Veteran educator Mike DeGuire scoured through the public list of campaign contributions to the Denver school board elections.
The pro-charter funders are made up of billionaires, charter school operators, and big-money privatizers.
Among the donors to school board elections are billionaire Philip Anschutz, the richest man in Colorado; he was also a funder of the anti-public school documentary titled “Waiting for Superman,” which claimed falsely that charter schools are the answer to all the problems of public schools.
Other billionaire donors include Netflix founder Reed Hastings and John Arnold, a former trader at Enron.
Then there’s an alphabet series of organizations, some of which use fancy names–the equivalent of Parents for Public Schools– to hide the fact that they are pro-charter.
It’s hard for the average voter to make sense of the election with so many groups endorsing certain candidates.
Tto cut through the hype and propaganda of the charter lobby requires a wise ally.
Mike DeGuire has the experience and wisdom to sort out the charter groups from the true friends of students, teachers and public schools.
And he does it in this article.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I am a long time reader of this blog, and a public school supporter. I wanted to provide some input on this fight. The approach seems to be to demonize everyone that has a different opinion on charter schools. While he is not mentioned in this article, Gates has often been a target, and the comments on rich billionaires. But there are three types of supporters to charter schools – those who believe it is a better approach; those who benefit business wise; and those who benefit individually because they get money that they would spend anyway. Gates, rich billionaires, politicians, and most supporter are in that first bucket. The way to win this is to convince them they are wrong. Most people know that privatization of public services cost more money and leads to fraud. Most people understand that taking money away from public schools will destroy public schools. These are where the arguments should be focused. Terms like rich billionaire should be permanently stricken from any argument. We are losing our democracy because we are not listening, and we are arguing the wrong arguments. Just because we disagree with someone does not mean they are evil or stupid. They have a different view, and maybe are not informed on all the issues.
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“Rich billionaire” is an oxymoron. I have never used that term.
Almost everyone who is interested in the subject of charter schools knows by now that they don’t get better performance unless they exclude the hardest-to-educate students.
But there are parents who have been hoaxed.
And some of the supporters know that “choice” is a sneaky way to revive segregation.
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“Just because we disagree with someone does not mean they are evil or stupid.”
Actually, it might.
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“Most people understand that taking money away from public schools will destroy public schools. These are where the arguments should be focused. … [But] we are arguing the wrong arguments.”
Might My conversation with AI about the hypocrisy and immorality of “public charter schools” be a wrong argument? It’s a bit long but I hope you’ll stay with it as it evolves.
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Your back and forth with Ai was fascinating, Ed. Thanks for sharing. Loved the summary!
“Structural Integrity in Public Education
Charter models often chip away at these pillars. They may offer shiny alternatives, but they do so by removing bricks from the public wall—and once that wall crumbles, Humpty’s fate is sealed.“
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