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Hamas Leaders Tell NY Times: Mission Accomplished!

By dianeravitch
November 8, 2023 //
4

In rare and surprising interviews with the New York Times, leaders of Hamas said that their deadly intrusion into Israel on October 7 had succeeded beyond their expectations. It was intended to provoke a massive military response, and it worked. Saudi Arabia was on the cusp of normalizing relations with Israel, and that’s off. Hamas had to decide whether to be a responsible governing body (it won an election in 2006, and no further elections were held) or a terrorist organization. At great cost in Palestinian and Israeli lives, it chose terrorism.

Today’s New York Times reports:

Thousands have been killed in Gaza, with entire families wiped out. Israeli airstrikes have reduced Palestinian neighborhoods to expanses of rubble, while doctors treat screaming children in darkened hospitals with no anesthesia. Across the Middle East, fear has spread over the possible outbreak of a broader regional war.

But in the bloody arithmetic of Hamas’s leaders, the carnage is not the regrettable outcome of a big miscalculation. Quite the opposite, they say: It is the necessary cost of a great accomplishment — the shattering of the status quo and the opening of a new, more volatile chapter in their fight against Israel.

It was necessary to “change the entire equation and not just have a clash,” Khalil al-Hayya, a member of Hamas’s top leadership body, told The New York Times in Doha, Qatar. “We succeeded in putting the Palestinian issue back on the table, and now no one in the region is experiencing calm.”

Since the shocking Hamas attack on Oct. 7, in which Israel says about 1,400 people were killed — most of them civilians — and more than 240 others dragged back to Gaza as captives, the group’s leaders have praised the operation, with some hoping it will set off a sustained conflict that ends any pretense of coexistence among Israel, Gaza and the countries around them.

“I hope that the state of war with Israel will become permanent on all the borders, and that the Arab world will stand with us,” Taher El-Nounou, a Hamas media adviser, told The Times.

In weeks of interviews, Hamas leaders, along with Arab, Israeli and Western officials who track the group, said the attack had been planned and executed by a tight circle of commanders in Gaza who did not share the details with their own political representatives abroad or with their regional allies like Hezbollah, leaving people outside the enclave surprised by the ferocity, scale and reach of the assault.

The attack ended up being broader and more deadly than even its planners had anticipated, they said, largely because the assailants managed to break through Israel’s vaunted defenses with ease, allowing them to overrun military bases and residential areas with little resistance. As Hamas stormed through a swath of southern Israel, it killed and captured more soldiers and civilians than it expected to, officials said.

The assault was so devastating that it served one of the plotters’ main objectives: It broke a longstanding tension within Hamas about the group’s identity and purpose. Was it mainly a governing body — responsible for managing day-to-day life in the blockaded Gaza Strip — or was it still fundamentally an armed force, unrelentingly committed to destroying Israel and replacing it with an Islamist Palestinian state?

With the attack, the group’s leaders in Gaza — including Yahya Sinwar, who had spent more than 20 years in Israeli prisons, and Mohammed Deif, a shadowy military commander whom Israel had repeatedly tried to assassinate — answered that question. They doubled down on military confrontation.

The weeks since have seen a furious Israeli response that has killed more than 10,000 people in Gaza, according to health officials there. But for Hamas, the attack stemmed from a growing sense that the Palestinian cause was being pushed aside, and that only drastic action could revive it.

Categories Accountability, Extremism, International

Vouchers Are Propping Up Religious Schools

By dianeravitch
November 7, 2023 //
11

The Network for Public Education posted this article.

Anne Lutz Fernandez: School Choice is Becoming Involuntary Tithing

Anne Lutz Fernandez took a look at the growing number of voucher programs, and their close ties to religious institutions.

It may surprise some to learn that 75% of American private school students attend religious schools, with over a third at Catholic schools. A 2017 report by the National Bureau of Economic Research highlighted that “[r]eligious schools not only dominate private education, but also appear to dominate the market for voucher-accepting schools.” As a result, one of the biggest beneficiaries of this redirection of tax dollars is the Catholic Church.

In their study of Milwaukee’s voucher program, NBER found that churches running schools accepting vouchers were funded in good part by those vouchers and that the program had staved off parish closings. With both Catholic and Protestant churches in decline in the US — and some dioceses still in financial trouble as a result of abuse settlements — these programs put taxpayers in the position of helping prop them up.

Now news comes from Iowa that highlights what religious institutions gain from the rapid expansion of private-school choice programs. Within months of the passage of a new ESA program, Catholic schools in the state are hiking up tuition to get more public funding, as the Iowa Capital-Dispatch reported:

Several Iowa private schools announced their plans to raise tuition after the program was signed into law. Holy Family Catholic School in Dubuque raised tuition to be able to receive more of the available government money, with no increased cost to the families using ESA funds. Tuition for Wahlert Catholic High School students is $6,590 for the current school year — in 2023-2024, high school tuition will grow to $7,400. Students who aren’t Catholic will have a tuition of $8,600, and Catholic students whose parishes do not support Holy Family will pay $7,825 in tuition annually — both cases where an ESA would not cover the full cost of attendance.

The separation of church and state in schools is under attack within traditional public schools as well. Texas just passed a bill to allow public schools to hire chaplains as uncertified staff alongside school counselors, an act that would have been unthinkable before we had a Supreme Court determined to redefine religious freedom as the freedom of religious groups to preach on the taxpayers’ dime. Fighting for the separation of church and state in public institutions is hard work enough — there, citizens can vote out state and local officials who want to blur those lines and they have a voice as parents and residents via public boards of education.

Read her full post here. 

You can view the post at this link : https://networkforpubliceducation.org/blog-content/anne-lutz-fernandez-school-choice-is-becoming-involuntary-tithing/

Categories Education Industry, Religion, Separation of church and state, Vouchers

John Thompson: Will Oklahoma’s Superintendent of Schools Finally Tell the Truth?

By dianeravitch
November 7, 2023 //
2

John Thompson, historian and retired teacher, wonders whether Ryan Walters, the state superintendent of schools, will at last tell the truth when he is in court? He’s been telling so many lies lately that it’s hard to know if he is aware of the difference between truth and lies.

Thompson writes:

In Oklahoma and across the nation, hate mongers like Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters have been willing to speak any falsehood they want, portraying them as political narratives, which are legal, even when they are lies. But if Walters repeats false claims when testifying in court, his lies could backfire.

Walters is facing lawsuits for wrongly firing Department of Education employees. One employee, the director of grant development, disproved Walters’ claim that, ‘We have applied for millions and millions of grants since I took office.’” She explained, “We have not applied for one single grant. That was a blatant lie.”

Moreover, State Auditor Cindy Byrd alleged that millions of COVID-19 relief money were misspent by Walters’ department, and the “Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond said he won’t rule out criminal charges against some state leaders after a report alleged misspending of COVID-19 relief money.” A.G. Drummond also has “described what was found as a pervasive culture of waste, mismanagement and apparent fraud. What concerned him the most was the mishandling of money that had been allocated for education expense accounts and tuition assistance programs.”

Walters also used state money to fund an inflammatory anti-union video which he called a “public awareness campaign” about teachers’ unions (which he labels as a “terrorist organization.”) As these investigations continue, Walters has doubled down on falsehoods such as testifying to Congress that the Tulsa Public Schools “maintains an active connection with the [Chinese government] through a program called the Confucius Classroom.”

But what is Walters doing now?

This week’s breaking news includes echoes of past lies. For instance, the Oklahoma Voice reports that the newly appointed Education Secretary Katherine Curry “said she resigned from her position after three months because the state superintendent’s administration limited her oversight of his agency.” Curry “said she repeatedly asked for financial documents showing how the agency budgeted and spent money, but the Oklahoma State Department of Education never provided them.” Curry said Walters’ refusal to respond was “‘100%’ the reason for her resignation.”

Second, two of the five state and federal suits by dismissed employees have gone to court. It is possible that he will be found accountable for both, his official role, and actions as an individual. 

Third, as the Oklahoman reports, after being fined for 14 cases of failure to report campaign donations, Walters now faces a possible fine for failure to report a donation from the 1776 Project PAC. The donor “says on its website it is ‘committed to abolishing critical race theory … from the public school curriculum.’” And his “amended pre-general election report still lists more than a dozen donors with an “x” before the last names, a mistake that prevents accurate searches of his contributions.”

The week’s fourth story may help explain Walters’ continuing lies and allegedly fraudulent behavior. He announced: 

“I fully stand behind President Trump, and I am excited to see him dismantle the Department of Education,”

“President Trump will be able to end radical indoctrination in our schools,” Walters said. “This woke ideology will be driven out of our schools. This cancer that is the teachers union will be driven out of our schools, and parents will be put in charge of their kids’ education.”

Finally, Jennifer Palmer reports that “the state Education Department is looking to hire someone to manage national media appearances, raising concerns the agency would be boosting Superintendent Ryan Walters’ national profile at taxpayer expense.” She adds:

A firm is being sought to provide print and digital op-eds to national outlets, coordinate national events and appearances for executive staff, write speeches and handle some communications. Records show the department wants a minimum of three op-eds, two speeches and 10 media bookings per month. 

Palmer explains that some Oklahomans have responded that “the public shouldn’t have to pay for Walters’ political ambitions.” But we shouldn’t overlook the costs to people across the U.S. They may have to deal with a new level of Walters’ propaganda.

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Character, Lies, Oklahoma

MSNBC: The Theocrat Who Is Speaker of the House

By dianeravitch
November 7, 2023 //
41

Sarah Posner, a columnist for MSNBC, summarizes what has been learned about the theocratic vision of Mike Johnson, the recently elected Speaker of the House. Johnson was, of course, a prominent and active election denier. In addition, his views are radically fundamentalist. Whenever possible, he cites the Bible—not the Constitution—as the source of his ideology. Those who do not share his religious views may rightly wonder how someone so deeply indoctrinated in his faith can lead without alienating the majority of his fellow citizens. We know already that he is deeply antagonistic to abortion rights and to those who are LGBT+. In time we will learn what other prejudices he holds and how he will deal with them.

Posner wrote:

The sudden elevation of Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La.,to House speaker pushed his record’s vetting to after his election. So it was only once he became second in line to the presidency that most people learned Johnson played a key role in the House’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, is virulently anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ Americans, and has promoted teaching the Bible as a history book in public schools.

Now Johnson and his allies are hitting back against his critics. Remarkably, their response to the exposure of Johnson’s turbocharged theo-politics is not to argue that media reports exaggerate or misapprehend his record as a lawyer or legislator, or his intentions as speaker. Instead, Johnson’s closest allies are amplifying his extreme views, and recasting them as mainstream “truths” that are beyond challenge.

This week Johnson gave an interview to the Daily Signal, the news site of the Heritage Foundation, an agenda-setting hub for the right, and particularly the religious right. Johnson was able to “open up,” as the Daily Signal’s Mary Margaret Olohan put it, about how his Christian faith “informs his politics.” While he’s hardly been tight-lipped about that topic, this fresh clarification of his central political philosophy makes his rapid, uninterrogated ascension even more worrisome.

“It’s a central premise of the Bible that God invented civil government,” Johnson told Olohan, who added that, “like many Americans of faith, Johnson sees government as a ‘design of God’ and ‘a gift to mankind in a fallen society.’” If those jarring statements do not comport with your own understanding of the Bible, or of the constitutional separation of church and state, you are not alone.

The Washington Stand, the news site of the Family Research Council, whose president Tony Perkins is a longtime friend of the new speaker, similarly assailed Johnson’s critics. In an article entitled “Johnson Critics Mistake Christianity, American Principles for ‘Theocracy,’” the Stand senior writer Joshua Arnold turned to the director of FRC’s own Center for Biblical Worldview, David Closson. (The Center for Biblical Worldview, according to its website, says that “a person exhibits a biblical worldview when their beliefs and actions are aligned with the Bible, acknowledging its truth and applicability to every area of life.”)

Closson defended Johnson’s beliefs as “just basic Christian belief coming right out of the Bible.” That “basic Christian belief,” argued Closson, includes that “God is the one that ordains authority. God is the one that gives delegated authority to human beings to wield it on his behalf.” Closson went on to suggest that Johnson’s critics are biblical illiterates who lack any understanding of Christianity. He described them as “folks who don’t have any reference to what the Bible teaches, trying to scare millions of Americans, when so many of us would just be saying ‘Amen.’”

If anything has come into sharper focus over the past week or so, it’s that Johnson has spent his legal and political career immersed in an insular world where everyone around him believes there are certain “truths,” like regressive gender roles, or creationism, or that separation of church and state is a “myth.” Or, as Johnson stated this week without equivocation, “God invented civil government.”

While these views are commonplace on the Christian right, they are far from commonplace among Christians more broadly. “Most Christians wouldn’t say that this is a ‘central premise’ of the Bible, but Johnson’s focus on authority, as well as the way he distinguishes ‘civil government’ from other forms of government, tracks with the language of Christian reconstructionism,” Julie Ingersoll, a religious studies professor at the University of North Florida and author of “Building God’s Kingdom: Inside the World of Christian Reconstruction,” told me. As Ingersoll’s work has illuminated, reconstructionism, a movement developed in the 1970s, teaches that God ordained separate “spheres” of governmental authority — the family, the church and “civil government.” In the reconstructionist view, “civil government” should not do anything that interferes with (conservative Christian) families or churches or what they consider to be their inviolable right to impose their religious beliefs in the public square.

There is virtually no one in today’s religious right who would claim the label “Christian reconstructionist,” largely because they do not want to be tied to the positions of its founder R.J. Rushdoony, who cited supposed “biblical law” to support slavery and the death penalty for homosexuality. But the broad contours of Rushdoony’s framework, as Ingersoll has documented, has left an indelible mark on the modern religious right. The insistence that a “biblical worldview” should bear on every government decision shapes right-wing Christians’ positions on a range of issues. Their objections to abortion and marriage equality, for example, is based on their claim that civil government lacks the God-ordained authority to create laws that (they say) conflict with the Bible. They also consider public education to be an improper, unbiblical exercise of government authority. Because of that, they have undermined public schools, created their own Christian schools, and advocated for and shaped the Christian homeschooling movement.

These kinds of crude dismissals of Johnson’s critics serve two purposes: they reassure the GOP base that their “biblical worldview” is the only correct way to view both the Bible and the government, and that any critiques of it evince a lack of “understanding of just basic Christian tenets,” as Closson put it. Second, and more crucially, they aim to bully reporters and political opponents into retreating from examining Johnson’s record and drawing attention to the ways it threatens pluralism, democracy and the rights of others. By repeating the lie that Johnson’s beliefs are “basic” Christianity, and accusing anyone who fails to understand that of ignorance, the Christian right, and the Republican Party it controls, want scrutiny of Johnson to evaporate. We can only hope their efforts will backfire, as millions of Americans wake up to what it really means to have a top government official proudly tout his supposedly “biblical worldview.”

Categories Accountability, Democracy, Education Industry, Religion, Republicans

How the Metropolitan Museum Acquired a Rare Painting with an Enslaved Person

By dianeravitch
November 6, 2023 //
3

This story is fascinating. It’s about the quest to understand the origins of a painting of three white children that originally included a young slave. At some point, the enslaved youth was painted over and eliminated.

One determined art collector enlisted the help of art historians to identify the white children and the enslaved youth. The young man was named Bélizaire. The painting was held for decades in storage in a New Orleans art museum. It was just another family painting: three children. If you can open the video, please do (I don’t know if it is behind a pay wall).

Once the original painting was restored and its history documented, it was purchased by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where it is prominently displayed.

“How a Rare Portrait of an Enslaved Child Arrived at the Met” is a 10-minute film that touches on themes of race, art and history.

For many years, a 19th century painting of three white children in a Louisiana landscape held a secret. Beneath a layer of overpaint meant to look like the sky: the figure of an enslaved youth. But a 2005 restoration revealed him and now the painting has a new, very prominent home at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Who was the enslaved child? Who covered over his figure? Why did the painting languish for decades in attics and a museum basement?

The Times further describes the journey of the painting:

To learn more, read “‘His Name Was Bélizaire’: Rare Portrait of Enslaved Child Arrives at the Met.” Alexandra Eaton writes:

One reason “Bélizaire and the Frey Children” has drawn attention is the naturalistic depiction of Bélizaire, the young man of African descent who occupies the highest position in the painting, leaning against a tree just behind the Frey children. Although he remains separated from the white children, Amans painted him in a powerful stance, with blushing cheeks, and a kind of interiority that is unusual for the time.

Since the Black Lives Matter movement, the Met and other museums have responded to calls to reckon with the presentation of Black figures. When the European Galleries reopened in 2020, the museum included wall texts to highlight the presence of African people in Europe and to call attention to issues of racism, previously unmentioned. In the American Wing, which had presented “a romanticized history of American art,” Kornhauser said, a presidential portrait was recast with the consciousness of the present: John Trumbull’s 1780 portrait of George Washington and his enslaved servant William Lee identified only the former president until 2020, when Lee’s name was added to the title. However, unlike Bélizaire, Lee is depicted at the margins, lacking in any emotion or humanity.

Jeremy K. Simien, an art collector from Baton Rouge, spent years trying to find “Bélizaire” after seeing an image of it online in 2013, following its restoration, that featured all four figures. Intrigued, he kept searching, only to find an earlier image from 2005, after the painting had been de-accessioned by the New Orleans Museum of Art and was listed for auction by Christie’s. It was the same painting, but the Black child was missing. He had been painted out.

“The fact that he was covered up haunted me,” Simien said in an interview.

Categories Art, Civil Rights, History, Race, Racism

Arthur Camins: Choose People Over Their Governments

By dianeravitch
November 6, 2023 //
32

Arthur Camins writes in The Daily Kos about the war in the Middle East:

So many people I speak with are feeling torn and conflicted. They that say they are afraid to criticize either Hamas or Israel for fear of being attacked for taking one side or the other. I say: If you stand for the human rights and dignity of all, the sides to choose between in the latest Middle East conflict are not the Hamas or Israeli governments. Instead, choose their people.

No, the sides to choose between are:

• Accepting the death of innocent civilians as collateral damage as the price of victory of “our side.”

Or

• Finding the path to peace that starts with mutual respect for democracy and human rights for all.

Neither Hamas nor Israel represents that latter choice. Their behavior says the opposite. So, I condemn both without implied approval of either.

If a path to peace, democracy, and human rights for Israelis and Palestinians–and safety for Jews and Palestinians around the world–are the goals, then attempting to determine moral equivalencies between the behavior of Hamas and the Israeli government is a dead-end.

I also see no need for those of us in the United States to promote a one- or two-state solution. That is up to the people of Israel and Palestine, hopefully with a rejection of both Hamas and the Netanyahu governments, rejection of the primacy of any religion over another or none at all.

Anything short of Israeli abandonment of its illegal settlements in the West Bank and assurance of full Palestinian rights is a non-starter.

A lot of digital ink has been spilled over the definitional accuracy of the terms, war crimes and genocide. We can have that debate, but it deflects attention from the necessary condemnations. It abets useless “whataboutism” rather than forging a path forward.

I am not a pacifist, but I explicitly reject two rationalizations for the murder of innocents: Palestinians have a right to resistance by any means necessary, and Israel has a right to defend itself.

I’m not against resistance to oppression, but that does not include murder and hostage-taking of innocent civilians. I am not opposed to defense against attack, but that does not include bombing and depriving innocent civilians of food, fuel, water, and healthcare.

In the current circumstances, both Hamas and Israel claim that the intransigence, crimes, and inhumanity of the other side justifies their actions. They do not.

Condemnation of both Hamas’s and Israel’s actions is the starting point for any moral and political commitments to working across differences to achieve the safety, respect, democracy, and rights that Palestinians and Israelis deserve.

Empathy is a precondition to peace and justice. If we can imagine the pain and grief of Israelis who lost friends, neighbors, and loved ones to the latest Hamas or any terrorist attack, we must also imagine the loss and suffering of Gazans from the Israeli bombing and blockade. We must also imagine being displaced when our land and homes are violently stolen by illegal settlers.

Call your U.S. Senators and House Representatives. Tell them that a ceasefire, a halt to further military aid, and humanitarian aid to Gazans are the necessary first steps.

Arthur taught and led science professional learning and curriculum and assessment development projects for 50 yrs. He writes about education and social justice. He loves spending time with friends and family, hiking, and gardening.

Categories Cruelty, Democracy, Equity, Evil, Extremism, Failure, International, Justice

Texas: The Rightwing Plot to Capture Local School Boards

By dianeravitch
November 6, 2023 //
15

Steven Monacelli wrote this article for The Texas Observer about the network of rightwing groups flooding local school board elections with big money. He also supplied the photographs.

As the article points out, about 75% of local school board candidates spend less than $1,000 to run for office. In districts targeted for takeover, such modest spending is no longer a path to success.

Monacelli writes:

Over the last three years, an interconnectednetwork of political action committees (PACs), largely funded by billionaires who support school privatization, has begun to transform the nature of local school board elections across Texas. They’ve done this with the help of consultants whose efforts have largely gone unnoticed.

On August 15, 2022, members of the Carroll Independent School District (CISD) board of trustees, all dressed in Southlake Dragons’ green, posed for a photo with representatives of Patriot Mobile, a Christian Nationalist phone company that spent big last spring to help secure the victories of three trustees. The occasion honored the company’s donation of posters that read “In God We Trust.”

The trustee’s acceptance of the red, white, and blue star-spangled posters immediately drew opposition from critics who see those words not just as a motto that appears on dollar bills, but also as a declaration of allegiance to conservative causes. One disapproving parent attempted to donate signs with the same words in Arabic and on a rainbow background but was rejected; the board president said they already had enough.

Other school districts got the posters around the same time. And not all parents who spoke out were critical.

Erik Leist, who resides in the neighboring Keller ISD area, spoke to multiple news outlets about the posters after they were donated. He approved of the state law passed in 2021 that requires schools to display donated signs bearing the national motto in a “conspicuous place.”

“If it’s important to communities, the community will come behind it,” Leist said, according to accounts published in Fox News and the Texas Tribune that identified him only as the father of a kindergartener.

Leist, however, is much more than a concerned dad: He’s a conservative political consultant who at the time had already been paid tens of thousands of dollars by multiple PACs to support the campaigns of new ultraconservative school board members in Carroll and neighboring school districts, trustees who were eager to accept those posters and who later passed policies restricting students’ access to library books and rolling back accommodations for LGBTQ+ students.

Leist is just one well-connected node in a sprawling, hydra-like network of PACs and consulting firms that increasingly are targeting Texas school board races and politicizing those formerly low-budget, nonpartisan campaigns, an investigation by the Texas Observer reveals.

The Observer’s examination of campaign finance records shows that dozens of ultraconservative school board candidates around the state have been backed by PACs that collectively employ a handful of conservative political consulting firms.

Viewed together, the connections among these individuals and organizations reveal a network of major funders and political operatives focused on winning control of the state’s local school boards. The strategy this network employs has been trumpeted in the right-wing press as a blueprint for school board takeovers: Create a PAC, endorse candidates willing to run on politicized issues, hire a consulting firm with ties to the Republican Party, raise enough to outspend opponents, and if victory is secured, pass policies that align with statewide party priorities. The biggest known backers of this network are conservative billionaires who generally don’t live in the districts being targeted but all of whom support school privatization efforts.

The timing of the network’s activities corresponds to revived efforts by Governor Greg Abbott and Republican lawmakers to support vouchers for private schools in the 2021 and 2023 legislative sessions.

To understand how this network developed over time, it’s best to begin in CISD—a district located in Southlake, a wealthy suburb of Fort Worth that is over 70 percent white. It’s where Leist got his start as a school board campaign consultant, supporting an effort praised by the conservative press as a model for other school districts.

In August 2020, the seven-member CISD board held a hearing on something called a Cultural Competence Action Plan, a proposal created in response to a 2018 viral video of Carroll high school students shouting the N-word.

Less than two weeks later, Tim O’Hare, the former chair of the Tarrant County Republican Party and current Tarrant County judge, teamed up with Leigh Wambsganss, a conservative activist and the wife of a former Southlake mayor, to create Southlake Families PAC.

In November 2020, Southlake Families PAC—which describes itself as “unapologetically rooted in Judeo-Christian values”—paid a Keller-based marketing company called 221b Ingenuity, of which Leist was a managing partner, to help set up a website to promote two conservative CISD school board candidates. They ran in opposition to the Cultural Competence Action Plan in the spring 2021 race that featured PAC-funded mailers accusing opponents of pushing “radical socialism.” Both PAC-backed candidates won.

In June 2021, the right-leaning National Review lauded Southlake Families’ victory as a “model for conservative parents confronted by similar situations around the country.” When Southlake Families helped a third candidate win a special election for a vacant CISD seat that fall, the three joined with a fourth PAC-endorsed incumbent to form a conservative majority on the board.

Since then, seven federal civil rights investigations have been opened into allegations of discrimination against Carroll students based on race, disability, and gender or sexual harassment. The most recent began in January 2023, one month after the board removed references to religion, sexual orientation, and gender identity from the district’s nondiscrimination statement, stoking further controversy and making news.

What has drawn less press attention is that the situation in Carroll has inspired a network of copycat PACs supporting conservative candidates in other historically low-budget nonpartisan school board races across the state, in which PACs and the candidates they endorsed hired from the same handful of consulting firms to help with campaigns.

Tentacles of this big-spending network have already reached more than two dozen Texas school districts. The Observer has identified 20 PACs formed since late 2020 that, through early September, have collectively spent more than $1.5 million to support the campaigns of 105 conservative candidates in 35 districts.

Most of the time, that investment has paid off: 65 PAC-supported candidates—or 62 percent—won their elections from 2021 to 2023.

The majority of those PACs are focused on only one school district each. The ultraconservative committees have typically spent tens of thousands of dollars per election, with less than $100,000 in total expenses since they were formed. A handful of PACs have spent more than six figures in total, including Southlake Families, which has spent more than $239,000 since late 2020.

Campaign finance records show that these seemingly grassroots groups often use the same consulting firms like Leist’s Edgerton Strategies, which has worked on behalf of PACs and candidates in at least 14 school districts. Other consulting firms that have made over six figures working on school board campaigns include Axiom Strategies and CAZ Consulting—and both companies’ subsidiaries. They’re the same consultants used by big-spending conservative political PACs like Patriot Mobile Action and Texans for Educational Freedom, which have respectively spent more than $500,000 and $330,000 on school board races and together have endorsed 66 candidates across at least 23 districts.

At least one federal-level super PAC, the 1776 Project, has also invested in 28 school board candidates across eight Texas school districts that were also endorsed by either Patriot Mobile Action, Texans for Educational Freedom, or one of the Southlake Families-style PACs.

This level of outside spending is highly unusual in school board races. The results of a 2018 survey conducted by the National School Board Association showed that 75 percent of all candidates reported spending less than $1,000 per race, with only 9 percent spending more than $5,000.

Analysis of campaign expenses by the nonprofit OpenSecrets shows that spending more money doesn’t always ensure victory—but often does. Given the relatively low cost of school board races, the influx of even a few thousand dollars of outside funding can transform the nature of such elections at a time of high turnover: According to a 2022 survey from School Board Partners, a national organization focused on recruiting and training anti-racist school board members, nearly two-thirds of school board members nationwide said they planned not to seek reelection…


In the southeast Texas city of Humble, another 2021 school board race became a quieter testing ground for a new conservative PAC. Unlike in Carroll ISD, there was no dramatic national coverage or clash over diversity and inclusion. The district, in one of Houston’s sprawling and forested northern suburbs, was the first foray into school board races for Texans for Educational Freedom, a PAC with a mission of “fighting against Critical Race Theory and other anti-American agendas and curriculums.”

Funded primarily by a coterie of conservative billionaires, Texans for Educational Freedom—originally known as the Freedom Foundation of Texas—was founded in early 2021 by Christopher Zook Jr., a former field director for the Harris County Republican Party and senior fellow at Texans For Lawsuit Reform.

In the May 2021 election, the PAC spent more than $10,000 to help three candidates—a significant investment from one source, given that Humble school board candidates tended to spend only about $3,300 from all contributors in contested races. The PAC money was spent on a national political consulting firm called Axiom Strategies. All three of the PAC’s candidates won.

Unlike in majority-white Southlake, the school board election in Humble—where white students are a minority—didn’t feature inflammatory, politicized rhetoric. That helped Texans for Educational Freedom keep a low profile.

“I wasn’t aware there was outside PAC spending,” said Brian Baker, a father of two students in Humble ISD. “I had been paying attention to stories in other parts of the state and I was looking out for candidates and mailers using certain buzzwords like ‘woke,’ but I didn’t really notice any.”

After the initial victory in Humble, Texans for Educational Freedom targeted two more districts near Houston, Cypress-Fairbanks and Klein, in 2021. This time, messaging around critical race theory came to the fore. All three PAC-backed candidates in Cypress-Fairbanks ran against the ostensible inclusion of critical race theory in school curriculum and teacher training, as did one PAC-backed candidate in Klein. Six of the seven candidates won.

By the end of 2021, candidates backed by Texans for Educational Freedom had established near or outright majorities in all three districts—and all three would later rank on a list of book-banning districts put together by PEN America, a nonprofit organization focused on the protection of free expression.

Texans for Educational Freedom has intervened in races across the greater Houston area, including Houston, Conroe, Katy, and Spring Branch. The PAC has also backed candidates in the wooded Austin suburb of Leander, in the oil-rich flats of Midland, in several suburbs of Fort Worth, and in the Panhandle’s Canyon ISD. The PAC backed 12 candidates in 2021, 10 in 2022, and 20 in 2023, covering a total of 17 school districts. Out of all those candidates, 76 percent won their elections.

“Things like this have happened before but not in such a coordinated way,” said Ruth Kravetz, a retired public school administrator and teacher who co-founded Community Voices for Public Education, an advocacy group that seeks to strengthen Houston’s public school system. “In the past it was to promote charter expansion. And now it seems like it’s about promoting the destruction of public education.”

Candidates backed by Texans for Educational Freedom have regularly run on hot-button issues that tie in with state-level Republican policy and rhetoric, such as notions that children are being “indoctrinated” into radical ideologies or “sexually alternative lifestyles.”

In Conroe ISD, three candidates backed by Texans for Educational Freedom ran as the “Mama Bear” slate and won their November 2022 elections after being involved in a push by a group known as Mama Bears Rising to restrict student access to certain books.

“The PACs were able to support a massive printing of voter guides and distribution of mailers,” said Evan Berlin, a resident who lost to one of the Mama Bears. Berlin, a first-time school board candidate who has a conservative voting record, told the Observer he wanted to run on providing education in a non-politicized manner. “I think with PAC money coming from out-of-district donors, just by nature of that we could assume that it’s part of a larger, more strategic effort,” he said.

Last year, while Texans for Educational Freedom was concentrating on Houston area races, Patriot Mobile Action and another 17 PACs were backing candidates in 22 districts across the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Those candidates largely ran on issues that have become a common refrain: allegations of ideological indoctrination, critical race theory, pornography in schools, and the sexualization of children.

Fifteen of the 18 PACs targeting North Texas school districts tapped either Axiom Strategies, Edgerton Strategies, or CAZ Consulting for campaign consulting—as did many school board candidates in the area. The outliers were: McKinney First PAC, which endorsed candidates that worked with those consulting firms; Metroplex Citizens for a Better Tomorrow and Decatur ISD Parents Unite, two groups primarily funded by a Republican mega donor who has contributed to Texans for Educational Freedom; and Collin Conservatives United, a self-described PAC that does not appear in the state PAC registry, whose endorsed candidates received donations from the same megadonor.

As this larger cluster of PACs and consulting firms has grown, its strategy has proved potent. Fourteen of its 17 candidates won in 2021. Another 42 candidates ran in 2022 and 27 won. And so far in 2023, 48 more candidates ran and 26 won.

Open the link to finish the article. I hope it’s not behind a paywall.

If you open the link, you can then see the diagram that displays the intricate interconnections among the rightwing groups and their funders.

Categories Censorship, Corruption, Dark Money, Disruption, Education Industry, Elections, Extremism, Funding, Texas, Vouchers

Texas: Vouchers Remain Stalled; Rural Republicans Not Budging

By dianeravitch
November 5, 2023 //
6

Governor Gregg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick expressed optimism about getting a voucher bill passed by the third special session of the Texas legislature, but it’s looking unlikely. The session ends Tuesday, and there is no House bill. Rural Republicans know that vouchers will hurt their schools, and they have with Democrats against them.

Hours after Gov. Greg Abbott said he believed the Legislature could pass a school vouchers bill before the end of the special legislative session, the House all but killed any deal.

The House met briefly Wednesday evening and recessed likely until Monday or Tuesday, pending the Senate’s approval of bills related to border security.

The special session ends Tuesday, and the House has not so much as considered a voucher bill in committee, an early step in the lawmaking process.

Abbott is ready to call a fourth special session. That’s likely to annoy the holdouts, who are tired of his pressure campaign.

Categories Education Industry, Privatization, Religion, Supporting public schools, Texas, Vouchers

Watch This HBO Musical Special Featuring High School Students in Philly

By dianeravitch
November 5, 2023 //
9

There are some wonderful things happening in our public schools. HBO is featuring a film about the music created by students at the Hill-Freedman World Academy. HFWA is a public high school for high-performing students.

**TUNE-IN**TUNE-IN**TUNE-IN**

Presents

STAND UP & SHOUT: SONGS FROM A PHILLY HIGH SCHOOL

Debuts Tuesday, NOVEMBER 7 on HBO and Max

From Get Lifted Film Co.

NOW AVAILABLE TO SCREEN UPON REQUEST

StandUpandShout@id-pr.com  

The HBO Original documentary STAND UP & SHOUT: SONGS FROM A PHILLY HIGH SCHOOL , directed by Emmy ® and Peabody winner Amy Schatz (HBO’s “We Are the Dream: The Kids of the Oakland MLK Oratorical Fest” and “In the Shadow of the Towers : Stuyvesant High on 9/11”) and executive produced by the award-winning team at Get Lifted Film Co., Emmy ® and Tony ® winning producer Mike Jackson, EGOT recipient John Legend, and Emmy ® -winner Ty Stiklorius, debuts TUESDAY , NOVEMBER 7 at 9:00 pm ET/PT on HBO and will be available to stream on Max.

Synopsis: The film follows 10th graders from Hill-Freedman World Academy (HFWA), a Philadelphia public school, who take part in a unique songwriting collaboration. Working in teams with local musicians, students come together to create an album of powerful original songs that capture both the challenging times they’re living in and the joy that music brings.

Back in the classroom after two years of pandemic isolation, the teenagers find a way to express their experiences and feelings in stirring songs that come straight from the heart. HFWA offers a unique music program teaching students to write, compose, produce, and perform, their own work. Although many are new to music, they learn to trust their voices and lift each other up. STAND UP & SHOUT: SONGS FROM A PHILLY HIGH SCHOOL explores the transformative power of music and how arts education can unlock creativity and be a source of hope and healing.

Featured Participants: Joining the courageous and talented students of Hill-Freedman World Academy High School are award-winning musical talents Kristal Oliver, Andrew Lipke, Bethlehem Roberson, and program director and music technology teacher Ezechial Thurman.

Credits: HBO Documentary Films in association with Get Lifted Film Co. presents STAND UP & SHOUT: SONGS FROM A PHILLY HIGH SCHOOL. Directed and produced by Amy Schatz; executive produced by Mike Jackson, John Legend, Ty Stiklorius, and Tommy Benjamin for Get Lifted; For HBO: executive producers, Nancy Abraham, Lisa Heller, and Sara Rodriguez.

Categories Art, Arts Education, Creativity, Philadelphia, Students

Peter Greene: Fordham Institute Debunks “Study” of Charter School Innovation

By dianeravitch
November 5, 2023 //
8

Peter Greene writes faster than most people can read, and what he writes is always worth reading. In this article, he describes a remarkable occurrence: the pro-charter Thomas B. Fordham Institute debunked a study by charter advocates claiming that deregulation spurs innovation in the charter sector.

In his latest article, Greene writes:

It’s an ordinary day when a pair of charter school boosters conclude that charters work best when mean old government doesn’t make them follow a bunch of rules and stuff. It is an ordinary day when someone points out they’re full of regular non-innovative baloney. It is a less ordinary day when the baloney is being called out by a piece in the house organ of the Thomas Fordham Institute.

So let’s pretend for a moment that the question of regulations vs. charter innovation is a real question. David Griffith, the Fordham Associate Director of Research, frames this as the old tension between autonomy and accountability, which makes more sense than talking about charter school innovation, because after a few decades of charter proliferation, the amount of innovation they have produced is somewhere between jack and squat. Despite being billed as “laboratories of innovation,” charter schools haven’t come up with much of anything that public schools were not already well aware of.

The study argues for less regulation of charters. Greene responds:

The more regulation, the less innovatiness in charter schools. For charter fans, it’s simple–more options means they can move more product, and while I get their point, it is also true that we would have far more innovation in the food industry without all those government regulations about poison and stuff.

The study was thoroughly demolished by David Griffith, Fordham’s associate director of research.

Greene writes:

Griffith makes a similar observation. Their technique of quantifying “innovation” gives the charter points for being unusual, and that’s problematic:

From a purely normative perspective, an obvious problem with the authors’ approach is that it is content neutral. So, for example, a school that was grounded in Satan Worship would count as highly innovative (provided it didn’t start a movement), as would one that imparted no knowledge whatsoever (as seems to be the case for many virtual schools).

And he doesn’t think “innovation” means what they think it means either, noting that many of their “innovations” aren’t particularly new but instead include “longstanding programs such as Core Knowledge (est. 1986), Waldorf (1919), and Montessori (1907), not to mention “single-sex” education (Harvard, circa 1636) and “project-based” learning (the Pleistocene).” (That is Griffith’s snark there, not mine).

Kudos to David Griffith and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Deregulation, Education Industry, Fake News, Research
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