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A Billionaire Stops Funding Charters and TFA, Starts Funding Public Schools!

By dianeravitch
October 23, 2018 //
46

The richest woman in Connecticut no longer gives to charter schools and Teach for America. Barbara Dalio has shifted her giving to public schools.

She fell in love with public education.

She fell in love with the schools that take everyone, even the least of them, the children that the charters reject.

She got woke.

In the past three years alone, the foundation, which Barbara co-founded with her husband, has donated $50 million to public education programs in Connecticut.

“I never thought I would get into education because it’s not my background, so I am learning as I go along,” she said. “I love it. I don’t play golf or tennis. This is my passion.”

Connecticut Adds Two More Billionaires To The Forbes 400 List. Here’s A Look At All Nine Members.
Dalio, 70, who is universally described as humble and hands-on, said in an interview last week that her shift toward traditional public school districts came about as she learned more about education and became concerned about the achievement gap and students who are disengaged from school.

Dalio said she observed that the kids who go to public charter schools have parents who are often more involved and have the initiative to seek out an alternative for their child.

But many parents, she said, don’t have the time to do that.

“It’s not that they don’t care about the kids,” Dalio said of those parents. “It’s that they are burdened in many instances with just one parent having two or three jobs. That really struck me.”

It’s a shift that some of the wealthy donors that have focused on charters and other reform efforts are also making in recent years, some experts say.

A few years ago, there was a feeling among some wealthy donors that giving to local neighborhood schools might be a waste of money, said Rick Hess, director of education policy studies with the American Enterprise Institute.

“Now the zeitgeist has changed,” said Hess. “TFA [Teach for America] and charter schooling are more controversial than they were eight or 10 years ago for various reasons and after the teacher strikes, teachers are more sympathetic. There’s a sense that if you’re a wealthy person and you’re trying to give away dollars in a way that you feel good about, you might make different choices in 2018 than you did in 2008.”

When Dalio arrived as an immigrant from Spain in her 20s, she knew very little about the American educational system except that she saw it is as inspiring.

“One of the things that struck me was all the people that succeeded or were able to have a very good education just through the public schools,” Dalio said. “I just admire that democratic side that the United States has. I don’t know if it still has it but I thought it was so amazing that anyone of any social class can just go to a public school and get a great education.”

Dalio, who lives in Greenwich, learned more about the public schools as she raised her four sons who attended both public and private schools and had very different needs and learning styles.

“I didn’t have a formula that would work for all of them, so I had to be very nimble and had to rely on teachers to help me help them,” Dalio said. “So that’s how my love for teachers started because they were always really there for me and for them. They were very caring.”

As the family’s foundation was expanding, Dalio said, “I really felt for the public schools and I really wanted to be helpful.”

But she realized she needed to be educated. So she began volunteering at an alternative high school in Norwalk where she started coming in once every two weeks and soon was up to two or three times a week.

“I learned really how many needs the kids have because they had kids with learning differences, kids that have had trauma in their lives, kids with emotional needs,” Dalio said, as well as kids who are hungry. “So it really is challenging for the school, the teachers to address all of those needs, especially with [budget] cuts” that eliminate social workers or mental health programs, she said.

Dalio said she learned through the alternative school and also with her own children, one of whom has bipolar disorder, that all children can succeed if given the right the services and help.

Her own son is in very good shape now, she said, “but it took a lot of resources and patience and time and you know if we didn’t succeed, he could have been just one of those kids.”

“So I always feel a bit for the underdog … or the kids that don’t have opportunities and I see that if you give them what they need, which is sometimes not that much, [with] just a little attention and love, you can really turn them around…”

David Callahan, editor of Inside Philanthropy, said he hopes “other philanthropists will pay attention to what (Dalio is) doing and the hands-on immersive approach she’s taken, which is how philanthropy should operate if it doesn’t want to alienate the people it needs to engage to succeed.”

“If Barbara ever gets focused on the national level,” Callahan said, “I think that could be a big deal, given her mindset and the sensibility she brings to this space.”
”

Public education should not have to depend on the goodwill of philanthropists. It is a civic duty to educate all children through taxation.

But billionaires have banded together to destroy education and to promote choice instead of raising taxes.

Thank you, Ms. Dalio, for putting your money where it does the most good for the most children.

Categories Billionaires, Charter Schools, Connecticut, Hope, Philanthropy

Disgrace in San Antonio as Charter Vultures Destroy Public Education

By dianeravitch
October 22, 2018 //
27

This article by Tom Ultican tells the sordid story of rich elites who have cynically decided to destroy public education in San Antonio.

They have cumulatively raised at least $200 million to attract charter operators to San Antonio, a figure which includes funding by the U.S. Department of Education and local plutocrats. The lead figure is a very wealthy woman named Victoria Rico, who sits on the boards of multiple charter chains. Rico and her friends have decided to re-engineer and privatize public education in San Antonio. Rico is working closely with Dan Patrick, the State’s lieutenant governor, who loves vouchers, hates public schools, and was the Rush Limbaugh of Texas before winning election to the State Senate.

Was there a vote taken in San Antonio? No. Was the public asked whether they wanted to abandon public education? Of course not. The titans don’t believe in democracy. They know what’s best for other people’s children.

They have hired a superintendent, Pedro Martinez, who was “trained” by the unaccredited Broad Superintendents Academy, which encourages school closures, privatization, and top-down management. Martinez has worked in school districts but was never a teacher or a principal and apparently knows nothing about pedagogy. Martinez is a member of Jeb Bush’s Chiefs for Change, which promotes privatization and technology in the classroom. He is also a big fan of the faux Relay “Graduate School of Education,” which specializes in charter teachers training new teachers for charter schools and has no professors or research programs.

As a native Texan, this whole deal made me physically ill. It stinks to high heaven. Everyone facilitating this private takeover of public schools should be ashamed of themselves.

They are not “doing it for the children.” They are doing it for their own egos. There are more failing charter schools than failing public schools. What right do they have to destroy the public schools of San Antonio? Who elected them? They have won plaudits from Betsy DeVos, the Koch brothers, and ALEC. They should be held accountable for their assault on democracy. I noticed that the Texas philanthropist Charles Butt refused to participate in this unholy cabal; he prefers to invest his fortune in supporting public schools.

I take this opportunity to name Victoria Rico, Pedro Martinez, and all their rightwing enablers to the Wall of Shame.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Billionaires, Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Chiefs for Change, Corporate Reform, Democracy, Education Industry, Fraud, San Antonio, School Choice, Texas, U.S. Department of Education, Wall of Shame

California: The Rightwing Money Behind Marshall Tuck’s Campaign for Superintendent of Schools

By dianeravitch
October 21, 2018 //
5

California political activist Karen Wolfe writes in this article about the rightwing money behind Marshall Tuck’s campaign to become State Superintendent of Public Instruction. The campaign has been well endowed by the usual crowd of billionaires who want to undermine school boards and expand the charter industry. Tuck has raised at least $25 million so far, an unprecedented amount for the job of state superintendent, reflecting how badly the billionaires want control of the state.

By the end of the campaign, Tuck will likely have collected at least $30 million, far exceeding Tony Thurmond’s $10 Million, most of it from teachers and people committed to public schools and opposed to corporate influence in the schools.

Tuck, writes Wolfe, “has the same pro-privatizing platform that voters rejected when he was defeated for the position four years ago, and it’s the same education platform of Republican presidential candidates Jeb Bush and John Kasich, and Vice President Mike Pence: To deregulate public education, to outsource school services, to make it harder for teachers to gain tenure, and to expand the market of “school choice.””

Aside from the usual billionaires, Tuck accepted a contribution from an anti-gay financier, Howard Ahmanson Jr., who had previously bankrolled Prop 8, a proposition to ban same-sex marriage.

Wolfe writes:

“Ahmanson’s name set off alarm bells with LGBTQ groups such as Equality California because of his association with a dark chapter in California politics.

“In 2008, when an idealistic grassroots movement swept the country electing Barack Obama the first black President, the California ballot included Proposition 8, a measure to ban gay marriage. The Prop 8 campaign succeeded following massive funding from the religious right.

“Before the U.S. Supreme Court made the right to same sex marriage the law of the land, Ahmanson contributed $1.4 million to Prop 8.

“Money flooded into California from anti-gay groups across the land. Michigan philanthropist Elsa Prince Broekhuizen was another major contributor to California’s Prop 8, giving $450,000. Readers will be more familiar with Broekhuizen’s adult children: U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and Blackwater mercenary founder Erik Prince.

“An anti-gay crusade is foundational to their philanthropic activism. Ahmanson once told the Orange County Register, “My goal is the total integration of biblical law into our lives.”

“Ahmanson may have adopted his religious and political agenda as a close follower and funder of the now deceased “Rousas John Rushdoony, a radical evangelical theologian who advocated placing the United States under the control of a Christian theocracy that would mandate the stoning to death of homosexuals.”

“It would not be a stretch to say that Ahmanson and members of the Prince and DeVos families are part of a Dominionist kabal, using extreme wealth to reorient American government toward extremist Christian doctrine. They regularly attend The Gathering, a “shadowy, powerful network” of hard-right Christian funders, according to an investigation published in the Daily Beast.

“The Gathering is as close to a ‘vast right-wing conspiracy’ as you’re likely to find,” Jay Michaelson reported. Attendees are the “wealthiest conservative to hard-right evangelical philanthropists in America, and have led the campaigns to privatize public schools, redefine ‘religious liberty,’ fight same-sex marriage, [and] fight evolution…” he wrote. It was at The Gathering where Betsy DeVos said she wants to “advance God’s Kingdom” through public schools. It was there that she and her husband said that school choice was a way to reverse the history of public schools displacing the Church as the center of communities.

“DeVos and Ahmanson are each doing their part as religious warriors in the crusade. With the help of a compliant Congress, DeVos is exploding the barrier that historically separated American public education from religion. She has promoted school vouchers to pay for religious schools, withdrawn Obama Administration guidance that protected transgender students, and is trying to give churches the chance to reclaim their place at the center of communities by expanding school choice.”

When a statewide LGBTQ group complained about Tuck accepting $5,000 from Ahmanson, Tuck returned the money. But the same advocacy group—Equality California— pointed out that Ahmanson had contributed $57,800 to Tuck’s 2014 and urged him to donate that amount to programs for LGBTQ youth. That money was never feturned or contributed elsewhere.

Categories Billionaires, California

Mercedes Schneider Reveals Where Billionaire Alice Walton Is Financing School Choice

By dianeravitch
October 20, 2018 //
1

Mercedes Schneider, Teacher-researcher extraordinaire, has dug into state campaign finance files to track the spending of Walmart heiress and billionaire Alice Walton.

The Walton Family is extremely conservative. They despise unions, and they are contemptuous of punlic schools.

They favor charter schools, vouchers, and Teach for America, which provides the low-wage workers for their charter schools. They partner with Betsy DeVos’s voucher-loving American Federation for Children and also “Democrats for Education Reform,” which is charter-happy.

The Walton Family claims credit for financing one of every four charter schools in the nation.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Industry, Privatization, Unions, Walton Foundation

Cheshire, Connecticut: The Town That Beat Mark Zuckerberg

By dianeravitch
October 18, 2018 //
23

This is an amazing story of a town in Connecticut where parents looked at Mark Zuckerberg’s ideas about how to educate their children and said “Hell, no.”

We live in a strange era where a handful of billionaires have taken it upon themselves to transform education. Think Eli Broad, Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, Laurene Powell Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg. They decided, not based on their own experience but based on their inflated egos, that they alone know how to re-engineer the nation’s schools, the schools that enroll 50 million children.

The schools of Cheshire, Connecticut, are fine schools. The parents are happy with their public schools. But the schools’ administration decided to adopt the Summit Learning Program, putting students on Chromebooks for their lessons. Things went south, and eventually parents rebelled. At some point, they realized that “personalized learning” is actually “depersonalized learning.” Worse, they learned that their children’s personal data would no longer be private, and that the learning program was data mining their children.

And Mark Zuckerberg’s Summit Learning Program was kicked out of the schools of Cheshire, Connecticut.

Read the article to learn how it happened.

Last year, several classes in Cheshire, Connecticut’s elementary and middle schools switched to a new classroom model, where lessons were supposed to be tailored to every student. The kids and their parents were caught off-guard that first week of school. “We walked into math class,” recalled Lauren Peronace, now an eighth-grader, “and my math teacher said, ‘Everyone open up your Chromebooks. We’re going to go on a website — Summit.’”

Reactions were mixed. Most everyone in Cheshire, which is between New Haven and Hartford, is there for the public schools, which are among the area’s best. Some parents were skittish about the creep of more technology into the classroom, especially when they found out Facebook engineers had helped build the software and Mark Zuckerberg was spending millions promoting it. Others were at least cautiously optimistic. “My son initially thought it sounded cool,” said one parent, Theresa, who asked to have her last name withheld because of all the drama that followed. “The teachers told him, ‘You’re going to be on your own; you’ll be independent; you’re going to move at your own pace.”

The program had come with money for 130 Chromebooks, so every student could have one — courtesy of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Zuckerberg’s philanthropic LLC, and Summit’s other wealthy backers. But to hear the administrators explain it, the technology would be only one piece. The Summit Learning Program, which originated at a series of West Coast charter schools between 2012 and 2013, is conceived as a comprehensive program of “personalized learning” that promises to put students in charge of their own education. It’s now being used in some 380 districts and charter schools nationwide. Rather than having a teacher stand at the front of the room and talk, it emphasizes group projects, dialogue between students, and one-on-one time with teachers, guaranteeing at least a ten-minute “mentoring” session for each student every week. It also makes use of specialized software for regular lessons and assessments. Cheshire’s teachers had gone to training that summer in Providence, Rhode Island, at an event also funded by Summit.

But the implementation over the next few months collapsed into a suburban disaster, playing out in school-board meetings and, of course, on Facebook. The kids who hated the new program hated it, to the point of having breakdowns, while their parents became convinced Silicon Valley was trying to take over their classrooms. They worried Summit was sharing their kids’ data (it is, with 19 companies at present, including Amazon and Microsoft, according to its website), or, worse, selling it. It isn’t, but given that the guy who’d helped buy them all laptops had created a $500 billion company out of vacuuming up data and creating economic value from it, it seemed reasonable to have suspicions that the learning platform backed by CZI might also be data-hungry. Concern turned into exasperation when bizarre and sometimes inappropriate images appeared on their kids’ screens on third-party websites used as reading assignments: a pot plant, a lubricant ad, and then the coup de grâce, an ancient Roman statue of a man having sex with a goose.

Ultimately the superintendent halted the program, making Cheshire the only one out of hundreds to do so. To the program’s supporters, this makes it a fluke, the only one that never got past the learning curve. To detractors, the Cheshire parents are among the most articulate voices on Summit’s perils, the model of successful resistance.

Categories Billionaires, Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, Connecticut, Innovation, Resistance, Technology

Did Zuckerberg Just Take Control of Summit Learning?

By dianeravitch
October 17, 2018 //
13

One day, we might wake up and discover that half a dozen people own all of our schools. One of them, you can be sure, is Mark Zuckerberg, who owns the personal and sort-of and sometimes private data of about one billion people.

Peter Greene tells the story here of Summit Learning, which is controlled by Zuckerberg. It has infiltrated scores of public schools as a cheap way of delivering in-line instruction. Parents have fought back, apparently wanting teachers who are actual living human beings.

If you happen to have a child in a school that has joined up with Summit, you should make inquiries about your child’s personal data.

Facebook has recently informed tens of millions of its users that their personal data were compromised.

Depersonalized Instruction is stoppable if parents speak out.

Categories Billionaires, Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, Education Industry, Technology

California: Desperate to Push Charter Schools, Billionaires Pour $25 Million into Tuck Campaign

By dianeravitch
October 17, 2018 //
17

Charter school supporters have dropped an unprecedented $25 million into Marshall Tuck’s campaign to become California’s next State Superintendent of Public Instruction.

His opponent Tony Thurmond is far behind in fundraising, having raised less than half that amount, “only” $10 million, mostly from educators.

“Independent committees supporting Tuck have raised $20.4 million as of Monday compared to $7 million by a committee supporting Thurmond. Likewise, Tuck is ahead in direct contributions to his campaign, having raised $4.2 million compared to Thurmond’s $2.8 million, as of the most recent campaign finance filing deadline Sept. 22.

“Thurmond is a former social worker, school board member and council member in Richmond. Tuck is the former president of Green Dot Public Schools, a charter school organization based in Los Angeles, and CEO of the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, a district-city initiative that runs 18 district schools. Most recently he’s worked for a nonprofit to develop effective teachers and principals.

“As early voting ballots are mailed to California voters this week, record levels of funding continue to pour into the contest primarily from advocates of charter school expansion who favor Tuck and organized labor groups backing Thurmond. Independent committees that support the candidates combined to raise almost $12 million in the last three weeks alone, with Tuck’s supporters accounting for the vast majority of that money.”

Tuck is a financier who entered education as a charter school executive. The big money behind him anticipates that he will continue the privatization of public schools and the expansion of charter chains into suburban and rural areas. Tuck is supported by Eli Broad, Reed Hastings, the Walton Family, and other prominent billionaires.

Thurmond is a social worker and legislator who has devoted his career to helping children. He has been endorsed by the California Teachers Association, the Los Angeles Times, and the California Democratic Party.

This election will test the proposition of whether billionaires can buy a statewide election for a key education leadership position.

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Billionaires, California

California: Why Tony Thurmond is the Best Choice for State Superintendent of Public Instruction

By dianeravitch
October 16, 2018 //
21

This is an enlightening article for those in California who don’t know the difference between Tony Thurmond and Marshall Tuck, who are running for State Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Simply put, Tony Thurmond has the overwhelming support of the state Democratic party and the state’s teachers, while Tuck is the candidate of the billionaires who want to privatize the state’s public schools.

Tony Butka explains who Tony Thurmond is:

The reason we Angelenos know not of Mr. Thurmond is that he is a Bay Area kind of guy. Born in Fort Ord with a Detroit military father and a Panamanian immigrant mother who became a teacher, he was mostly raised by his single mom in San Jose.

As an ex social worker myself, I like the fact that he was a social worker, the real deal kind with a MSW (Masters in Social Work) degree, working for non-profit agencies who dealt with young people — for example dealing with providing services to foster youth and job training for at-risk youth in the East Bay. That’s the real deal.

Before he got into the Assembly, he paid his dues on the Richmond City Council, and worked as liaison with the West Contra Costa County USD. He got directly involved in education as a member of the West Contra Costa County School Board from 2008-12. For those who know anything about the Bay Area, these are not country club schools. They are a very good learning experience for something like the LAUSD.

Anyhow, starting in 2014 Tony was elected to the California Assembly in AD15, where he has served two terms. Without being too effusive, Tony helped in the legislature to get funding for:

– keeping kids in school and out of the criminal justice system;

– helping fund foster kids being able to go to college;

– getting increased funding for early education programs;

– working to shift funding from the criminal justice system to early education and afterschool programs.

He then describes Marshall Tuck’s record, which you can read if you open the link.

He doesn’t dig into the obscene amount of money that is pouring into Tuck’s campaign, which has already raised three to four times more than Thurmond’s campaign. $4 million in new contributions just last week. Is the office for sale? The billionaire are used to buying whatever they want.

He concludes:

I am frankly worried that the lack of name recognition in Southern California will hurt Tony Thurmond, and that would be a shame. This is really a race between two totally different views of education: one view champions educating our kids wherever they live and no matter their economic/social class. That’s Tony Thurmond.

The other vision is a semi-photogenic front from the billionaire boys club of Eli Broad and the like. If you think they actually give a rat’s ass about our children, particularly in the LAUSD, you don’t know how they got to be billionaires. Wanna bet their kids go to LAUSD or the equivalent? Oh sure. That’s who Marshall Tuck is, zillions of dollars in backing or not.

We know two things for certain about the Charter School crowd. First, they’re all about siphoning money (ADA, or average daily attendance money to you and me) out of the publicly financed school system, leaving all the mandatory bureaucratic overhead of a school system to be funded out of what’s left after their take, as the School Boards try to educate the bulk of the children out of quickly dwindling funds.

The second thing we know for sure is that the Charter School folks simply don’t care if a lot of the Charter schools are run by crooks and are subject to bankruptcy and/or indictments during the school year, leaving their students on the street with nowhere to go.

He reminds readers that the charter school lobby kept charter school founder Ref Rodriguez on the Los Angeles school board just long enough to vote entrepreneur Austin Beutner into the superintendency, then resigned and was convicted of multiple felonies.

This crowd of unethical privatization-pushers should not be allowed to choose the state’s next education leader.

He doesn’t dig into the obscene amount of money that is pouring into Tuck’s campaign, which has already raised three to four times more than Thurmond’s campaign. $4 million in new contributions just last week. Is the office for sale? The billionaire are used to buying whatever they want. Only voters can stop them now.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, California, Education Reform

Listen to Joe Nathan and Howard Fuller Decry the “Well-Funded Attack” on the Charter Industry

By dianeravitch
October 10, 2018 //
114

There is still time for you to tune in at 3 pm EST to hear Joe Nathan and Howard Fuller discuss political strategy to promote charter schools and privatization.

Nathan is a week-known Charter advocate.

Fuller is a well-known voucher advocate. His defunct organization, Black Alliance for Educational Options, received millions of dollars annually from pro-voucher, pro-charter groups. In its last year, it had revenues of $8.5 million. Fuller relied on the Rightwing Bradley Foundation to launch him into national activism for vouchers and privatization. Read Mercedes Schneider on BAEO, it’s association with Betsy DeVos’s AMERICAN Federation for Children, and its persistent efforts to privatize public schools.

Nathan and Fuller will share their concern about the “well-funded” efforts to stop charter schools and privatization.

I hope they will let listeners know where to find the funding to stop privatization. I’d like to raise some money for the Network for Public Education, which is not “well funded.”

Do you think they will mention the hundreds of millions of dollars spent every year by the Waltons, Eli Broad, Bill Gates, John Arnold, the Koch brothers, the DeVos family, Reed Hastings, Michael Bloomberg, Paul Singer, Dan Loeb, and other billionaires, as well as the U.S. Department of Education, to fund charter schools?

If ever there was a well-funded industry, it is the charter industry.

If ever there was an underfunded opposition, it is those who fight to protect their public schools against the charter vultures.


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

Carl Cohn: Don’t Let Billionaires Buy Control of Public Education in California

By dianeravitch
October 10, 2018 //
3

Carl Cohn is one of the most respected educators in California. He has been a teacher, principal, and superintendent. He led Long Beach, where he earned a reputation as a calm problem solver. I got to know him when he was superintendent in San Diego, and I was researching the first district to embrace and impose top-down Corporate Reform. After voters booted out the Reformers, Carl was brought in to restore calm and trust. When Carl Cohn speaks, I listen.

In this article, he tells the public what is at stake in the contest for Superintendent of Public Instruction in California. This race is likely to be even more expensive than the governor’s race, where Gavin Newsom has a large lead over his

On one side is Tony Thurmond, social worker and legislator. On the other is Marshall Tuck, the chosen favorite of the charter-loving billionaires. The money is pouting in for Tuck. Just last week, another $4 million arrived from his super-rich allies.

He writes:

Why will so much money be spent on this race? The reason lies with a small group of billionaires who have no education experience but because of their outsized pocketbooks wield huge influence in education politics across the nation. Billionaires like the Waltons (of Walmart fortune), Eli Broad, and President Trump’s Education Secretary Betsy DeVos have made it their priority to fight for the charter school industry, school vouchers, and high-stakes testing.

The billionaires are supporting candidate Marshall Tuck, a former charter schools executive with a mixed record of success and reputation for fighting not fixing – because they know they can count on him to support the charter school industry.

His opponent is Democratic state legislator and public school parent Tony Thurmond. Tony is a social worker by training who has spent 20 years working inside and outside of schools with some of the most high-need children in California.

Tony’s passion for education stems from his own life experience.

Like many California students, Tony Thurmond comes from humble beginnings. Tony’s mother emigrated from Panama to San Jose to become a teacher. His father was a Vietnam veteran who, suffering from PTSD, did not return to the family. When Tony was 6, his mother lost her battle to cancer. He and his brother were sent to live with a distant cousin.

Tony grew up on public assistance and college was never a sure thing – but he succeeded because he was able to attend a great public school where his teachers encouraged him to apply. At Temple University in Philadelphia, Tony became student body president.

After graduation, Tony became a social worker to give back, serving foster youth, children with incarcerated parents, folks with disabilities, immigrants, first-generation college students, and families living in deep poverty. He went on to lead nonprofits and run school-based mental health programs. Tony has taught civics, life skills, and career training courses.

Tony Thurmond believes, as I do, that public education can save lives.

For me, it’s a belief that stems from 50 years working in education, first as a teacher and counselor in the Compton public schools, then as a superintendent in the Long Beach and San Diego school districts. Most recently, as executive director of the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence, it’s been my job to get the right kind of help to schools, districts, charters and county offices of education.

With Trump and DeVos leading the federal education agenda, it is imperative that California elect a strong, effective advocate for public education who will stand up to the billionaires and their charter school industry. Tony Thurmond is that advocate.

While Secretary DeVos was proposing to eliminate the federal Office for English-Language Learners, Tony was passing legislation to expand bilingual education. One in five California students is an English Learner.

While Trump and DeVos were shortchanging STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education funding on the national level, Tony was fighting for $200 million here in California — an appropriate investment for California, the fifth largest economy in the world and innovation capital of the world.
Tony Thurmond is the only Superintendent of Public Instruction candidate who Californians can trust to fight for our public schools and to fight back against the billionaires and their pro-charter school industry agenda. That’s because Tony believes to his core that we must create a public education system where every child, no matter their circumstances, graduates prepared for success in the 21st century economy.

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