Archives for category: Billionaires
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Speaking of Billionaires, How Much Does Trump Owe?

By dianeravitch
August 20, 2016 //
62

The New York Times just posted a story that will appear in print tomorrow. It is the result of dogged efforts to understand Donald Trump’s finances. This is especially important since he refuses to release his tax returns. He seems to think the public has no right to know his income, how much he pays in taxes, how much he gives to charity.

The story reflects a detailed investigation of Trump’s holdings, including his debts, which are staggering. Trump once said, “I love debt!” He was not kidding. Some of his massive debts are owed to the Chinese national bank, some to Goldman Sachs. Who owns whom?

Categories Billionaires, Trump

The Boston Globe Notices the Dark Money Funding Question 2, the Charter Initiative

By dianeravitch
August 20, 2016 //
14

This blog reported earlier on Professor Maurice Cunningham’s unearthing of the dark money used to promote charter expansion in Massachuseets. The big donors, he learned, were wealthy Republicans, and of course, Question 2 is being de eptively marketed as a means of “improving public schools. Passage of Question 2 would in fact give a stamp of approval to privatization of public schools and enable the establishment of more privately managed charters.

Now even the Boston Globe, which has consistently covered charters favorably, reports that the money behind Question 2 is hidden from public view.

“A new $2.3 million ad boosting the expansion of charter schools in Massachusetts lists the campaign’s top five donors on screen, in accordance with state law. But the singularly bland names, including Strong Economy for Growth and Education Reform Now Advocacy, give no hint of who is writing the checks.

“Four of the five donors to the procharter committee are nonprofit groups that do not, under state law, have to disclose their funders, allowing the individuals backing the effort to remain anonymous.

“The cloak of secrecy surrounding the financing of what could be the most expensive ballot campaign in state history has frustrated election officials and underscored the proliferation of untraceable money in political races across the country.

“Would we like to see every donor disclosed? Absolutely,” said Michael J. Sullivan, the director of the state Office of Campaign and Political Finance. “But the statute does not provide for it at this point. This dark money issue is a puzzle that every state is facing right now.”

Spending to push Question 2 is expected to exceed the $15.5 million spent by gambling interests to block efforts to ban casinos.

The Globe interviewed Professor Cunningham and listed the major groups funding the pro-charter campaign, most of which are funded by billionaires and hedge fund managers.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Massachusetts, Privatization

My View: The Corporate Assault on Public Education Goes International

By dianeravitch
August 10, 2016 //
27

I was recently invited to write an article for U.S. News & World Report. I decided to write about the current trend in many nations to turn public schools over to the private sector. Readers of this blog may be familiar with the content and my concerns. But I wasn’t writing for those who are well-versed in these issues. I was writing for the public, which is unaware of the advances of privatization into the heart of public education.

The editors called it “Public education is up for sale.”

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Global Education Reform Movement (GERM), International, Privatization

Dark Money in Massachusetts Promotes Privatization of Public Schools

By dianeravitch
August 4, 2016 //
12

If you have ever wondered why so many elected officials support the privatization of public schools, there is a simple answer: Follow the money.

In state after state, hedge fund managers and other elites have decided that public schools must be privatized, and they have millions to back up their whims and hobbies.

Maurice Cunningham, professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts in Boston, has researched the dark money flowing into the school privatization movement in Massachusetts. It is an appalling story of a wealthy elite using their money to undermine democracy and to steal public Schools from the community that paid for them.

Millions of dollars have been funneled to Teach for America, Stand for Children, Education Reform Now (the political action arm of Democrats for Education Reform), Families for Excellent Schools, and other corporate reformers whose goal is privatization.

Watch the wealthy try to buy democracy. Watch to see if the public wakes up and fights back.

Categories Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Massachusetts, Privatization

EduShyster: A Close Reading of Doug Lemov’s “Teach Like a Champion”

By dianeravitch
August 4, 2016 //
11

EduShyster hosts a guest blogger, Layla Treuhaft-Ali, who demonstrates the results of a close reading of Doug Lemov’s “Teach Like a Champion,” which is required reading in no-excuses charter schools. EduShyster calls it “Teach like It’s 1895.”

She writes:

“The book, and its teaching techniques, looms large for any teacher who works in an urban school. Not only has the TLC model of teaching become a fixture of most *high-performing* charter school networks, but it is increasingly making its way into urban school districts as well. And that’s just the start. Teach Like a Champion’s approach also underlies broad efforts to transform the way teachers are educated, forming the *backbone of instruction* at an expanding number of charter-school-owned teacher education centers like Relay Graduate School of Education and Match’s Sposato School of Education.

”
Teach Like A Champion advertises 49 discrete techniques that teachers can master to raise student achievement and help increase their students’ college readiness, with a strong emphasis on classroom culture and shaping student behavior, down to the most minute actions. As I was reading Teach Like A Champion, I observed something that shocked me. The pedagogical model espoused by Lemov is disturbingly similar to one that was established almost a century ago for the express purpose of maintaining racial hierarchy. Like Teach Like a Champion, this initiative was implemented largely through teacher education and funded and directed entirely by wealthy white businessmen and industrial philanthropists.”

She discovered that Lemov’s teaching philosophy was strikingly similar to the pedagogy of places like the Hampton Institute, where black students were taught to be docile and obedient in preparation for their subservient lives.

“Today, largely white philanthropists pour money into charter schools that place a high value on order, efficiency and discipline, serving children who are almost entirely Black and Latino/a. These wealthy elites are increasingly invested in teacher-training and pedagogy as a means of enacting their vision for minority children. Most disturbingly, this vision heavily emphasizes behavioral norms that are eerily similar to those used a century ago to preserve social hierarchy and prevent students from challenging injustices done to them by the powerful. Every detail of students’ behavior is scrutinized and corrected, even that which would seem to have little to do with children’s academic performance.”

Conformity, docility, obedience. Teach like it’s 1895.

Categories Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Privatization

Peter Greene: What is “$tand for Children”?

By dianeravitch
August 1, 2016 //
23

Yesterday we learned that billionaires have assembled a fund of $725,000 (so far) to defeat Washington state Supreme Court justice Barbara Madsen. The money is being funneled mostly through a group called “Stand for Children.”

Why are the billionaires eager to oust Judge Madsen? She wrote the 6-3 decision in 2015 that declared that charter schools are not public schools under the Washington state constitution and are not eligible to receive public funding devoted solely to democratically governed public schools. For daring to thwart their insistence on charter schools, the billionaires decided that Judge Madsen had to go.

But what is this group “Stand for Children” that is a willing handmaiden to the whims of billionaires who hate public schools?

Peter Greene explains its origins as a social justice organization some 20 years ago, founded by Jonah Edelman, the son of civil rights icon Marian Wright Edelman and equity advocate Peter Edelman. Josh’s pedigree was impeccable, and Stand for Children started as a new and promising civil rights organization.

But somewhere along the way, SFC took a radical change of course. It began receiving buckets of money from the Gates Foundation and the Walton Foundation. By 2010, Oregon SFC was advocating charters, cybercharters, and a reduction in the capital gains tax. Flush with reformer cash, it became active in many states, opposing unions, supporting charters, removing teacher job security.

Strange.

The apple has fallen very far from the tree.

SFC endorsed the anti-public school, anti-union propaganda film “Waiting for Superman.”

SFC crowed about pushing legislation in Illinois that would cripple the Chicago Teachers Union. It opened a campaign in Massachusetts to reduce teacher tenure and seniority rules, threatening a referendum unless the unions gave concessions. Jonah Edelman boasted at the Aspen Ideas Festival in 2011 about his role in spending millions, hiring the best lobbyists, and defeating the unions.

Be sure to read the 2011 article by Ken Libby and Adam Sanchez called “For or Against Children? The Problematic History of Stand for Children.” They captured the beginning of the transition of the organization to a full-fledged partner of the billionaire reformers.

Old friends, now disillusioned, call Stand for Children “Stand ON Children.”

Greene lists the members of the current board. All corporate reformers and corporatists, not a single educator.

Greed is the root of a lot of evil. It turns good people bad if they can’t resist its lure.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Illinois, Massachusetts, Stand for Children, Teacher Tenure, Unions

Washington State: Charter School Backers Want to Oust Judge Who Authored Anti-Charter Decision

By dianeravitch
July 31, 2016 //
11

Voters of Washington State, wake up!

The billionaires who have been trying to privatize your public schools are up to their old tricks.

Bill Gates and his pals have been pushing charters schools since the late 1990s. There have been four referenda on charter schools in Washington State. The privatizers lost the first three, but swamped the race with millions in their 2012 campaign and won by a razor-thin margin, defeating the NAACP, teachers, parents, the League of Women Voters, and school board members.

Defenders of public schools sued to stop public money from going to privately managed charter schools. In 2015, Washington’s highest court agreed with them that charters are not common schools, as required by the state constitution, because their boards are not elected. Funding charter schools with public money, the high court ruled, was unconstitutional.

Now the billionaires are running a candidate against state Supreme Court Justice Barbara Madsen, who wrote the 6-3 decision against funding charter schools with public money dedicated to public schools.

Some of the biggest proponents of charter schools in Washington state are pouring money into the race to defeat state Supreme Court Justice Barbara Madsen, who authored last year’s decision declaring the privately run, publicly funded schools unconstitutional.

The political arm of Stand for Children spent $116,000 this month on independent expenditures supporting Greg Zempel, Madsen’s chief opponent, in what constitutes the biggest infusion of outside cash in a Washington judicial race since 2010. According to Mercedes Schneider, Stand for Children (aka, “Stand ON Children”) has collected $725,000 to knock out Justice Madsen. Justice Madsen has raised $30,000 for her re-election.

The group is funded by some of the same wealthy donors who supported the 2012 initiative to allow charter schools in Washington, which the court’s decision overturned.

Zempel, the elected Kittitas County prosecutor, has been critical of the high court’s 6-3 decision in the charter-schools case, as well as what he has described as the court’s tendency to be unpredictable in its rulings.

Madsen, the court’s chief justice, wrote the opinion in September that ruled charter schools cannot be funded the same way as traditional public schools, primarily because they are run by boards that are appointed rather than elected by voters.

State lawmakers passed a bill this year that aims to keep charter schools open, but the statewide teachers union has promised to challenge the new law in court as well.

Most of the Stand for Children PAC’s funding this year has come from a single source: Connie Ballmer, a wealthy philanthropist and wife of former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who donated $500,000.

The PAC’s other two main donors are Reed Hastings, the founder and CEO of Netflix; and Vulcan Inc., which is owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.

The billionaires can’t buy the state Supreme Court, but they are trying their best to oust the judge who dared to stand in their way. Billionaires don’t send their own children to public schools, but think they have the right to kill them because they prefer privately run schools.

Hastings advocates for killing elected school boards and replacing teachers with technology.

There is only one thing that can defeat billionaires who want to buy our democracy: Voters.

Tell your neighbors. Tell your friends. Tell your colleagues. Save your public schools. Vote!

Show the billionaires that they can’t punish judges, they can’t privatize public schools, and they can’t subvert democracy!

To learn more about Bill Gates and his efforts to undermine public schools in Washington State, read parent activist Dora Taylor’s reports:

Emails reveal OSPI in contempt of Supreme Court ruling on charter schools in Washington State, https://seattleducation2010.wordpress.com/2016/02/14/emails-reveal-ospi-in-contempt-of-supreme-court-ruling-on-charter-schools-in-washington-state/

Emails reveal the “Gates Machine” in action after the Washington State Supreme Court’s decision that charter schools are unconstitutional, https://seattleducation2010.wordpress.com/2016/02/07/emails-reveal-the-gates-machine-in-action-after-the-washington-state-supreme-courts-decision-that-charter-schools-are-unconstitutional/

The Mary Walker School District rescinds their request for charter schools in the Seattle Public School District, https://seattleducation2010.wordpress.com/2016/01/08/the-mary-walker-school-district-rescinds-their-request-for-charter-schools-in-the-seattle-public-school-district/

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, Washington State

Jonathan Pelto: Who Are the Billionaires Determined to Privatize Public Schools?

By dianeravitch
July 8, 2016 //
34

Jonathan Pelto wrote an illuminating and informative post about the members of the “Billionaire Boys Club,” or should I say the “Billionaire Boys and Girls Club,” since Alice Walton, Laurene Powell Jobs, Penny Pritzker, and several other women belong.

Pelto writes:

The colossal and disastrous effort to privatize public education in the United States is alive and well thanks to a plethora of billionaires who, although they’d never send their own children to a public school, have decided that individually and collectively, they know what is best for the nation’s students, parents, teachers and public schools.

From New York City to Los Angeles and Washington State to Florida, the “billionaire boys club,” as Diane Ravitch, the country’s leading public education advocate, has dubbed them, are spending hundreds of millions of dollars via campaign contributions, Dark Money expenditures and their personal foundations to “fix” what they claim are the problems plaguing the country’s public schools.

These neo-gilded age philanthropists claim that the solution is for parents, teachers and education advocates to step aside so that the billionaires and their groupies can transform public education by creating privately owned and operated – but taxpayer funded – charter schools.

In addition, they pontificate that students learn best when schools are mandated to use the ill-conceived Common Core standards so classrooms become little more than Common Core testing factories and the teaching profession is opened up to those who haven’t been burdened by lengthy college based education programs designed to provide educators with the comprehensive skill sets necessary to work with and teach the broad range of children who attend the country’s public schools.

The billionaire’s proclaim that the solution to creating successful schools is really rather simple.

They say that public schools run best when they are run like a business…

Cut through their rhetoric and the billionaires want us to believe that by introducing competition and the concept of “profit” they can turnaround any school, no matter the challenges it or its students may face….

Privatization, they argue, will lead to greater efficiencies while opening up the public purse to those who have products that they seek to sell to our children and our public schools.

John Dewey famously wrote that what the best parent wants for his child is what we should want for all children, but the billionaires have flipped that sage advice on its head. They say, “My kids need small classes, experienced teachers, and beautiful schools, but your children don’t.”

Jon Pelto has an exhaustive list of the billionaires who are out to undermine public education.

He identifies them by name, by their net worth, and by their pet causes.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization

Edushyster Interviews Joanne Barkan on the Plutocrat’s Lament

By dianeravitch
July 5, 2016 //
8

Edushyster interviewed Joanne Barkan, one of our most perceptive writers about the farce/hoax called “education reform.”

Barkan has written a series of important articles about the reformers, they of high stature, who want to run the nation’s public schools that they do not patronize. “Got Dough?” is a classic. She quickly understood that the billionaires don’t trust democracy. And that is a theme of her work on education.

In response to one of EduShyster’s questions, Barkan replies:

Some of the wealthiest people in the United States have had an easy go of it. They started with wealth, likely went to private schools, and have no sense of what public education is and why it’s necessary. And, of course, there are also those who started with nothing and made their own fortunes. It seems that by the time they’ve made a lot of money, they’ve lost touch with the role of public education. The vast majority of the super wealthy send their own kids to private schools, which they do for a variety of reasons, including prestige. What’s interesting to me is that there are some states that have written into their constitutions that the primary obligation of state government is public education. When those constitutions were being written in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, government was much more limited. We have a situation today where so many states are under tremendous financial pressure, and the first place they go when they have to cut is public education, as if public education were somehow an extra, as opposed to being a fundamental responsibility.

EduShyster: I was smitten by the subtitle of your article: *Bill Gates, Washington State and the Nuisance of Democracy.* What is it about democracy that plutocrats find so irksome?

Barkan: The plutocrats—people like Bill and Melinda Gates, Michael Bloomberg, John Arnold, or Eli Broad—have very set ideas about what they want to do. It doesn’t matter to them, or perhaps they just don’t understand, that their ideas may not be based on sound research or principles. They know what they want, and they come out of professional experiences where they’ve had complete authority. When they get to public education, they expect to be in control and to make things happen as quickly as if they were still running their companies. But as everyone should know, democracy is slow, and it’s messy, and that turns out to be a great nuisance for plutocrats.

The rest of the interview is fascinating and enlightening.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Democracy, Education Industry, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Privatization

BOMBSHELL: Dark Money and the Fight to Defund Public Schools in California!

By dianeravitch
June 30, 2016 //
20

In 2012, Californians voted on Proposition 30, which raised taxes on the richest citizens in order to raise funding for public schools and charter schools. The measure passed, despite a well-funded effort to defeat it.

A group of unions and progressive activists released a list of nearly 80 wealthy Californians who secretly funded the campaign to defeat Proposition 30. One of them was billionaire Eli Broad, who publicly supported Prop 30 but donated either $500,000 or $1 million to the effort to defeat it.

The progressive activists–called California Hedge Clippers–dug into records to show where the money came from to fight the temporary tax to aid schools.

Individuals named in the group’s report include Silicon Valley tech and investment executive John H. Scully ($500,000), investor and Hyatt Hotel heir Anthony Pritzker ($100,000), developer Geoff Palmer ($100,000) and private equity investor Gerald Parsky ($50,000).

Donors, regulators concluded, contributed money to an out-of-state organization, which circulated funds through a series of other groups and eventually back to California. By then, the identity of the donors was beyond the reach of disclosure laws.

As the money was channeled to California, some transfers were not properly disclosed and therefore violated the law, officials said. Well after the election, a California investigation resulted in $16 million in fines to some of the groups as well as the disclosure of some donors, including Broad, who either gave $500,000 or $1 million, depending on how the source documents are interpreted. The donors were not fined….

Among the names to emerge in the California research is Nils Colin Lind ($50,000), who was at the time an executive at Blum Capital, the firm he co-founded with Richard Blum, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s husband. The larger contributions include $800,000 from machine-tool manufacturer Gene Haas. The researchers also uncovered additional money from the Fisher family, heirs to the Gap fortune and among the most generous supporters of charter schools; their revised total is $10 million.

The list also includes leaders of the charter school movement, such as Scully and Tony Ressler ($25,000), a former longtime board member of the charter group Alliance College-Ready Public Schools.

Like other public schools, charters reaped huge financial benefits from Proposition 30 after it passed in 2012. School officials across the state hope voters in the November election will extend the tax on the wealthiest 2% of earners….

The donors’ money traveled a circuitous path. They contributed to Americans for Job Security, a Virginia trade association. This outfit then passed the money to the Center to Protect Patient Rights in Arizona. The center next sent $11 million to a Phoenix group, Americans for Responsible Leadership, which provided it to the Small Business Action Committee. That committee spent the money on the California campaigns.

In another relay, the Center to Protect Patient Rights provided more than $4 million to the America Future Fund in Iowa, which passed the money to the California Future Fund for Free Markets, a campaign committee supporting Proposition 32.

Not all of the donated money made it back to California. About $10 million was captured by groups in other parts of the country, the researchers said.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, California, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Funding, Privatization
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