In the Public Interest, a nonpartisan group dedicated to protecting public services and the common good, writes about the school board election in Santa Clara County, California. The intervention of outside money makes it difficult for ordinary citizens to be competitive in local races:
California: Charter school politics is influencing the Santa Clara County Board of Education Area 1 race, with charter school proponents making large contributions to incumbent Grace Mah. “Charter school political action committees and representatives have contributed more than $200,000 to Mah’s campaign in the last three weeks, many of them large donations that came in after the most recent reporting period. The Charter Public Schools Political Action Committee (PAC) has made two large donations: $75,000 on Sept. 28 and $105,000 on Oct. 13, according to campaign finance reports. Other contributions came from Santa Clara Charter Advocates for Great Public Schools ($5,000) and Champions for Education PAC ($20,000) as well as members of the boards of directors of Rocketship Public Schools, ACE Charter School and Bullis Charter School in Los Altos. Mah’s campaign raised about $80,000 through Sept. 19, bringing her current reported total to about $290,000.”
Palo Alto Online reports that “campaign contributions in this race further underscore the charter school divide, with Mah receiving significant support from pro-charter organizations and Baten Caswell receiving large amounts from vocal critics of Bullis Charter School in Los Altos, whose next renewal will come before the board in 2022.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
That In The Public Interest article was a heartening read. To see people from institutions like Harvard talking about the public good after twenty years of focusing on privatization was a joy.
As for the billionaires pouring money into privatization by attempting to buy school board elections is more dastardly than ever. In Los Angeles, we’re having particular problems right now with Hastings and Bloomfield.
Sorry, missed placing a comma and a noun in there.
This is not good. Charter schools often rent land and empty schools from public school districts, at least in California, so I agree with LeftCoastTeacher.
yes
Bill Gates and the Walton heirs’ funding recipient, the Cristo Rey school chain, which embraces and promotes blended learning for its students has big help from John Sobrato who founded a Cristo Rey location in the Santa Clara area. The school’s grown from 130 students to 470. (Sobrato also gave $100,000,000 to the Jesuit Santa Clara University.)
Sobrato expects students’ families to pay something to the school because he likes them “to have skin in the game”. Sobrato works with the Alliance for Catholic Education.
(Falll 2018- Philanthropy Magazine)
Those fighting to preserve quality public education can ignore the blended- learning, Catholic schools supported by rich Catholics, billionaire privatizers and presumably dioceses. It’s their call.
I think it is great when rich Catholics support Catholic schools.
I oppose public funding of any religious school.
Are we taking a time machine back to before SCOTUS decided the Espinosa case? If a “rich Catholic,…” didn’t get tax reductions (starving the common good) for starting a religious school, my tax dollars wouldn’t be going to them. I presume schools like Cristo Rey got Covid stimulus money provided by taxpayers. A 260% growth rate is significant.
Is the situation similar to an environment in which state parks exist, affording their employees rights, benefits and livable wages, where no discriminatory visitor admission policies exist and, visitors aren’t charged for the common good? Then, a rich person avoids taxes by setting up a religious park next to the state park, hires employees who have no rights, spreads false negative propaganda against the state park, and forces visitors to have skin in the game by charging a fee. The rich guy knows that his business model requires three things, taxes, no accountability to the taxpayer and community, and cutting costs through staffing reduction, which impacts quality. And, he suspects ihis politicking will put the state park out of business (maybe like New Orleans and public schools).
If a religious school takes the paychecks of poor kids and denies them 20% of the education that their wealthier peers get, I’m not o.k. with it. If the schools take a bus of students to capitols to lobby for more tax money, no regulation, and no civil rights (for employees, gay people and women), I’m not o.k. with it. If the schools substitute computers for teachers, mainly for minority students, I’m not o.k. with it.