Jake Jacobs, an art teacher in New York City, a leader of New York BadAss Teachers, and a writer for The Progressive, read and reviewed Hillary Clinton’s policy briefing book in 2017 and reviewed the education section for Alternet. I missed his article, but it’s worth reading now to understand how advocates of privatization have inserted themselves into both political parties and use their vast wealth to control public policy and undermine public schools.
Jacobs points out that Laurene Powell Jobs “has been close with the Clintons since the late ’90s, also sat with Betsy DeVos on the board of Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education. She set up billionaire “roundtables” with Clinton’s campaign advisors through 2015 while donating millions to Priorities USA, Clinton’s main PAC.”
Jacobs notes:
Notes taken by Clinton aide Ann O’Leary were made in interviews with Powell Jobs and Bruce Reed, President of The Broad Foundation (and former chief of staff to Joe Biden). According to the notes, the “experts” were calling for new federal controls, more for-profit companies and more technology in public schools — but first on the menu was a bold remake of the teaching “profession…”
Powell Jobs suggests letting principals “pick their teams,” making teachers individually negotiate salary (every teacher—really?), expanding online education offerings like Khan Academy and making teaching universities “truly selective like TFA and Finland.” This comment is perplexing because while Finland has demanding teacher vetting and training, Teach for America places inexperienced teachers in classrooms after a seven-week summer crash course...
Tying campaign donations to a singular issue like expanding charter schools might in days past been seen as a prohibited quid-pro-quo. But in this cycle, Podesta, O’Leary and [Neera] Tanden [director of the Center for American Progress and President Biden’s nominee to lead the crucial Office of Management and Budget, which sets priorities for federal funding] all busily raised campaign money from the same billionaire education reformers with whom they were also talking policy specifics.
But they did more than talk. On June 20, 2015, O’Leary sent Podesta an email revealing the campaign adopted two of Powell Jobs’ suggestions, including “infusing best ideas from charter schools into our traditional public schools.” When Clinton announced this policy in a speech to teachers, however, it was the one line that drew boos.
“Donors want to hear where she stands” John Petry, a founder of both Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) and Success Academy, New York’s largest network of charter schools, told the New York Times. Petry was explicit, declaring that he and his billionaire associates would instead put money into congressional, state and local races, behind candidates who favored a “more businesslike approach” to education, and tying teacher tenure to standardized test scores...
Not mentioning education would become important in the general election. This policy book shows a snapshot in time when wealthy donors were pushing Clinton’s and Jeb’s positions together, seeking more of the federal privatization begun under George W. Bush and continued by Obama...
This was predicted by John Podesta, who bragged just after the 2012 election about nullifying education policy differences between President Obama and Mitt Romney. Sitting next to Jeb Bush, Podesta proclaimed “ed reform” a bipartisan affair, telling donors “the Obama administration has made its key priorities clear. The Republicans are pretty much in the same place…this area is ripe for cooperation between the center-right and center-left”...
The 2014 policy book reveals some essential lessons about how education policy is crafted: in secret, with the input and influence of billionaire donors seeking more school privatization and testing—regardless of what party is in power. Even as the backlash against testing and the Common Core grew, Clinton’s advisors pushed her to embrace them. Clinton vacillated, then fell silent on K-12 policy, and as a result, education issues were largely left out of the election debate. Today, under Trump, privatization marches on worse than ever.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The last paragraph says it all:
“The 2014 policy book reveals some essential lessons about how education policy is crafted: in secret, with the input and influence of billionaire donors seeking more school privatization and testing—regardless of what party is in power. Even as the backlash against testing and the Common Core grew, Clinton’s advisors pushed her to embrace them. Clinton vacillated, then fell silent on K-12 policy, and as a result, education issues were largely left out of the election debate. Today, under Trump, privatization marches on worse than ever.”
The DFERS live in an ECHO Chamber and refuse to hear.
I can recall that when Hillary attempted to criticize charter schools for cherry picking students, perhaps in an attempt to appease the unions during the campaign, the corporate Democrats jumped all over her for daring to criticize private charter schools. The Democratic Party remains beholden to billionaires and their contributions to their campaigns. https://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/hillary-clinton-charter-schools-education-215661
Biden knows that public opinion has shifted away from charter school support. Many more people know that public education is a democratic value of local governance. The also know that most private schools have failed to improve education. In the Black community support for charters is also waning. Some Black parents whose children were fortunate enough to attend a decent charter school still favor them. Many other Black parents see charter schools as a way to place mostly minority students in separate and unequal schools. Many parents are tired of the disinvestment in the public schools that they value, and they are now supporting greater equity in community public schools that offer wrap around services for struggling students.
The latest Phi Delta Kappa opinion poll shows 3/4 of Democrats opposed to funding charter schools.
retired teacher,
Thank you for mentioning that. When HRC criticized charter schools for cherry picking, she definitely wasn’t trying to appease the union! It was what she believed because she followed facts!
I’ve watched the clip many times and it’s worth seeing because – sadly – I’ve never seen even the progressive politicians who came out that strongly against charters. (I sorely wish they would.) The irony is that HRC wasn’t saying “we need to abolish charters” when she made that comment! She was simply saying the truth, which is something that other politicians haven’t done.
If you watch the clip, you can see clearly that it has nothing to do with appeasing unions at all. She was at a town hall meeting hosted by the South Carolina Legislative Black Caucus hosted by rabidly pro-charter Roland Martin, who began the question with pointing out that a poll of black parents in South Carolina showed most of them wanted charters! It was supposed to be a set up for the same type of easy answer that we heard from Bernie Sanders that year — all parents want good schools, I support “good public charters”.
But instead of offering the same platitudes that EVEN TODAY I hear from supposedly “progressive” politicians, she told the truth:
“But the original idea, Roland, behind charter schools was to learn what worked and then apply them in the public schools. And here’s a couple of problems. Most charter schools — I don’t want to say every one — but most charter schools, they don’t take the hardest-to-teach kids, or, if they do, they don’t keep them. And so the public schools are often in a no-win situation, because they do, thankfully, take everybody, and then they don’t get the resources or the help and support that they need to be able to take care of every child’s education.”
Roland Martin just about threw a fit and kept trying to change the subject and it wasn’t working because she was simply speaking from the heart about the truth instead of saying the same platitudes that even progressive politicians were saying back then.
HRC telling the truth was considered being “anti-charter”. It was a sign of how corrupted the conversation about public education had become that instead of this leading to a debate about whether or not what she said was true, the reporting was about how shocking it was that she was “bashing charters”! I guess the fact that she was simply telling the truth was irrelevant!
I don’t care about whether someone defines themselves as left, right or moderate. I care about whether they tell the truth. That comment was the truth and it was a truth I am still waiting for progressive politicians to make because that truth is so dangerous that despite HRC being pro-charter and saying the truth, she had to be shut up.
The pro-charter folks aren’t afraid of the progressives who mouth vague platitudes about supporting public schools and not supporting privatization because they know that that doesn’t make listeners rethink the propaganda they have heard.
The pro-charter folks are afraid of truth-tellers. More progressives need to tell the truth and talk about the cherry picking because it is the strongest argument against charters! If the public supports cherry picking, public schools can establish more magnet schools to do it and use the savings to address the needs of the students who aren’t in those cherry picked schools! But charters only exist because they have pushed the false narrative that they are offering something other than cherry picking. That is why HRC’s comment was so dangerous to them, even though HRC wasn’t really anti-charter, she was just PRO-TRUTH! We need a truthful discussion to save public education
NYC parent, that instance of truth-telling by Hillary caused immediate reaction from pro-charter billionaires, led by Eli Broad, that was swift and sure, threatening the money spigot would be shut off.
Hillary’s comments were reported on Nov. 10 and by Nov. 12, her senior advisor put out an article entitled “Yes, Hillary Clinton supports charter schools”:
View at Medium.com
As discussed in the private emails, Hillary mostly went silent on the issue after that, until the line to the AFT was booed, making national headlines.
So it seems more like Hillary told the truth about charters that once, and then was pressured not to do so anymore.
Yes, NYCPSP, Hillary told the truth about charters. But in a matter of hours, her education advisor Ann O’Leary had an article in Medium saying she had misspoke.
Diane and Jeff,
But that is my point – that HRC was not “anti-charter”.
When HRC said that, she wasn’t being anti-charter. She was just TELLING THE TRUTH about a specific thing about charters. And she never retracted the truth. The only thing that was clarified by Ann O’Leary was that she wasn’t anti-charter, but if you look closely, the truth that she said (the truth that had nothing to do with being pro-charter or anti-charter) was never retracted!
And if you ask me, progressives play right into the hands of the ed reformers by getting distracted from that truth, exactly as the ed reformers want progressives to do.
That truth is very dangerous to their movement.
The TRUTH is that charters cherry pick students and I don’t see any point where Ann O’Leary said that HRC was wrong or retracted that.
Imagine if instead of jumping to help the ed reformers’ agenda by changing the narrative to one they found acceptable: “Is HRC corrupt and in the pockets of billionaires or not?”, the progressives had instead make the narrative “was the criticism that HRC had of charters truthful or not?”. Remember that Ann O’Leary never said HRC was lying or was so stupid that she was stating false things — she just restated that HRC wasn’t anti-charter, which we already knew.
I don’t understand why any progressive think that making the conversation about how corrupt or in the pocket of billionaires a democrat is will help public schools. All it does is set up a “debate” where the other side says “critics are just mad that the politicians aren’t in the pockets of the teachers unions anymore.”
The debate should be on facts. And what frustrates me is not that HRC shut up and stopped mentioning any facts that the ed reformers did not want her to say. What frustrated me is that supposedly progressives like Bernie weren’t stating those facts either.
I’m a strong supporter of public schools and unions, and the very strongest argument against charters is that the ones that get better results do so only because they cherry pick kids. Why do you think that ed reformers were so upset when a PRO-CHARTER candidate like HRC said them?
It’s a crying shame that someone like Bernie didn’t keep spouting those same words that HRC said in South Carolina so we could have a real conversation centered about the very words that made the ed reform movement so scared when a pro-charter politician said them in public. Instead, we had – and continue to have – “debates” about being pro or anti-union and whether a politician was 100% owned by the billionaires or just 50% owned by them. And the public is still ignorant about what the main issues are.
HRC said things in South Carolina that the ed reformers hated! She was pro-charter, but it was the FACTS that were the problem and the reason that the billionaires got upset.
So why haven’t progressive politicians been stating those same facts over and over again? You may think they are, but there is 1 million times as much criticism of pro-charter politicians being corrupt tools of billioolnaires than there is just stating the facts that charters only do better when they cherry pick and the students who charters don’t want to teach suffer because their needs aren’t being addressed.
PS — Jeff, in your article you reported that Ann O’Leary was quietly pushing for education policy to really address the needs of the most vulnerable at-risk students in public schools with real help (not simply saying their problems would be solved if they attended a charter). I still believe the real conversation about this has been sidetracked by name-calling that plays right into ed reformers’ hands.
As I said, I don’t care if a politician says he or she is pro-charter or pro-public school. I care about whether they are willing to address the facts of the matter. We can have real public magnet schools that act just like charters and teach motivated students, but that does NOT address the real issues and pretending that it does has wasted billions and harmed kids.
HRC’s problem was that so many big funders were and are very pro-charter.
She could not dare offend them.
Also, Bill Clinton as president supported charters. His 1994 reauthorization initiated the federal Charter Schools Program, which Republicans loved and expanded. It now gives $440 million every year to start new charters. Mostly to corporate chains.
Diane,
I read the link to the Medium piece by Ann O’Leary and I didn’t see anything where O’Leary said she “misspoke”. Did she say that? I just saw her correctly noting that she wasn’t anti-charter.
My longer reply is held up (this one may be too), but there is a difference between being pro and anti charter and being pro and anti truth. I supported charters, until I saw that they were promoting themselves based on lies, which made me understand that they were run by unscrupulous people whose main goal was always their own career, not children.
Ann O’Leary wrote:
“Part of real leadership is naming hard truths and addressing them together. And in pointing out that charters suspend a disproportionate number of students — nearly 10 percent more than traditional schools — Hillary wants to start an important national conversation…….
Hillary’s comments were about asking hard questions of a movement she has and will continue to support. That’s real leadership — it is how we make our public schools stronger and it is how we ensure they live up to the potential of every child.”
We need people asking hard questions instead of just giving lip service to being “pro-public schools” or “anti-charter”, because saying you are “anti-charter” doesn’t change public opinion. Explaining the problems with charters does.
Which is why the billionaire ed reformers were so upset when a pro-charter politician explained the problems.
Which is why I wish I heard progressives explain the problems even close to as convincingly as she did in South Carolina before she realized that telling the truth was not allowed.
I understand why she who may not be named was too cowardly or greedy to stand up to her billionaire donors.
But I don’t understand why progressive politicians haven’t been saying those things for the last 4 years. It would be a lot more convincing than labeling politicians as “anti-union” or “pro-charter”.
The fact that the billionaire donors shut down a pro-charter politician from simply stating a few true facts should tell you how happy they are that the progressive politicians haven’t been saying what she said in South Carolina.
“HRC’s problem was that so many big funders were and are very pro-charter.
She could not dare offend them.”
Right. But that doesn’t explain why they would have been so over the top concerned that she said a basic truth about charters: “Most charter schools — I don’t want to say every one — but most charter schools, they don’t take the hardest-to-teach kids, or, if they do, they don’t keep them. And so the public schools are often in a no-win situation, because they do, thankfully, take everybody, and then they don’t get the resources or the help and support that they need to be able to take care of every child’s education.”
We all agree that she was pro-charter and completely controlled by the billionaire reformers who would tell her what to do as president to best destroy public education. So we all agree that her funders already knew they owned her. So why did her billionaire overlords care that this rabidly pro-charter politician who they knew would always do their bidding happened to speak a truth about charters cherry picking kids?
They cared because that truth was very dangerous to them and they wanted to change the subject from a discussion about whether it is good public policy to give billions of public dollars to privately operated charters that cherry pick students while leaving a disproportionately more disadvantaged student population in public schools.
It’s a shame that progressives didn’t even notice how scared the billionaires were about that truth being spoken aloud. The billionaires were desperate to change the subject and progressives helped them do it. They all changed the narrative to “are politicians pro-charter because they are controlled by billionaires or anti-charter because they are controlled by the union?”
Why aren’t progressive politicians were repeating the same words that she who must be named spoke that got her billionaire overlords so scared?
I get that you think Hillary and others should have emphasized the cherry-picking but that shows she didn’t understand the issue. Because if charters don’t cherry-pick they no longer outperform public schools and then there is no reason to support them.
Hillary kept saying that public schools should copy what charters do right, but would never say what that was, avoiding mention of high test scores.
So there is a disconnect that most politicians don’t understand and our job is to educate them. O’Leary was disingenuous by downplaying the causes of cherry-picking and refusing to take action to prevent it.
So I agree with the strategy of telling the truth about how charters rig, but I think we also have to call out the corrupting influence of big money and the way tests are used to fuel the deception.
The original article left out so much because of space restrictions.
The leaked “Policy Book” PDF was hundreds of pages long and the education section was over 60 pages long.
There were many more notes taken during conversations with Bruce Reed who is now deputy chief of staff in the Biden administration and Neera Tanden, who is now Biden’s OMB director.
It also featured Christopher Edley, Ann O’Leary and others. It was a rare snapshot in time where we got to see how the sausage was made – with billionaire ed reformers making large donations at the same time they were making policy recommendations.
when the word ‘recommendation’ gets added on just out of courtesy
Thank you for that comprehensive article.
What really surprised me was that O’Leary was pushing for holistic student supports behind the scenes. This is all much more complicated politically than a straightforward “evil democratic politicians want to privatize because their funders tell them so”. Many (not all) democrats actually want to help public education but they don’t have a clue about the issues. (It’s only in the last 2 years that Bernie and Elizabeth Warren seemed to get it, and even then they rarely talk about it. Everyone hates de Blasio, but as flawed as he is, he was one of the only politicians I had seen who really seemed to understand and care about the truths and lies of public education and I never heard him spouting ed reformer propaganda.)
I still think public education has not been properly discussed on either the national stage or locally. I think it isn’t useful (except politically) to focus only on billionaire donors’ political influence just like I don’t think it is useful (except politically) for the ed reform movement to focus only on teachers union political influence.
There needs to be a real discussion about this that focuses on truths and not “influence”. I don’t care if a politician gets large donations from the union, I care if that politician is making a truthful case for why he or she supports public education. I may have preferred Sanders in 2016, but I liked HRC for making those comments in South Carolina, which I had been waiting years for someone in politics to make because they are the strongest arguments supporting public education! Those comments directed refuted the blatant lies that the entire ed reform movement stood on – that they had reinvented something special that would address the problems with failing schools.
Quelle surpris!
An interesting take on Mr. Reed from the American Prospect:
https://prospect.org/blogs/tap/bidens-mr-austerity-bruce-reed/
Thanks, Eleanor. Excellent take on Bruce Reed.