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Billionaire Charter Founder Michael Steinhardt Accused of Sexual Harassment

By dianeravitch
March 24, 2019 //
29

 

 

Billionaire Michael Steinhardt, founder of a charter school chain called “Hebrew Language Academies,” was accused by multiple women of sexual harassment. 

A story in the New York Times began:

“Sheila Katz was a young executive at Hillel International, the Jewish college outreach organization, when she was sent to visit the philanthropist Michael H. Steinhardt, a New York billionaire. He had once been a major donor, and her goal was to persuade him to increase his support. But in their first encounter, he asked her repeatedly if she wanted to have sex with him, she said.

“Deborah Mohile Goldberg worked for Birthright Israel, a nonprofit co-founded by Mr. Steinhardt, when he asked her if she and a female colleague would like to join him in a threesome, she said.

“Natalie Goldfein, who was an officer at a small nonprofit that Mr. Steinhardt had helped establish, said he suggested in a meeting that they have babies together.

“Mr. Steinhardt, 78, a retired hedge fund founder, is among an elite cadre of donors who bankroll some of the country’s most prestigious Jewish nonprofits. His foundations have given at least $127 million to charitable causes since 2003, public filings show.

“But for more than two decades, that generosity has come at a price. Six women said in interviews with The New York Times and ProPublica, and one said in a lawsuit, that Mr. Steinhardt asked them to have sex with him, or made sexual requests of them, while they were relying on or seeking his support. He also regularly made comments to women about their bodies and their fertility, according to the seven women and 16 other people who said they were present when Mr. Steinhardt made such comments.

“Institutions in the Jewish world have long known about his behavior, and they have looked the other way,” said Ms. Katz, 35, a vice president at Hillel International. “No one was surprised when I shared that this happened.”

“Mr. Steinhardt declined to be interviewed for this article. In a statement, he said he regretted that he had made comments in professional settings through the years “that were boorish, disrespectful, and just plain dumb.” Those comments, he said, were always meant humorously.”

Steinhardt insisted he was joking. The women who spoke up did not get the humor.

Is there something about billionaires that makes them believe they are irresistible and invincible?

Steinhardt’s Hebrew language charter schools are part of a growing chain that operates in several cities. Its students are ethnically diverse but classes are taught in English and Hebrew. In 2016, the U.S. Department of Education awarded $5 million to the chain, though it was never in need of external funding.

Michael Steinhardt’s daughter Sara Berman is chair of the chain’s board.

Since Hebrew is a spoken language only in Israel, it is not clear what the value of Hebrew is to Black and Hispanic students.

Steinhardt endowed the New York University School of Education, which bears his name, as well as the conservatory at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and the SteinhardtGallery at the Metropoitan Museum of Art.

Steinhardt made his fortune as a hedge fund manager. He overcame inauspicious origins. According to Wikipedia, Steinhardt’s father Sol was a compulsive gambler and a notorious “fence” for stolen jewelry. He hung out with “underworld crime bosses Meyer Lansky, Vincent Alo (aka “Jimmy Blue Eyes” Alo), and Albert Anastasia (he was out gambling with Anastasia the night before he was killed). Sol, aka “Red McGee,” was later convicted on charges of buying and selling stolen jewelry and sentenced to five to ten years in prison.”

A gambler and criminal in one generation produces a successful hedge fund manager in the next. Hmmm. Food for thought.

 

 

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization

Do You Want an Out-of-State Billionaire to Put Money into Your Local School Board Election?

By dianeravitch
March 21, 2019 //
43

 

Three political scientists have written a book about billionaires putting money into local school board elections. Typically, the wealthy are not writing checks for their own school board elections, but even if they were, they are able to swamp the spending of others.

 

The book is titled Outside Money in School Board Elections: The Nationalization of Education Politics. It was published by Harvard University Press. The authors are Jeffrey R. Henig of Teachers College, Columbia University, Rebecca Jacobsen of Michigan State University, and Sarah Reckhow of Michigan State University.

 

They examine the role of outside money in five districts: Denver; Indianapolis; New Orleans; Bridgeport; and Los Angeles.

 

On this blog, we have frequently noted this kind of activity in many districts. People like Michael Bloomberg, the Waltons, the DeVos Family, Reed Hastings, the Koch brothers, and Eli Broad, and groups like Democrats for Education Reform and Stand for Children (carrying money on behalf of wealthy donors) have intervened in local school board elections, always in favor of charters, vouchers, and high-stakes testing. The Network for Public Education Action Fund examined the intervention of wealthy elites in several districts in its report called “Hijacked by Billionaires: How the Super Rich Buy Elections to Undermine Public Schools.”

 

Here is where the NPEA report and the Henig book disagree. NPEA believes that the intervention of billionaires into local school board elections is fundamentally anti-democratic because it undermines the ability of local citizens to make their own choices. NPEA knows that the goal of the billionaires is to privatize public schools via charters and vouchers. Our view is that those who spend vast sums of money distort democracy and are trying to impose their views by the power of their wealth to buy advertising, staff, mailings, posters, and everything else involved in a political campaigns. When local people can no longer afford to compete for a seat on the local school board, democracy suffers.

 

Henig, et al. do not agree with NPEA. Their view is that the expenditure of large amounts of money by outsiders is neither good nor bad. It might be bad because the money drowns out local voices. But it might be good because it brings more media attention to the school board races.

 

They are agnostic. Looked at from their point of view, it really doesn’t matter if Michael Bloomberg and Alice Walton put a few millions into your local school board race and overwhelm your neighbors Mr. Smith or Ms. Jones, who can raise only $10,000 or $25,000.

 

They conclude: “The consequences of outside money are neither wholly good nor wholly bad. Outside money can bring greater attention to elections that have, for far too long, been largely ignored by local media. Increased attention, however, can be skewed in favor of those with the most financial backing, leaving voters with little information about many candidates on election day. Similarly, increased media attention usually includes more information on policy issues, potentially educating voters about key issues facing their local schools; however, this increased attention is not evenly distributed across all issues.” And increased funding may produce increased voter turnout. “But our findings suggest it would be false—or at least premature—to conclude that the consequences of outside money are uniformly and decidedly good or bad.” (pp. 175-176).

 

The authors speculate about how this outside money might affect teaching and learning. “For teachers, we suspect that the influx of outside money could bring national and state debates about teacher accountability to their classroom door. Teachers might feel additional pressure to focus on areas that appear on standardized tests, as accountability pressure is ramped up by local school boards that focus more heavily on this issue. The hot glare of outside money in school board elections could mean that board members, regardless of affiliation, focus more time and energy on this policy issue, leaving teachers bearing the brunt of these expectations. For those worried about teacher recruitment and retention in local districts, such a focus might make their jobs even more challenging, as new teachers perceive these environments as hostile workplaces. For those who believe teacher accountability policies increase the quality of teachers, drawing attention to this issue through outside funding might be seen as a chance to improve overall performance.”

 

In short, you can expect that if the money people prevail, high-stakes testing will assume even greater importance; the district will have trouble recruiting and retaining teachers, who are likely to see the district as a hostile workplace. You might also anticipate more closings of public schools and more openings of privately managed charter schools. These are not insignificant consequences.

Surely, you might think the authors would see these outcomes as problematic. But they prefer not to take a position. Is it too much to expect three political scientists who study the role of money in politics to look closely at the research about whether test-based accountability improves teaching? Shouldn’t they show that they are aware of the 2014 statement of the American Statistical Association that test-based accountability for individual teachers is invalid? Shouldn’t they give some thought to the consequences of replacing public schools with private management?

 

They prefer to be agnostic. Maybe ramping up the pressure on testing might be a good thing, maybe it might be a bad thing. Maybe letting the billionaires buy control of your district might be a bad thing, but then again maybe not.

 

Needless to say, I think the authors are wrong. It is okay for billionaires to buy up your local school district if it brings more media attention? I don’t think so. It is okay to stamp out local democracy if it brings more people to the polls and makes them more aware of the issues? I don’t think so.

 

If billionaires want to give money to underwrite hospitals, libraries, health clinics, or local schools, with no strings attached, then let them give.

 

But if they give money so as to take control of local decision-making, that strikes me as a blow against democracy. How can political scientists be agnostic? What am I missing?

 

The larger question, it seems to me, is completely ignored: the need for campaign finance reform in all elections.

 

I suggest that the authors of this book read Anand Giridharadas, Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World. Or Jane Mayer’s book Dark Money. Their indifference to the dangers of allowing plutocrats to buy elections is frankly shocking. I don’t understand their agnosticism. I assume they don’t care because they are not bothered by what the billionaires want to do. But maybe I’m wrong and they just don’t want to take a stand in defense of democratic decision making.

Categories Billionaires, Politics

Arkansas: Who’s Who in the Charter Movement (Hint: Everyone Is Owned by the Waltons)

By dianeravitch
March 12, 2019 //
11

I can’t tell you how angry this post made me. I felt outraged and frustrated. It is not just about privatization. It is about the purchase of an entire state by one family. How can anyone teach civics in Arkansas when one family owns everything?

This post will make your head spin. Public schools in communities of color are taken over by the state, and charter schools open. One high-powered chain. spreads it’s tentacles across the state, scooping up the best students. A rotating cast of characters plays musical chairs at the state board, the state education department, and superintendencies.

The schools targeted for closure and privatization are schools that enroll mostly children of color. Everyone feels powerless to stop the Walton train.

Behind it all: ALEC, the Koch brothers, and the Walton Family. The Walton Family owns everything and every body.

Schools? Education? An afterthought.

This saga reads like a gangster tale. The mob always wins.

I was contacted by a minister in Little Rock who asked, what can we do? My advice: civil disobedience. Mass protests. Marches. Demonstrations. Chain yourselves to the schoolhouse doors. Nothing else will work. The greatest enemy is complacency, apathy, hopelessness. Faced with the unlimited power of a family that owns the state government, it is easy to feel hopelessness. But resistance is the only path. The other way, the status quo, is servitude.

Categories Administrators, superintendents, ALEC, Arkansas, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corruption, Education Reform, Koch Brothers, Walton Foundation

The Sacklers, Opioids, and Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
March 11, 2019 //
2

 

We know a few things about the Sackler family. Their family fortune is vast, about $14 billion. Their fortune was derived primarily from the sale of highly addictive opioids. More than 200,000 people have died due to opioid addiction. The Sackler nameis emblazoned on museums, libraries, and universities. Curiously, Jonathan Sackler has been a major finder of charter schools in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and other states. He has been a major founder of the no-excuses chain called Achievement First.

This is the first article I have seen that tries to track the Sackler ties to the charter industry.  

“An examination of 990 donor tax forms draws a wider picture of how Sackler largely came to underwrite many pro-charter entities over several years.

“Sackler made donations to charter schools and charter groups dating back to at least 2003, including a $50,000 unrestricted gift specifically to New Haven charter school Amistad Academy, which received $365,000 from the foundation in 2004 and $20,000 in 2005. The foundation also donated to the Arizona-based Alliance for School Choice in 2004 and 2008, and donated $250,000 to pro-charter organization ConnCAN in 2004 before its official launch, for which he is listed as an interlocking directorate.

“According to forms filed by the Bouncer Foundation, which is Sackler’s foundation, Impact for Education, a New Haven-based “philanthropic advisory practice,” received nearly $100,000 from the foundation for offering “philanthropic advice” in 2013.

“The year “2013 was the heyday for charters and charter expansion,” said Wendy Lecker, a senior attorney at the Education Law Center and a contributing columnist to Hearst Connecticut Media.

“Two years prior, New Haven-based Amistad Academy charter school co-founder Stefan Pryor was named commissioner of the state Department of Education. Also, around that time, then-Gov. Dannel P. Malloy publicly stood with charter school advocates, Lecker said.

“(Sackler’s) fingerprints are all over the charter movement, particularly in our neck of the woods, and that’s another stain on the charter movement,” Lecker said. “The most vulnerable are in their schools, and for the charter industry to take this money when they’re claiming to help these kids is pretty questionable.”

“The foundation’s yearly reimbursement for Impact for Education’s annual philanthropic advice increased to $130,454 in 2014 and, after a payment of $90,000 in 2015, was reported to be $470,000 in 2016 and $262,500 in 2017, the most recent year available on searchable public databases.

“Impact for Education engages forward-thinking philanthropists to catalyze systemic change in public education,” the practice says on its website.

“Impact for Education’s president and founder, Alex Johnston, also co-founded the pro-charter advocacy group Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now, or ConnCAN, with Sackler in 2005. Johnston served as executive director, while Sackler sat as chairman of the board.

“According to his biography on Impact for Education’s website, Johnston also is a board member of FaithACTS for Education in Bridgeport, a registered nonprofit coalition of religious education advocates that received $700,000 from the Bouncer Foundation between 2015 and 2017. The group’s founder, the Rev. William McCullough, told the Connecticut Post that the group believes in school choice.

“Neither Johnston, a former member of the New Haven Board of Education, nor Impact for Education returned a request for comment.

“In 2009, the Bouncer Foundation had begun making gifts to Yale University that would ultimately culminate in a $3 million endowment for the Richard Sackler and Jonathan Sackler Professorship, but other donations effectively ceased until 2011, when the foundation gave $100,000 to Students for Education Reform and $5,000 to the conservative Alliance for School Choice. After an austere 2012, the foundation donated to eight groups affiliated with charter schools, including ConnCAN and its subsequently founded national counterpart 50CAN, Students for Education Reform, New Haven’s Booker T. Washington Academy, the Northeast Charter Schools Network. In 2013, Achievement First, the charter network co-founded by Dacia Toll, and which operates Amistad Academy, was named a recipient of a donation….

“In 2013, Achievement First, which runs 35 other schools in three states, received $151,571 from the Bouncer Foundation. The contribution was increased to $250,000 in 2014 and 2015 and was more than doubled in 2016, when the network received $600,000 from the foundation. By 2017, the foundation’s gift to Achievement First was $350,000.

“For 2013, 990 forms show Achievement First reported $29,253,402 in contributions and $40,396,539 in revenue, so contributions were about 72.4 percent of revenue. In the most recent year for which data is available, Achievement First reported for 2017 about $22 million in contributions and grants, of $46 million in revenue.

“For the entirety of the Bouncer Foundation donations, Sackler sat on Achievement First’s Board of Directors.”

Wendy Lecker gave a good explanation of the appeal of charter schools to the Uber-rich like Sackler.

“The Education Law Center’s Lecker said wealthy donors receive tax incentives for donating to charter schools, so a number of wealthy charter donors are seeking financial advantages. However, she believes there’s also a basis in undermining public services.

“The whole privatizing of public education is an effort of the uber-wealthy to tamp down the expectations of what people should want in the public sphere,” she said. “A smaller public sphere in terms of public education and local democracy means people have less of an expectation of what they can get from the public.”

“Lecker said she believes a number of philanthropists believe they are doing a good thing, but the fact that some, like Sackler, “are so aggressively involved, and have been since the beginning, means they have to know what goes on in charter schools and what impact they have on funding for public schools.”

“Advocates for district schools such as Joyner and Lecker see charter schools as a movement to undermine teacher unions and hand governmental control of education to charter management companies and moneyed interests.”

 

Categories Billionaires, Charter Schools, Connecticut, Education Industry, Privatization, Rhode Island

Los Angeles: More About the Billionaire Boys Club, Who Are Adrift and Forlorn

By dianeravitch
March 8, 2019 //
11

I have been posting a lot about the race for the empty seat on the LAUSD school board because it is the second largest district in the nation, the largest with an elected board, and the Billionaire Boys Club has been trying to buy control of it. Eli Broad wants half the students in LAUSD in charter schools, and “only” 20%  are now in charters. The BBC thought they won control when they put Ref Rodriguez, a charter operator, on the board, and he was elected president of the board. But then he was convicted of money laundering and had to resign (but not until he voted to select financier Austin Beutner as superintendent).

Now, all their plans are in disarray because progressive firebrand Jackie Goldberg is on the cusp of winning Ref’s old seat, which she held many years ago. She is smart, tough, knowledgeable, experienced. She was a teacher, a member of the City Council, and a member of the State Assembly (and chair of the Education Committee). In the special election of March 5, she won 48% of the vote, and the next runners up got 13%  each. The LA Times declined to endorse Jackie, saying she was too “ideological,” and instead endorsed a candidate who received 9% of the vote.

Poor billionaires! All that money spent and so little to show for it!

Here is the latest report on campaign funding from Howard Blume of the LA Times.

 

Philanthropist Eli Broad inserted himself into a pivotal Los Angeles school board race at the last second this week, making the largest individual donation to any candidate.

Broad’s $100,000 didn’t go directly to a candidate for the open District 5 seat, but to a union running its own campaign on behalf of Heather Repenning. Such independent campaigns have no donation limits.

The election day contribution went to a political action committee run by Local 99 of Service Employees International, which represents school district employees. Broad has frequently opposed unions politically.

Local 99’s ideological alliances have sometimes shifted. It has typically supported board members running for reelection regardless of who else supports them.

Repenning’s campaign is currently on hold as more than 4,700 ballots still are being counted. She is just behind Graciela Ortiz, in a virtual tie, for the second spot in a May 14 runoff for the office; after the initial vote count on Tuesday, only 53 votes separated them. Only one of them will make it to the ballot to face Jackie Goldberg, who far outpaced all other candidates.

In Tuesday’s vote, Repenning and Ortiz finished about 35 percentage points behind Goldberg, who nearly won a majority of votes, which would have eliminated the need for a runoff.

Repenning was the best-funded candidate because of Local 99, which represents cafeteria workers, bus drivers, building and grounds workers, teaching assistants and unarmed campus security aides.

The former public works commissioner is a highly qualified candidate that the union, Broad and others can agree on, said Max Arias, the union’s executive director.

L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti also endorsed Repenning.

In all, Local 99 spent about $1 million on behalf of Repenning, the largest amount for any candidate. United Teachers Los Angeles was the next largest contributor, spending more than $660,000 on behalf of Goldberg.

Repenning has tried to position herself as a centrist, close neither to charter backers nor union interests.

Charter schools are privately operated and compete with district-run schools for students. Most are nonunion. Local 99 represents workers at only two of the more than 200 charters in the district, according to the union. But children of union members attend both charter and traditional schools.

In past elections, Broad has been a major donor to candidates endorsed by charter school advocates — who typically are opposed by candidates backed by the teachers union. Charter supporters did not coalesce around a single candidate in this election cycle.

Another major pro-charter donor, Manhattan Beach businessman Bill Bloomfield, gave $5,000 to a Local 99 PAC. He also gave $1,200 directly to the campaign of Allison Bajracharya, a charter school executive also on the ballot. Bajracharya, who finished fifth, attracted direct donations from many charter supporters. A group associated with charter backers, Students for Education Reform Action Network, spent nearly $139,000 on her behalf.

Because Broad is a high-profile figure and a major donor, his contributions tend to get noticed. And it’s not the first time that his donation has arrived too late to be part of the news cycle before voting takes place.

Both Broad and Bloomfield have made much larger donations in the past. In the final stretch of the 2017 L.A. Board of Education campaigns, Broad gave nearly $1.9 million to California Charter Schools Assn. Advocates, a political action committee that was spending heavily in the race. Bloomfield contributed $2.275 million, the vast majority of it late in that campaign.

Categories Billionaires

Los Angeles Race for School Board: Jackie Leads But Run-Off Likely

By dianeravitch
March 6, 2019 //
4

 

Jackie Goldberg easily led the race for what may be the deciding vote on the Los Angeles school board with 47%. The final tally is not yet in, but if current numbers hold, Jackie will be in a run-off with a Runner up who received about 13% of the vote.

Jackie is a firebrand for equity and public schools. She is the billiinaires’ nightmare.

The Billionaire Boys Club was waiting for a run-off before jumping in the race.

For the future of public schools in LA, Jackie must win outright.

Categories Billionaires

Democrats Who Support Charters Now Face Criticism in Presidential Contest

By dianeravitch
March 6, 2019 //
82

 

It’s about time. A story in the Los Angeles Times notes that those Democratic candidates who supported charters (and still do) are facing a backlash by their party’s voters. The wave of teachers’ strikes have brought into sharp relief the fact that most families enroll their children in public schools, not charter schools; that charter schools are a priority for Republicans, Wall Street, and far-right libertarians like Betsy DeVos; and that support for public schools is a bedrock principle of the Democratic Party.

The candidate who was most outspoken as a supporter of both charters and vouchers was Cory Booker. He worked in alliancewith anti-union Governor Chris Christie to bring chartersto Newark. He worked closely with Betsy Dezvos and gave a speech to her organization. He was honored by the rightwing Manhattan Institute for supporting school choice. He wanted to turn Newark into the New Orleans of the North, with no public schools and no teachers’ union. He still defends that record.

Michael Bloomberg was a big supporter of charters in New York City and favored them over the public schools he took control of. He’s now out of the race, so no need to worry other than that he will find a Democratic DeVos to fund. He despises public schools.

Michael Bennett of Colorado supported charters when he was superintendent of schools in Denver. Governor Hickenlooper appointed Bennett to the Senate.

Governor Jay Inslee of Washington State did not stand up to Bill Gates after the Washington State Supreme Court decided that charter schools and not entitled to receive public money. Gates persuaded his friends in the legislature to give lottery money to charters, and Gov. Inslee neither signed nor vetoed the law, allowing Gates to get state funding. Not a profilein courage.

The election of 2020 will be a deciding moment, when Democratic candidates are asked to declare whether they support the public schools, or the privately-managed, scandal-ridden charters that enroll 6% of the nation’s students.

 

 

 

 

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Billionaires, Bloomberg, Michael, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Democrats, Education Industry, Education Reform, New Orleans, Newark, Privatization, Scandals, School Choice

Los Angeles: Candidate Drops Out, Endorses Jackie!

By dianeravitch
March 4, 2019 //
3

 

Dr. Rocio Rivas dropped out of the race for District 5 school board member and endorsed Jackie Goldberg.

The election is tomorrow.

She reminds us that thiselection is a fight for our democracy.

We cannot let the billionaires buy another seat on the board.

Dr. Rivas writes:

 

As a candidate in tomorrow’s election, I am asking you to read this post before you go to the polls. Our nation’s Democracy is at stake. We are at a very critical moment in Los Angeles’ political and social history. City Hall’s pay-to-play, corrupt culture has been publicly exposed by the FBI’s raid of a former LAUSD School Board President and the current City Councilman Jose Huizar. Although charges have not been filed, the raids have given light to the overt corruption and fraud that many suspected but was rarely covered by the press.

Overt corruption and fraud also entered our public school system with the election of Dr. Refugio Rodriguez. His indictment and conviction on felony charges exposed more of what we knew about the charter school privatizing industry and the individuals behind his rise to power, Eli Broad and his billionaire posse, including Betsy DeVos. Our city’s public institutions are supposed to work towards the best interests of Angelenos from all races, creeds, religions, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, but they have lost their way and are failing us. The Angelenos that represent the 99% have been left behind.  Democracy was put up for sale and We, the people, are on the losing end of reality. It has been clear to me for quite some time that We, the people, must take back our democracy from special interests, corporate ideologues and all the billionaire money that has been buying its way into democracy one elected official at a time.  We can stop this now with our vote! I am a true believer in that our vote is our democracy!

In order for our democracy to work, our vote must be an informed one. We must be aware of where every candidate has taken money from and who they are directly or indirectly connected to.  We cannot be impressed by the amount of money they have raised or swayed by the number of mailers they used to fill the mailbox. The pictures and words they use are carefully tested marketing messages.  We must demand that they back those messages up with policy that benefits our children.

We need to see the conflict of interest now! We must be vigilant of the red flags now before it is too late.  Once these compromised candidates are elected, they are virtually untouchable. Your needs will no longer matter to them. The only voices they will listen to are the billionaire investors who purchased their services.

Tomorrow, March 05, 2019, is an important election — I cannot stress that enough.  Your vote in this Special Election for the LAUSD School Board to represent District 5 is a critical one, Your vote will help to determine the future of our public education system which is the very foundation of our Democracy — the Los Angeles Unified School District that will not be unified if Superintendent Austin Beutner and company get away with their plan to dismantle it.

Jackie Goldberg is the only clear choice to stop the plan between Eli Broad and the public officials he has purchased from making sure LAUSD fails and is broken apart.

I decided to run for the Board of Education to represent District 5 because as a mother I needed to protect my son’s civil right and human right to a free, quality public education that is democratically governed!  I want our choice for his education, the local public school, to remain operating and thriving.  As I fight for my son, I fight for all children in this city.

My campaign stood for ethical and moral public education institutions.  I have had enough of the lies and manipulation from elected officials, the political machines and unions that want to control public institutions utilizing corporate ideologue’s dark cash.  I needed to enter this race to relay a message of caution to all parents and voters to know the facts behind public education and the convoluted political system we have today.

As a Doctor of Education and education researcher, I have a strong sense of responsibility to stand up for public education and to fight for what I strongly believe in.  Thanks to the sacrifices made by the teachers during their strike, more Angelenos learned of the factors and individuals aiming to dismantle public education and privatize our schools.  However, our defenses must not come down with the end of this strike.

My campaign stands as resistance to political corruption and the lies that influence elections, campaigns, and votes.  There are strong economic and political corporate forces within our democratic institutions, connected intimately within our school board, the overall administration of the District, and the city council.   I am here to connect the dots that show the alliances between campaigns and corporate ideologues aiming to subjugate the District and its students.

Elected officials and aspiring politicians, including school board members and superintendents, have been bought by money from corporations and billionaires that achieve victory through aggressive networking schemes and marketing plans.  This money comes with promises of support for political ascendancy, with strings attached that require loyalty to the interests of corporate ideologues and real estate developers.

The social, economic and political networks of billionaires and private investors, including charter school profiteers intersect hand in hand with the current political establishment and unions (sadly enough) — namely the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). They have been buying and politically maneuvering their way into our public education system for decades and working in conjunction with charter school industry organizations.

The California Charter School Association (CCSA) decided not to publicly endorse any candidates in this special election due in part to the negative atmosphere surrounding Ref Rodriguez felony conviction and other charter school scandals. Their endorsement would, therefore, place a target on their preferred candidate.  However, rest assured that donations from charter school advocates are pouring into the campaign coffers of various candidates, namely those connected to city hall politics either in Los Angeles or in the Southeast.  Many red flags loom over this election and we must vote carefully and mindfully.For instance, why did William Bloomfield, a billionaire who has made considerable financial contributions towards the charter school movement, to Parent Revolution, and Marshall Tuck’s education campaigns, give thousands of dollars to the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) campaign fund for Heather Repenning? Why would a billionaire give to a union?  The answer lies in who the candidate they are endorsing.

Bloomfield also gave to the charter school affiliated candidate Allison Bajracharya  (who is a candidate with a conflict of interest due to her connections with Great Schools Foundation, which is directly linked to privatizing billionaire money and real estate developers.)

There has been a strong, long-standing relationship between the SEIU, Broad Foundation (Eli Broad), and Parent Revolution (formerly known as Los Angeles Parent Union, LAPU). They are now intimately connected to one of the candidates in this race, Heather Repenning.   The Broad Foundation and the like-minded corporate ideologues, like Reed Hastings of Netflix, want to end the LAUSD and replace it with portfolio type schools, just like in New Orleans. For them, dismantling public education in Los Angeles is one of their main goals. This will most certainly happen if Heather Repenning is elected.

One way Eli Broad and company, accomplish their goals is to buy off elected officials, aspiring politicians and the unions that endorse them.  In 2008, the Broad Foundation’s mission statement stated its goal was in “Transforming K-12 urban public education through better governance, management, labor relations, and competition.” There are many more SEIU labor leaders who have served on Broad Foundation and or affiliated networks and organizations.  In July of 2012, Andy Stern, former President of the SEIU, joined the Board of Directors for the Broad Foundation and continues to serve to this day.

Another connection between Heather Repenning and Eli Broad and his pro-public school privatizing advocates, like former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, lies with her intimate friendship and political relationship with Mayor Garcetti’s wife, Amy Wakeland.  Mrs. Garcetti once worked as a spokesperson for Coalition for Kids, an organization founded to raise money for Mayor Riordan’s school board chosen candidates.  Mrs. Garcetti is a powerful political player who works behind the scenes in various school board campaigns and is well connected politically and socially. Her  political and social circles have  influence on Ms. Repenning’s campaign

In addition, how much longer can we trust Mayor Garcetti with his political choices and appointees especially after he endorsed for charter school advocate Tamar Galatzan who helped bring us John Deasy and the iPad scandal.  Let’s not forget that Joel F. Jacinto, Mayor Garcetti’s political appointee, is under FBI  investigation as we speak.  Yet another corruption link to Heather Repenning, as she sat as Vice President for the Public Works, with Joel F. Jacinto, which oversaw a vast majority of Councilman Huizar’s projects, also under investigation by the FBI.  Ms. Repenning is also known to be “a friend of CD14” as some of his current and former staffers held fundraising events for her.

Heather Repenning’s campaign is not the only campaign that is throwing red flags.  Graciela Ortiz has faced conflict of interest charges in Huntington Park and was once threatened with a recall by her constituents.  Allison Bajracharya works in the charter school industry. Ana Cubas was once Jose Huizar’s Chief of Staff and is linked to charter school advocates. Like her mentor Monica Garcia, she has shown naked political ambitions for years. We need someone in office whose passion is our students and not someone who will do anything to get elected.

This is the reason why Jackie Goldberg is the only true answer for this election. March 05, 2019 vote Jackie Goldberg as our Democracy depends on it.

Dr. Rocio Rivas

 

 

 

Categories Billionaires, Democrats, Los Angeles

Leonie Haimson: Reality Vs. Hype in “Teach to One” Program

By dianeravitch
March 4, 2019 //
29

 

Leonie Haimson, NYC Parent Activist, is blessed with a long memory and deep knowledge.

In this post, she explores the origins and evaluations of a blended learning program called Teach to One.

She writes:

Last week, two different studies came out about the results of the well-known blended learning program originally called “School of One” and now called “Teach to One”, created and sold to schools by an organization named New Classrooms.  If you want to cut to the chase, you can read about the contrasting analyses in Education Week, Chalkbeat or the Hechinger Report.  If you want to know about the history of this much-hyped program that was first developed for use in NYC public schools and uses software programs and algorithms to deliver instruction, read on here. It provides lessons in how insistent the promoters of online learning have hyped programs with little or no evidence behind them, how negative evaluations have been suppressed or discounted and how conflicts of interest have been ignored – all in the service of convincing schools to adopt these programs far and wide.

According to his Linked-in profile, Joel Rose was a Teach for America corps member for three years, until he was hired to work at the headquarters of Edison charter schools in New York City, a national for-profit chain of charters headquartered in NYC.  By 2003, he was running a division of Edison called Newton Learning that provided tutoring to students through the supplementary services program (SES) that was included in No Child Left Behind.  NCLB required public schools with low test scores to pay for their students to receive tutoring services from private companies.  In 2003 alone, Newton Learning was paid more than $5 million by the NYC Department of Education for its tutoring services.

According to NCLB, parents of students at these schools were supposed to be provided with the choice of tutoring companies. Yet in 2005, the NY Post found that in some NYC schools, principals and parent coordinators were incentivized to recruit students for Newton.  In one Bronx school, as a result, the school distributed flyers to parents saying “Newton Learning is your best SES choice. The Newton Learning Adventure offers FUN and EXCITING activity-based lessons.”  Some parents were told by their schools that the only choice was for them to enroll their children in Newton Learning, or they would receive no tutoring at all.

In March 2006, the NYC  Special Investigator of Schools Richard Condon released a report, revealing how several SES providers, including Newton Learning, had engaged in a number of “questionable business practices” in their dealings with DOE officials, parents and students.  These companies had been involved in the “misappropriation and misuse of confidential student information and the offering of self- serving incentive programs”, and Newton staff had been improperly allowed entry into schools to directly solicit students.  In one case, a principal permitted Newton reps to perform skits in front of students during class time to promote their services. 

Newton staff had also improperly obtained student contact information from school staff and had offered financial incentives to principals and teachers if their students signed up.  They had promised gifts to students in exchange for enrolling, including CD players and $100 gift cards.  This sort of chicanery continued even after DOE told Newton to stop these practices, according to Condon’s report. Newton also had failed to carry out required fingerprinting and background checks for the staff they hired as tutors.

According to the DOE rules, Newton and other tutoring companies could use classroom space in the public schools free of charge, if granted a “permit” by the school’s principal.  Yet in return, any company was also supposed to give students a 9% reduction in fees.  Yet every company which had asked for a waiver from this discount was granted one by David Ross, the head of DOE’s Division of Contracts and Services. (Remember that name, David Ross; it will come up later.) Here’s an article  in the NY Times, with more about the special investigator’s findings. 

Condon’s report and news articles about his findings were apparently ignored by DOE, as shown by the fact that a few months later, in December 2006, Joel Klein hired Chris Cerf, to be his Deputy Chancellor, even though Cerf had led Edison schools during this period.  In February 2007, Cerf brought Joel Rose to DOE to be his chief of staff. 

Rose created the School of One pripogram, Which was hailed as the greatest, most revolutionary education program before it was ever implemented.

Read on to learn more about this remarkable job of marketing.

The story of hype and suppressed evaluations is fascinating and well worth reading.

Haimson concludes:

“Teach to One has been the most praised and promoted online learning program in the nation, aside from the Summit Learning platform, which has had its own serious problems.  While Summit has refused to allow any independent evaluations of its efficacy, New Classrooms has suppressed studies with less than stellar results, with the help of the federal government.

“The most recent RAND analysis of schools that used personalized learning programs that received funding through the Next Generation Learning  initiative, which have included both Summit and Teach to One, concluded there were small and mostly insignificant gains in achievement at these schools, and their students were more likely to feel alienated and unsafe compared to matched students at similar schools.  The overall results caused John Pane, the lead RAND researcher, to say to Ed Week that  “the evidence base [for these schools] is very weak at this point. ”

“Yet both Summit and Teach to One, along with other online learning programs, continue to be generously funded and promoted by Gates, Chan-Zuckerberg LLC  and other foundations.  In April, the Dell Foundation gave New Classrooms  another million to expand into high schools. On January 29, New Classrooms announced that Emma Bloomberg had joined its  Board of Directors. How many negative evaluations have to be done before billionaires stop funding and helping these companies experiment on children?”

 

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, New York City, Technology

Help NPE-Action Keep Score on the 2020 Presidential Candidates

By dianeravitch
February 24, 2019 //
16

The Network for Public Education Action fund is developing a web-based score card for the 2020 presidential candidates.

We need YOUR help!

We want to keep score on where the candidates stand on issues that matter to students, teachers, parents, and public schools.

We want to know if they support public schools or if they support privatization.

We will keep the website updated based on the candidates’ public statements on television and at town halls.

We will check their funding reports to see if they are funded by the usual privatization-friendly billionaires and hedge-fund managers.

We urge you to attend their town halls and ask them questions about funding for public schools, about charters and vouchers, about testing, about federal policy requiring (unnecessary) annual testing, and about (unnecessary) federal funding for charter schools.

We need your help to keep our score care up to date once it is up and running.

We will not let education be forgotten in the 2020 race!

https://npeaction.org/npe-action-2020-presidential-candidates-project/

Climate change. Health care. Taxes. These are topics that 2020 Presidential hopefuls are happy to discuss.  But as important as these topics are, we cannot let our public schools be ignored.

That is why we started The NPE Action 2020 Candidates Project.

In cities across this nation, public schools are disappearing. The city of New Orleans is now a system of privately run charter schools. Vouchers and voucher “workarounds” send taxpayer money from public schools to private and religious schools. Religious schools are flipping themselves into charter schools in order to get public funds. The Koch Brothers have promised to target five states in which they will work to make public education disappear.

Private “choice” is trumping public voice. Test scores are the rationale to shut and shutter community schools even though charter school test scores are not better than those of public schools, and studies show that students who leave public schools with vouchers often do worse.

The Network for Public Education Action’s 2020 Candidates Project will make sure that the issue of school privatization is not ignored. We will grade candidates on their positions regarding charter schools, vouchers, and high-stakes testing. We will grade them by how much they take from the billionaires who believe in the privatization of public schools and score each candidate on the company they keep. They can run for office but they can’t hide from the hard questions we will ask about school privatization.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Networkfor Public Education Action Fund, Politics, Portfolio District, Privatization, Supporting public schools, Testing
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