Jeff Bryant writes that while we were all celebrating the pending departure of Betsy DeVos, the usual suspects were buying control of local school board elections. We are all aware of her efforts to direct federal funding to private schools and charter schools. But, he warns, we should pay attention to the “threat to democratically governed schools that preceded DeVos and will continue when she is long gone.”
In midsized metropolitan areas like Indianapolis and Stockton, California, parents, teachers, and public school advocates warn of huge sums of money coming from outside their communities to influence local politics and bankroll school board candidates who support school privatization. In phone conversations, emails, and texts, they point to a national agenda, backed by deep-pocketed organizations and individuals who intend to disrupt local school governance in order to impose forms of schools that operate like private contractors rather than public agencies—an agenda not dissimilar from that of DeVos.
In the 2020 school board election in Indianapolis, local teachers and grassroots groups the Indiana Coalition for Public Education and the IPS Community Coalition backed four candidates against a slate of opponents whom locals accuse of representing outside interests. At stake, according to WFYI, was “an ideological tilt” over whether the district would continue to “collaborate with outside groups and charter organizations” or “return to more traditional methods of improving struggling schools.”
Both sides raise the banner of “improving struggling schools,” but locals say what’s really at stake is whether voters retain democratic control of their public schools or see them turned over to private, unelected boards and their corporate supporters and funders.
Similarly, in Stockton, the clash between opposing slates of candidates in the 2020 school board election included controversies over charter school expansion and the influence of outside money in the district.
The controversy broke into public view in July 2020 when 209 Times reportedthat “[p]aid operatives” connected to Stockton’s outgoing mayor Michael Tubbs and three school board members were engaged in “a coordinated campaign of undue influence from outside of the city whose aim is… charter school expansion” into the district.
In both elections, candidates backed by outside organizations and individuals massively outspent candidates supported by local teachers and public school advocates.
In Indianapolis, WFYI reported that political action committees supporting the candidates aligned with charter school interests had contributed more than $200,000 into the election by October 9, while the “[f]our candidates backed by the IPS Community Coalition… [had by then] raised less than $20,000 in total.”
In Stockton, 209 Politics reported independent expenditure committees supporting candidates favoring charter school expansion outspent their opponents 25 to 1.
While the language used by these outside organizations and their benefactors is different from the rhetoric DeVos wields—substituting a message of rescuing struggling schools for DeVos’s calls for libertarian autonomy—the result is much the same: local citizens see democratic governance of their schools being swept aside as private actors get more control to do what they want.
This effort to squelch local democracy is funded by the usual billionaires: the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; the Walton Family Foundation, of Walmart fame; Arnold Ventures, the private foundation of former hedge fund manager and Enron trader John Arnold; and the City Fund, a nationwide organization providing financial support for city-level charter school expansions.
The City Fund is a relatively new organization of experienced charter school promoters that started on day one with $200 million from billionaires John Arnold and Reed Hastings. Its mission: to use the money to undermine democratic control of local school boards and to see that charter-friendly candidates are elected.
The other organization used by the billionaires to funnel money into the Indianapolis school board election was the notorious Stand for Children, which has played the same role in other districts. “Stand” worked closely with the Mind Trust, a local cheerleader for privatization, also funded by billionaires who don’t like local control or democracy.
Bryant reports that another PAC, aligned with Stand for Children, entered the race on behalf of the Alice Walton and Michael Bloomberg, neither of whom lives in Indianapolis or in Indiana.
Bryant relies on the careful research of Thomas Ultican, who has been documenting the billionaires’ determination to take control of urban districts. Their strategy is to promote the “portfolio model” of schools. This is basically a rightwing business agenda that aligns with a corporate model of governance. Outsource management and control. Close low-performing schools, open new schools; repeat.
In the Indianapolis contest, the billionaire-backed candidates outspent the teacher union-backed candidates by a margin of 11-1. All four of the charter-friendly candidates won.
In Stockton, the teacher- and community-backed candidates won.
Please read the article. There is much to learn from it as a cautionary tale.
Here’s the question that lingers: Charter schools are no longer an innovation. The first charter school opened in 1992, almost three decades ago. There is no evidence that charters as such have produced miraculous improvement. Some get high test scores, but typically because they can choose their students and kick out the ones they don’t want. Some are far worse than the public schools they replaced. Some close mid-year, either for financial or academic reasons or low enrollment.
Why are these billionaires so devoted to imposing their ideas on local communities without regard to results? Is it because they disdain democracy?
What’s worse than DeVos is a stealth DeVos, which is what every other education “reform” leader has been. For all her many flaws, DeVos’ one charming virtue was how utterly, blatantly, grotesquely blunt she was about her nefarious intentions. She got a lot of people to sit up and take notice. The biggest threat now that the “good guys” are back in charge is that people go back to sleep/out to brunch and stop paying attention to what’s going on under their noses.
essentially said: with the nation’s growing political divide, it is easy for many to argue that a Democrat cannot be as bad as a Republican and then let things “be.”
??
I haven’t seen the “many” that are supposedly arguing that once any democrat wins an election, we should all shut up and never criticize any democrat who want to destroy public education.
Have you? If so, I’d like to see an example of it since that is the opposite of what I see, especially on this blog.
I have only seen two types of people on this blog:
Those who don’t lie who say that a democrat is FACTUALLY not as bad as a Republican – and then those truth-tellers fight hard for progressive ideas and fight hard against those democrats who do not support progressive ideas and support those who do.
Those who do lie and say that there is almost no difference between Democrats and Republicans – and then those lie-tellers demand that all criticism of Trump and the Republicans who hold power be silenced and those lie-tellers insist that it is far more important to make sure all democrats are defeated and that we should all shut up and stop criticizing Trump and the Republicans and instead turn our hatred toward all Democrats and fight to make sure they all lose elections.
I quote the brilliant Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who is a truth-teller of the highest order, who recognizes that it will be a privilege to lobby democrats to achieve progressive change. AOC doesn’t pull punches when it comes to criticizing Demorats but also is not a liar who has a secret motive to help the right wing agenda — she is a REAL progressive.
Anyone who helped elect Trump by devoting themselves to detroying Democrats and normalizing the neo-fascist Republicans is not interested in progressive ideas. Because progressive ideas are based on telling the truth.
“Why are these billionaires so devoted to imposing their ideas on local communities without regard to results? Is it because they disdain democracy?”
It’s an ideological belief that private sector is always better than public sector.
As a practical matter, they’re a disaster for students and families who remain in public schools. This side of the equation is never, ever mentioned in the ed reform echo chamber. Ed reformers have been an unmitigated disaster for public school students and families in my state, Ohio. We get stuck with all their junk and quick fix gimmicks and we get no substantive or real support or assistance. It’s the worst of BOTH sectors, public and private.
Try it in your state. Examine ed reform efforts from the perspective of a student or family who attend traditional public schools. Look for any benefit this “movement” offers to those students. There are none.
Every single year in Ohio for the last 20 years the top priority has been ed reform priorities- funding and promoting charter schools and private school vouchers. There has been ZERO effort or investment in traditional public schools and it shows- Ohio has dropped in national rankings every single year ed reformers have been in power.
This year is no different. Neither the governor nor the legislature have gotten anything done for the 90% of Ohio students and families who attend public schools, but we got yet another huge voucher expansion. No one in state government serves our kids. They’re barely mentioned in Columbus, unless it’s to bash and denigrate our students to sell charters or vouchers.
I find it quite simple. Beyond their arrogant belief that they know best is the greedy little secret that they just don’t want to pay taxes for them. They don’t use public schools and resent having to pay for them. whereas they can make money off of charters.
I challenge anyone to compare DeVos’ public statements bashing public schools and public school students to Jeb Bush’s and show me the difference.
There isn’t a dime’s worth of difference and Jeb Bush is absolutely revered in ed reform- 90% of their stuff comes directly from his agenda for US students.
Ed reformers just held yet another echo chamber event where Jeb and George W Bush were the headliners. No dissenters permitted to speak. Not one thing has changed in the last 20 years.
When my youngest started kindergarten Jeb Bush was running US education policy and he’s now a high school senior and Jeb Bush is STILL running US education policy.
Bush (2 terms), Obama (2 terms) and Trump (1 term). 20 years of unbroken echo chamber adherence to the ed reform agenda.
We’ll see if Biden can bust it up but I doubt it. It’s REALLY entrenched. I don’t think you can get a job in US education policy unless you recite the ed reform tenets.
It is necessary to realize DeVos and all her DeViruses have different objectives than improving or even preserving Universal Free Public Education.
Here’s what I would challenge public school families and supporters to ask when the latest ed reform initiative is announced- “how does this benefit public school students?”
The singular focus on charters and vouchers is deliberate. They’re hoping you won’t notice that none of them every do any work on behalf of students in public schools.
This doesn’t make sense. We really shouldn’t have an “education policy establishment” who have utter contempt for 90% of schools and students, and we do have that. Our schools and students get no practical assistance or effort out of these folks because these folks have an ideological belief that our schools shouldn’t exist. That isn’t going to work out well for students in public schools, and it hasn’t.
Here’s Jeb Bush on public schools:
the United States has “over 13,000 government-run monopolies run by unions.”
These are the people who set policy for the 90% of kids who attend public schools: anti-public school activists. Is that fair to students and families who attend public schools? Why don’t our kids get advocates?
If nothing else, DeVos’ arrogant disdain for public schools has brought a new level of attention to harm of privatization on public education. The targeting of black and brown students should also relay a concern, especially since there is no evidence that so-called innovation (privatized) schools improve academics for the students that attend them. The practice has the stink of racism as well when privatization places brown and black students in separate and unequal schools. We should ask why we are using public dollars to do this.
The most amusing ed reform switcheroo happened in Ohio. For a decade they all insisted charters and private schools “outperformed” public schools. That was the justification for cutting funding to public schools and increasing funding for charters and vouchers.
It wasn’t true and when that inconvenient fact became too apparent to ignore, they did a 180 and started insisting that it DIDN’T MATTER if the ed reform approved schools “outperformed” public schools, instead the only thing that mattered was “choice”.
They have set this up so it is impossible for the “movement” to fail. If it doesn’t “improve schools” it doesn’t matter. The ideological objective ITSELF was the point.
The ed reform measure of success is NOW “how many charters and vouchers have we managed to jam thru state legislatures and how many True Believer lawmakers have we managed to get elected?”
Most charter schools in Ohio are failing, by state standards.
This has REAL consequences for students in public schools. We just saw the effects of the ed reform echo chamber’s disdain for public schools and public school students in the response to the pandemic.
Lawmakers didn’t lift a finger to help our students and schools because our lawmakers are utterly captured by a “movement” with an ideological bias against public schools.
As long as we continue to hire and elect echo chamber members, public school students will continue to be treated as second class citizens. It’s baked into the “movement” at every level and it’s never questioned.
Chiara,
In Ohio, how much have charters proliferated in middle class white areas?
Aren’t those voters being sold propaganda that charters are good for “failing” public schools, but they would never want their own suburban public school to have to give part of their money and part of the suburban public school space to a privately operated charter?
There are definitely members of the religious right who want taxes to pay for their child’s right wing religious education. But do the majority of parents in places with good zoned public school systems want that for their own public school system. Or have they just been convinced that is a good solution for the “others” (poor, urban at-risk kids)?
I remember when Chris Christie tried to push a charter into an affluent suburban school system and got huge push back in the NJ suburbs and very quickly retracted that, while he kept pushing them in cities with high poverty rates.
One reason that politicians push charters in high minority neighborhoods. The legislatures are overwhelmingly white and the communities are powerless.
In Ohio, education’s decision makers are overwhelmingly from conservative religions. Ohio government influencers scheme to retain an authoritarian, white, colonialist society.
The largest amount of voucher money goes to Catholic schools which is also true in Pence’ Indiana. Both states’ Catholic Conferences politically advocate for school choice. School choice’s goal is to keep power with the same demographic that has always had it.
Thanks Diane!
Many things. But I don’t want to minimize Betsy DeVos’s awfulness (or the awfulness of her entire family, really) by mentioning them.
Matt Stoller’s recent book “Goliath: the 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy” will help answer the posted questions. The Chicago School of Economics, anti-union passion, neo-liberalism, Robert Bork, profits over real people, etc.have played a major roll in consolidating power and the public schools are one of the last bastions of democracy to incorporate into what I consider the Borg (not Bork!—the Borg from Star Trek) that is threatening our democracy. Zuckerberg once said that local school boards should be eliminated and that schools should be led by people from the business world. So, I suggest we band together, get our brand going and get a consistent message out that we are all in sliding into an era of servitude if we do not act now.
(sp) Zuckerborg
Zuck
We need to get this message out to the regular folks that are not involved in education. Unless the public gets involved, democratic public schools could be a remembrance of days gone by.
A big AMEN to that, retired! From one retired teacher to another & to all readers here: we’re preaching to the choir. EVERYONE here knows what’s needed, & the general public does, indeed, need to get involved.
No neolibs, no DINOs, no DFERs, no CAPs. No more Arnes or Kings.
We don’t need yet another Wreckretary of Education!
Once again, an entire thread of comments and no mention of the role conservative religion plays despite the studies of Mark Rozell (George Mason University) and Cathleen Kaveny (Boston College). An interview 10-26-2020 by NPR religion reporter Tom Gjelten
aired on WOSU summarizes the scholars’ work.
The marriage of the Koch network and state Catholic Conferences for education rallies in state capitols- no significance at this blog. The conservative religion of the politicians even when they pronounce it drives their decision making, even when the effects are obvious- no significance at the blog.
Linda, I don’t determine what commenters say. I don’t control what you say.
I am in agreement with and appreciate the editorial policy you have implemented at your blog.
Again, the unprecedented work you do in support of public education is a monumental credit to American principles. Thank you.
The inconvenient pattern continues. Trump’s new lawyer, John Eastman, who is in court trying to gain the election for Trump, represented the N.C. Legislature and the state of Arizona in cases involving same-sex marriage and abortion. He is Chairman of a Federalist Society practice group. (Leonard Leo, a Catholic with 9 kids who led the effort to get the 3 most recent conservative Catholics on SCOTUS received an award for it from a Catholic organization. Leo is 2nd in command at the Federalist Society).
Eastman is on the board of the St. Thomas More Society, a legal group acting as, “The sword and shield for people of faith”. He’s on the board of the National Organization of Marriage (co-founded by Robert P. George who is co-author of the Manhattan Declaration. Alternet reported 10-27-2020 that George posted a photo of himself with Amy Barrett, adding the statement, “…My favorite Handmaiden of the law…”). Eastman is on the board of St. Monica’s academy (a Catholic school).
In the info at Daily Beast yesterday about Eastman, readers won’t find any info. about the protected religion.
Eastman published an article in Newsweek claiming that Kamala Harris cannot be Vice President because her parents were immigrants. Newsweek subsequently apologized because Eastman’s claim is false. Kamala was born in Oakland, California. Where her parents were born is irrelevant to her citizenship. He is lead counsel now on the desperate lawsuit by Texas and 16 other states seeking to throw out the votes in Georgia, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
December 14 is the date the electoral college meets. It can’t come soon enough.
Eastman was criticized for hypocrisy- no scrutiny of Ted Cruz.
“Austerity” coupled with women forced to have offspring they can’t afford- redoing the Irish Great Hunger when 1.000.000 Irish died of starvation because of the church’s role in choking out civil unrest and the enactment of social Darwinistic economic law similar to that of Charles Koch.
The Center for Reproductive Rights has an informative color coded map, “The World’s Abortion Laws”. If SCOTUS delegitimizes abortion, the map shows which nations the U.S. joins company with in relegating women to 2nd class citizenship. Argentina’s color on the map will be changing. They plan to advance their society by allowing women the dignity of having their lives valued.