Jeannie Kaplan, a former member of Denver’s elected school board, has warned for years about the subversion of Denver’s school election by well-funded, out-of-state “reformers.” Their money makes it difficult for ordinary citizens to run for the school board.
In this post, Jeannie reports that Dark Money is back and is prepared to fund candidates who support charter schools and other elements of the failed “reform” agenda. She has identified the groups that act as pass-throughs for Dark Money, she has tallied the total (to date) of $360,000, but it’s usually impossible to identify the original source of the money.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“RootEd is funded by the Reed Hastings/John Arnold foundation The City Fund and has been the recipient of a $21 million dollar grant from The City Fund to “… partner with local leaders to create innovative public school systems“
The goal has always been to replace whole systems with privatized systems. It’s why none of the groups listed do anything positive for existing public schools.
I don’t object to the fact that the ed reform echo chamber advocates exclusively on behalf of charters and private school vouchers- I just think there should also be advocates for public schools. These people and entities don’t do any productive work on behalf of students who attend public schools. Public schools and public school students need their own advocates. They’re poorly served by the ed reform echo chamber.
I think any fair-minded person would agree that we shouldn’t have exclusively charter and voucher promoters at the table. How is that fair to public school students?
The whole debate in Colorado will revolve around charter schools and charter school students if it’s dominated by the ed reform echo chamber. Public schools and public school students will once again be an afterthought, simply because they attend schools deemed unfashionable by these national ed reform orgs. Public schools and public school students should have representation that values them and their schools. Ed reform performs that advocacy for charter and private school students- who works for public school students?
The false advertising is patricularly offensive, how they stick “public” in front of the name of each of the tens of lobbying groups, in order to persuade voters they support existing public schools and will perform some productive work that will benefit public school students. They don’t do any work for public schools. They never have.
and CO must keep in mind that their Governor is a known fan of both charter schools and DFER: you can even find him on the DFER homepage
Can you imagine the amount you money that would flow into a place like NYC if it had school board elections instead of mayoral control?