John Loflin of Indianapolis writes about the money flowing into the city’s school board elections from out-of-state billionaires and their usual front called Stand for Children.
Loflin writes:
To whom it may concern:
Just in case you have not seen this Recorder story, “Political groups give over $200,000 to Charter friendly candidates for IPS” here’s the link: Political Groups Give $200,000 To Some Candidates In IPS Board Race.
This inordinate, almost obscene, amount of money–notably from out of state donors–just to run for a board seat in a school district with just 31,000+ students, raises deep concerns about how democratic is the institution of public education in Indianapolis: http://vorcreatex.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Purchasing-the-2012-2014-and-2016-IPS-school-board-elections.pdf.
Who is flooding Indianapolis with such large amounts of money?
We know Stand for Children/Mind Trust are now spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, using a 501c4 in Oregon, to elect their candidates. We also know that Stand for Children, the Mind Trust, Rise Indy, and the Teachers Alliance for Equitable Public Schools (TAEPS) are all part of the same group of people out to buy and control IPS. They’re funded by conservative white billionaires like Michael Bloomberg or Alice Walton who will never step foot in Indianapolis. And they use state legislation created by the conservative/right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
Check the diagram connecting all the dots “Out of state ed reform money floods into Indiana communities.”https://www.indianacoalitionforpubliced.org/2020/10/25/out-of-state-education-reform-money-floods-into-indiana-communities/?fbclid=IwAR0YlnDEXVJorGXk1It7xIpnRSlp9FBEtISSVZjZOh7r415toXBRF7DqlEY
Now Bart Peterson’s PAC, Hoosiers for Great Public Schools, is in the mix,
IPS candidate Mr. Kenneth Allen $$
https://www.wfyi.org/news/articles/ips-school-board-candidates-biography-raises-questions
http://ofm.indy.gov/CampaignFinanceAPI/Document/Index?documentName=IPS+School+Board%5cAllen%2c+Kenneth_schbd-msdips_2020-10-14_CFA-11.pdf +$21,000=$123,333Search IPS candidate’s campaign finance records here:https://www.indy.gov/workflow/search-campaign-finance-records
A closer look at Bart Peterson’s Hoosiers for Great Public Schools PAC which has $400,000.00
Rise Indy PAC has $559,995.00https://campaignfinance.in.gov/INCF/TempDocs/7a1c3a86-0c53-419d-a8a0-efe4588f2660.pdf?fbclid=IwAR1Sew-TmY98x3s3ROeqd-ZE6Dd2AadxFzeKpYN9awQQp5vu2cGr4kuJrHUHere’s the article “Who paid to make IPS the 2nd most privatized school district in the US?”
https://dianeravitch.net/2020/04/30/tom-ultican-who-paid-to-make-indianapolis-the-second-most-privatized-school-district-in-the-nation/Here’s an essay I wrote, “Does Indianapolis actually want an entirely privatized school district?“http://vorcreatex.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Does-Indianapolis-actually-want-an-entire-privatized-school-system.pdf.
Let’s have a public conversation about why someone needs $123K to run for school board, and if we have a democracy or a corporatocracy.
John Harris Loflin
Parent Power–Indianapolis affiliate of Parents Across AmericaEducation-Community Action Team
317.998.1339
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Diane Don’t you know the connection is obvious: billionaires know so much about education because they have so much money. CBK
a key point: the money needs a return so it must be used to ‘fix’ industries and services which are not currently making that profit
ciedie Bill Gates, who has apparently surrounded himself with educational professionals, either (a) doesn’t know about, or (b) is ignoring, FIRST, all that is right about PUBLIC education, including its intimate connection with democracy . . . which, on principle, CANNOT be duplicated by quasi-private institutions.
And, SECOND, . . . apparently no one has told him, or he ignores at everyone’ else’s peril, that much of what is actually “wrong” with public education is not rooted in its democratic foundations, in “bad” teachers, or in the absence of a “business mentality”; or even only in poverty; but rather in the concerted efforts by various neo-liberal “camps” of wealthy, some “well-intended,” people, over the last 50+ years, to substantially destroy that rooted connection . . . It doesn’t make money, so it must be defunct.
If public education really doesn’t “work,” part of its problems are rooted, at its core, in the pervasive application of positivist ideals, evident in inordinate testing, shallow, transactional-only thinking, and person-as-worker ideas, none of which need humanistic education; and which ends up draining student-teacher-parent relationships of their depth and import, e.g., thorough high “seat” numbers; wrongly-principled budgeting; frivolous demands on teacher-time; over-reliance on statistical analyses; and by monetizing students as well as the entire educational establishment.
To put it mildly, I think these wealthy groups are involved in a set of huge historical oversights, if not a severe case of moral depravity. I’ll bet on both. CBK
Republicans with wealth all help each other destroy Indiana.
A program on WBOI (NPR in Northeastern Indiana, 1–26-2020),
identifies which demographic group elected Trump.
A quote from the article, “Conservatives (in the segment) have an edge over progressives. My impression is that this group has a lot of money. The liberals (in the segment) tend not to have that amount of money.” An expenditure of $9.5 mil.is currently being used to target the segment’s members who are swing voters in the battleground states.