anything they say or do. ANY criticism is met with the same set of slogans and preemptively portrayed as “self interested” and therefore invalid.
Sometimes the echo chamber belief system requires that certain rock stars completely disappear and are never mentioned again- Michelle Rhee, for example. Her issues became inconvenient so she was given a well paid sinecure with one of the funders, and dropped off the face of the earth.
“Falling off of the face of the earth” must mean becoming a fertilizer firm’s board member (Ohio) and enrolling one’s kids in private schools.
This makes me so sad. The corruption in our country and wasted $$ is discouraging.
“The obvious question is does Mayor Tubbs realize he has adopted the education agenda of US Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, the very conservative Walton Family Foundation and the ultra-conservative libertarian mogul Charles Koch?”
This is an obvious question and I wonder why it’s never asked. I know Arne Duncan doesn’t agree with Donald Trump’s views on civil rights, yet when I take Trump out of the picture and compare Duncan to DeVos on public schools there is virtually no difference.
Can ed reformers articulate how they differ from the Trump Administration on public education? Specifics, please. Is there some large difference between the “liberal plan” to privatize schools and the “conservative plan”? I’ve been reading them for years and I can’t come up with a single difference, other than bickering over details, like the extent of charter regulations.
They brag that ed reform is “bipartisan” and it is- it’s bipartisan because they all agree on privatization. They differ only in what the privatized systems will look like and cost when they’ve completed the project. For a while some of them dissented on vouchers, but now even that small difference has disappeared, and they’re all lockstep on that, too. How is a Democrat reciting “the money follows the child” different than a Republican reciting it, and how are any of them different than Barry Goldwater, who recited it first?
Tubbs may not be receptive to a lesson on the subject, “segrenomics”, a term coined by Prof. Noliwe Rooks. Neither Clarence Thomas nor Herman Cain were.
Ed reformers all adopting vouchers was inevitable, BTW. Once they redefined “public” to publicly funded” it was inevitable.
Their entire theory is incoherent without vouchers. They will all end up at universal vouchers because “the movement” doesn’t make sense without them.
And, in fact, that has happened. Because it had to. If any publicly funded entity is “public” they were always going to end at universal vouchers. And they have. They’ll now start bickering over the amount of the vouchers – that counts as a “debate” in ed reform circles- and the liberals will get rolled and we’ll end up with a 50% cut in “public education funding”, which is where conservatives wanted to go all along.
To see whether ed reform puts a priority on funding for public school students one need only look at the track record- they hit public school students hard in the 2009 financial crash and they are doing it again with the pandemic. Public school students were the LAST priority in 2009 and again today. They’re either the worst advocates in the world or they’re not actually working for our schools and students. Either way public school students lose.
Ed reformers made sure the most elite private schools in the country got pandemic funding with the PPP program before they bothered with public school students at all. Our kids came LAST. Again. With advocates like this public school students don’t need enemies.
inevitable: a word which seems to sit on this nation like a smothering mudslide
On to Stockton, where the Mayor and three school board members were closely allied with the billionaire agenda.
HERE’S A COUPLE SUBSTITUTIONS:
“were closely aligned with” = “bough and paid for lock-stock-and-barrel by”
“were closely aligned with” = *”were controlled in the same rigid manner as prostitutes are by a pimp who promotes”
The only reason I can think of for school districts to continue to hire him must be $$$. Someone is lining or promising to line someone’s pockets. How else can a man who has seemingly failed at every superintendency he has held continue to fine employment is that role?
Deasy described by the Baltimore Sun as quoted by Tom Ultican- received a doctorate from University of Louisville, his advisor received a $125,000 contract from Santa Monica United.
Ha ha ha ha ha! Churn and burn. Now that’s irony.
No matter how many times someone like John Deasy loses a job in public education, the billionaire that owns his soul will be sure to provide a high paying job for him in the private sector while they buy him another public school district to destroy.
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Thanks for the post.