Archives for category: Billionaires
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Jan Resseger on Dale Russakoff’s Article about Dark Money Vandals in Arizona

By dianeravitch
September 11, 2018 //
12

It is useful to read Jan Resseger on anything but especially her summary of Dale Russakoff’s fine article about the Dark Money that robbed the schoolchildren of Arizona. (In case the Russakoff article is behind a pay wall.)

Resseger describes what happened as “cannibalizing” the schools.

This was no accident. What happened to Arizona was a deliberate effort by the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity and the DeVos’ American Federation for Prosperity to execute a plan:

1. Reduce income taxes to zero
2. Defund public education
3. Shift school funding to charter schools and vouchers

She writes:

“What has driven political leaders in Arizona to collapse the state education budget, cut taxes, and expand school privatization? Russakoff explains: “In 2016, the Brennan Center for Justice at N.Y.U. School of Law issued a report called “Secret Spending in the States,” finding that dark-money political contributions in Arizona increased from about $600,000 in 2010 to more than $10.3 million million in 2014, the year Ducey was elected governor… In his 2014 gubernatorial campaign, Ducey ran on a pledge to cut taxes every year and drive income tax rates in Arizona ‘as close to zero as possible.’ That year, six dark-money groups spent almost $3.5 million supporting him or attacking his opponents… In 2017, the Koch brothers’ political advocacy arm, Americans for Prosperity, named the Arizona voucher-expansion bill its No. 1 education-reform priority in the country. The American Federation for Children, another bundler of anonymous contributions, funded by the family of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and focused on expanding school choice through charter schools, vouchers and private school scholarships, made it their top priority in the state… For weeks after leaders of Save Our Schools delivered their petitions to the secretary of state, a phalanx of activists from Americans for Prosperity and the American Federation for Children submitted multiple daily objections to individual signatures…. When the state nonetheless certified more than enough signatures as valid, lawyers representing the Koch network filed legal challenges that went all the way to the State Supreme Court but ultimately failed.”

“Russakoff quotes Kelly Berg, a 20-year high school math teacher from Mesa and lifelong Republican, describing her sudden realization last May—as she sat through an all-night deliberation of the State Legislature—of the enormous barrier she and her colleagues face: “We were told to sit down when we stood in agreement…. We were told to remain quiet when applauding when a teacher, who was in tears, was pleading for support for our classes and our students… We were disrespected. We were mocked. We were listened to, but not heard. That’s what radicalized me… As the kids would say, ‘I’m woke.’ ”

“Please do read Dale Russakoff’s fine article. She connects all the pieces of this story—school funding—the role of taxes for buying public services—the impact of tax cuts—the role of far-right money buying politics—the ideology of privatization—and the cost to state budgets and to local school districts when a state undertakes to run a system of private tuition neo-vouchers along with a system of charter schools along with the state’s public school districts all out of one fixed pot of money.

“As Russakoff narrates Arizona’s story, she is also providing an account of what has been happening in North Carolina, Wisconsin, Kansas, Ohio, Georgia, Michigan, Oklahoma, Kentucky, and Indiana.”

When you meet progressives who favor charter schools but not vouchers, send them a copy of Dale Russakoff’s article, or Jan Resseger’s summary, so they understand that they have been duped by the billionaires who are behind the curtain. Charters are part of the Dark Money plan to destroy public education.

Categories Accountability, Arizona, Betsy DeVos, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Dark Money, Education Industry, Koch Brothers, Privatization

Fawning Over Billionaire Laurene Powell Jobs and Her XQ Competition to “Reinvent” the High School

By dianeravitch
September 10, 2018 //
53

Politico Morning Education reports on Laurene Powell Jobs venture into redesigning the American high school:

FIRST LOOK: A GUIDE FOR STATES ON REVAMPING HIGH SCHOOL: A private philanthropic effort led by Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Steve Jobs, has given millions of dollars to high schools across the country with the goal of rethinking the traditional notion of high school and better preparing students for success in life.

— Now that initiative, called XQ: The Super School Project, is out with a guide for state policymakers on how to do that. “To prepare for the future of work, we must set a clear agenda to prepare the future workforce — and that agenda ties directly to our high schools,” Russlynn Ali, CEO and co-founder of XQ, told Morning Education. “We need high schools that are designed intentionally for the modern world.” Check out the guide here.

— What does that look like? XQ cites examples from high schools that it has funded. For example, the Grand Rapids Public Museum School received a $10 million grant from XQ. The school, which opened this year, is housed on a floor of the Grand Rapids Public Museum. “The curriculum will focus on big issues related to sustainability, technology, and design explored through a local lens — the history, culture, economy, and ecology of the Grand Rapids region itself,” XQ’s guide for state policymakers says. “Students will take on projects that contribute to the community in tangible and positive ways. One project is designed to become the largest river-restoration initiative in the United States.”

Forgive the apparent digression, but this guide should be read in conjunction with a new book by Beth Macy called Dopesick, about the opioid addiction epidemic. More than 300,000 Americans have died in recent years, 72,000 just in 2017. More will die next year. Many of them will be high school students. A wake-up-and-smell-the-coffee book that makes the XQ competition sound like something from the 1950s.

Categories Billionaires

“Hijacked by Billionaires:” The Shameful Role of Big Money in Buying Education and Undermining Democracy

By dianeravitch
September 8, 2018 //
21

This morning, the Network for Public Education Action has published a major report on the role of Big Money in buying elections to control education and undermine democracy.

“Hijacked by Billionaires: How the Super Rich Buy Elections to Undermine Public Schools” examines several districts/states where the super-rich have poured in money from out-of-state to buy control of school boards and buy policy, with the goal of advancing privatization.

The case studies include: Denver, Los Angeles, Newark, Minneapolis, Perth Amboy, N.J., Washington State, New York City, Newark, Rhode Island, and Louisiana.

This carefully documented report deserves your attention. It names names.

The rich use their money to steal democracy and local control.

Their only idea is privatization. They use their vast wealth to take away what belongs to the public.

Read it. Share it with your friends and colleagues. Post it on social media.

If you want to help the Network for Public Education and the Network for Public Education Action Fund continue its work to support public education, sign up, donate, come to our annual meeting in Indianapolis on October 20-21.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Networkfor Public Education Action Fund, Privatization, Scandal, School Choice, Vouchers

Betsy DeVos and Erik Prince: On a Religious Mission to Change America

By dianeravitch
September 7, 2018 //
35

Sam Tanenhaus writes here about Betsy DeVos and Erik Prince, the siblings intent on turning America into a business.

Their mission is religious in intensity.

They were born to fabulous wealth.

They are the Medicis of West Michigan, as Tanenhaus describes them.

They believe that God helps those who helps themselves, and they want to get the government out of the way of God’s plan to pick winners (people like them) and losers (who have to fend for themselves).

Their worldview does not seem to include empathy, compassion, or any sense of the common good.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Billionaires

Andrea Gabor: School Reformers are Going Local, But….

By dianeravitch
September 6, 2018 //
30

Andrea Gabor, author of Education After the Culture Wars, believes that the latest Gates grant for “networks” is evidence that corporate reformers have decided to “go local” instead of funding big national plans like the Common Core.

“For two decades, the prevailing wisdom among education philanthropists and policymakers has been that the U.S. school system needs the guiding hand of centralized standard-setting to discipline ineffective teachers and bureaucrats. Much of that direction was guided by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has spent billions since 2000 to influence both schools and education policy.

“But as schools open this year, top-down national initiatives based on standardized testing and curricular uniformity are in retreat.

“Last fall, the Gates Foundation ended its support for a $575 million, six-year teacher-effectiveness project; the initiative had failed to meet the foundation’s goals to “dramatically improve student outcomes,” according to a recent study commissioned by the foundation.

“Two dozen states started backing away from the Gates-backed Common Core State Standards not long after they were first embraced in 2010 (though many of these states retained “key elements” of the standards, according to a 2017 report by an education organization the foundation helps fund.) Earlier, the foundation acknowledged that “many of the small schools” that it invested in — the foundation’s first major education initiative — “did not improve students’ achievement in any significant way.”

“Now, the foundation seems to be stepping back from sweeping national initiatives in its bid to remake education. In the coming years, its K-12 philanthropy will concentrate on supporting what it calls “locally driven solutions” that originate among networks of 20 to 40 schools, according to Allan Golston, who leads the foundation’s U.S. operations, because they have “the power to improve outcomes for black, Latino, and low-income students and drive social and economic mobility.”

She believes this represents a significant shift from the top down mandates of No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and similar efforts cheered on by Gates and other titans.

I am not so sure.

The Gates grant of $92 Million for “networks” is chump change. It’s amorphous.

Besides, Gates is still funding Common Core, despite its failure to fulfill any of the bold promises made on its behalf eight years ago.

Worse, as Gabor notes, Gates and Arnold and other malefactors of great wealth are funding another “go local” project called City Fund, which draws together the leaders of privatization to plant charter schools in many cities. “Going local” in this case means trying to fly below the radar to push privatization in many places, whether the local people want it or not. Eli Broad has “gone local” by buying control of the Los Angeles school board (that is, until the swing vote was convicted and removed from the board. But he won’t give up.) Betsy DeVos went local by buying the state of Michigan. Jeb Bush engineered the hostile takeover of education policy in Florida. DFER long ago went local by bundling campaign contributions for state and local candidates who support charter schools and high-stakes testing.

Going local may be more insidious than pushing a noxious national agenda, which, in the Trump era, brings resistance to a boil.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Common Core, Disruption, Education Industry, Funding, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Privatization

Lewis Hine, the Man Whose Photographs Ended Child Labor, and Reflections on Labor and Our Moment

By dianeravitch
September 3, 2018 //
34

Lewis Hine was the photographer whose work led to the passage of child labor laws.

Here are some of the photographs that touched the conscience of the nation and its leaders.

There was a time when our nation’s leaders had a conscience.

There was a time when Labor Day parades were a major event.

There was a time when labor unions provided a path to a secure, middle-class life for millions of people.

Now the parades have ended.

Now we have a new economic approach.

The rich get richer. Full employment. Stagnant wages.

The purpose of labor unions was to ensure that working people received a fair share for their contribution to their employer’s success.

Labor unions ensured that prosperity lifted up working people, not just shareholders, Wall Street speculators, and corporate owners.

We need them again. Working people need and deserve a collective voice. Now, more than ever it is time to spread the wealth, open new paths to the middle class, restore the dignity of work, and rebuild the hope for and the reality of a better life for all. To do that means to move away from the current emphasis on consumerism and libertarianism to a public philosophy that embraces the importance of the common good. That means a revival of the nearly forgotten concept of “We the People.” E pluribus unum. A shared destiny in which every life counts, in which we recognize our common humanity and our mutual obligations for one another, our brotherhood and sisterhood.

That won’t happen by wishing and hoping but by political action. It begins by voting out the agents of the current status quo. It must start now.

Categories Billionaires, Childhood, Economy, Inequity, Injustice

Why Philanthropy Is Bad for Democracy: An Interview with Anand Giridharadas

By dianeravitch
August 28, 2018 //
28

This article expresses our frustration with arrogant, clueless billionaires like Bill Gates, Eli Broad, Betsy DeVos, Michael Bloomberg, Reed Hastings, the Waltons, the Koch brothers, and Mark Zuckerberg. We have long known that they don’t like democracy. It gets in the way of their grand plans to change the world. Why should we—the targets of their plans—have any say? Those of us who are not billionaires think that they should stop rearranging our lives. We don’t want them to disrupt our lives and our institutions. We believe in the idea of one person, one vote. We are losing faith in democracy because these plutocrats have more than one vote. They use their vast resources to buy elections and, what is even cheaper, to buy politicians.

Anand Giridharadas frequented their circles, mainly at the Aspen Institute, which made the mistake of inviting him to join them as a Fellow. He confirms what we suspected. These people are a threat to democracy. They think they are “doing good,” but they are destroying democracy.

It begins:

“In 2015, the journalist Anand Giridharadas was a fellow at the Aspen Institute, a confab of moneyed “thought leaders” where TED-style discourse dominates: ostensibly nonpolitical, often counterintuitive, but never too polemical. In his own speech that year, Giridharadas broke with protocol, accusing his audience of perpetuating the very social problems they thought they were solving through philanthropy. He described what he called the Aspen Consensus: “The winners of our age must be challenged to do more good, but never, ever tell them to do less harm.” The response, he said, was mixed. One private-equity figure called him an “asshole” that evening, but another investor said he’d voiced the struggle of her life. David Brooks, in a New York Times column, called the speech “courageous.” That lecture grew into Winners Take All, Giridharadas’s new jeremiad against philanthropy as we know it. He weaves together scenes at billionaires’ gatherings, profiles of insiders who struggle with ethical conflicts, and a broader history of how America’s wealth inequality and philanthropy grew in tandem.”

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Billionaires, Bloomberg, Michael, Broad Foundation, Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, Democracy, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Inequality, Koch Brothers, Philanthropy, Walton Foundation

Beware the Elites Who Want to Change the World.

By dianeravitch
August 28, 2018 //
30

This is an unusually good opinion piece that appeared in the New York Times a few days ago.

Think Gates, Zuckerberg, Walton, Hastings, Koch, and many more who use their wealth to impose their ideas on what they consider lesser lives.

The author is Anand Giridharadas.

Please note the mention of charter schools, a bone used by the elites to distract us from wealth inequality and the necessity of providing a better education for all.

It begins:

“Change the world” has long been the cry of the oppressed. But in recent years world-changing has been co-opted by the rich and the powerful.

“Change the world. Improve lives. Invent something new,” McKinsey & Company’s recruiting materials say. “Sit back, relax, and change the world,” tweets the World Economic Forum, host of the Davos conference. “Let’s raise the capital that builds the things that change the world,” a Morgan Stanley ad says. Walmart, recruiting a software engineer, seeks an “eagerness to change the world.” Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook says, “The best thing to do now, if you want to change the world, is to start a company.”

“At first, you think: Rich people making a difference — so generous! Until you consider that America might not be in the fix it’s in had we not fallen for the kind of change these winners have been selling: fake change.

“Fake change isn’t evil; it’s milquetoast. It is change the powerful can tolerate. It’s the shoes or socks or tote bag you bought which promised to change the world. It’s that one awesome charter school — not equally funded public schools for all. It is Lean In Circles to empower women — not universal preschool. It is impact investing — not the closing of the carried-interest loophole.

“Of course, world-changing initiatives funded by the winners of market capitalism do heal the sick, enrich the poor and save lives. But even as they give back, American elites generally seek to maintain the system that causes many of the problems they try to fix — and their helpfulness is part of how they pull it off. Thus their do-gooding is an accomplice to greater, if more invisible, harm.

“What their “change” leaves undisturbed is our winners-take-all economy, which siphons the gains from progress upward. The average pretax income of America’s top 1 percent has more than tripled since 1980, and that of the top 0.001 percent has risen more than sevenfold, even as the average income of the bottom half of Americans stagnated around $16,000, adjusted for inflation, according to a paper by the economists Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman.

“American elites are monopolizing progress, and monopolies can be broken. Aggressive policies to protect workers, redistribute income, and make education and health affordable would bring real change. But such measures could also prove expensive for the winners. Which gives them a strong interest in convincing the public that they can help out within the system that so benefits the winners.”

There is more, if it is not behind a paywall.

Categories Billionaires, Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Democracy, Disruption, Equity, Fake, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Hypocrisy, Inequality, Koch Brothers, Philanthropy, Privatization, Walton Foundation

California: The Rightwing Money Funding Marshall Tuck’s Campaign for State Superintendent of Instruction

By dianeravitch
August 19, 2018 //
9

For those of us concerned about the future of public education in America, one of the most important elections this fall is the race for State Superintendent of Public Instruction between Marshall Tuck and Tony Thurmond. They are both Democrats, on paper. Thurmond won the overwhelming endorsement of the Democrats, like 89% to 5% at the party’s state convention. The grassroots know who the real Democrat is and who is the puppet of the charter billionaires.

I support Tony Thurmond, a former social worker and current legislator. His first commitment is to children. I will write more about him as the election nears. California needs a State Superintendent whose first priority is meeting the needs of students, not the whims of Eli Broad, Reed Hastings, the Walton family, and Michael Bloomberg.

Marshall Tuck is a former investment banker who went into education via management of charter schools. He has won the hearts and minds of the Uber-rich.

The Republican Party has sent out fliers endorsing Tuck. No surprise. He has received campaign contributions from the Walmart family and the usual array of charter-loving billionaires who want to disrupt public schools.

He is, whether he likes it or not, the candidate of the right.

He pledged not to take money from PACs, but when the Walton heirs bundled money for him, he took it. When a notorious homophobe funded his campaign, he was sufficiently embarrassed to return the money. The rightwingers see him as the Betsy DeVos of California, but his billionaire funders will portray him as a fresh face with innovative ideas, like more charter schools.

As Jim Miller of San Diego wrote,

“The hope of Tuck’s supporters is that perhaps no one will notice. Maybe, they think, the big money will push him over the finish line this time despite the sleazy rightwing connections that would seem an anathema to voters here on the Left Coast. We can only trust that the vast majority California’s Democratic voters will join those Democrats at the state convention last week who rejected Tuck’s second bid to open California schools to the kinds of right-wing privatization schemes that have wreaked havoc elsewhere in the country.”

Categories Billionaires, California, Charter Schools, Disruption, Education Industry, Education Reform

New York: Who Is Illegally Funding the “Democrats” Who Vote with the Republicans FOR Charter Schools and AGAINST Raising Taxes on the Rich?

By dianeravitch
August 16, 2018 //
16

Here is a useful diagram of the sources of funding for the group called the “Independent Democrats” who use their votes in the State Senate of New York to keep Republicans in control.

You will see some familiar names there, including former Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City and billionaire hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb, who was chairman of Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy charter chain.

A judge ruled the committees and their campaign contributions were illegal. A New York State Board of Elections official ordered the candidates to return the illegal contributions. But the candidates won’t do it.

Eight former members of the Republican-aligned Independent Democratic Conference (IDC) have benefited from nearly $1.6 million in fund transfers and expenditures from two IDC-affiliated committees since 2011, which together raised over $4.6 million, excluding a transfer from one to the other, a Sludge analysis of state elections board data found. After breaking campaign finance rules and paying a $27,400 fine in 2016 for missing numerous reporting deadlines, the senators disbanded The IDC Initiative and formed a new committee, the Senate Independence Campaign Committee (SICC). Most of this spending has since been ruled illegal.

These eight New York State Senate Democrats were part of the IDC, which until recently aligned with Republicans in the chamber, giving the GOP a narrow majority. Formed in 2011, the IDC used its campaign committees to take in money—mostly from corporations, LLCs and political action committees—and to fund their campaigns and make elections expenditures in their favor.

Another committee, SICC Housekeeping, which funded the operations of the IDC, accepted nearly $700,000 from The IDC Initiative and roughly $1.2 million in almost exclusively corporate contributions.

Even after the committees were ruled illegal on June 5, a newly constituted version of SICC continued to funnel funds it had illegally raised to the campaigns of ex-IDC incumbents, including $121,000 to Jeff Klein (NY-34), $66,000 to Marisol Alcantara (NY-31) and $60,000 to Jesse Hamilton (NY-20).

As all eight incumbents face progressive primary challengers, they’re digging in their heels, defying a directive from their own state elections board in order to hold onto the illegal funds. As Sludge previously reported, the challengers have received far more individual contributions, and their average donation amount is a fraction of that of the ex-IDC members.

“Campaign finance laws aren’t suggestions—they are designed to keep our democracy healthy and honest,” Zellnor Myrie, who is challenging Hamilton, said in a press release. “The ‘former’ IDC members have shown their blatant disregard for our democratic safeguards by keeping these campaign contributions…By refusing to return this money, the IDC is showing us yet again that their real interests lie with their donors instead of their constituents.”

Special interests provided the bulk of the contributions to the three IDC-aligned committees. Lax campaign finance laws in New York allow corporations to donate large amounts of campaign cash and treat opaque LLCs as individual donors, even if the LLCs are connected to corporations that have already given the maximum allowed amount. This effectively allows LLC owners to donate unlimited amounts of money.

Jessica Ramos, who hopes to unseat ex-IDC member Jose Peralta in Senate District 13, told Sludge, “These numbers make clear what we’ve known all along: Jose Peralta empowered Republicans because he is funded by Republicans. Our public schools are underfunded and our rents are skyrocketing, but Peralta would rather take cash from charter school billionaires and real estate lobbyists than deliver for his community.”

Strangely, NYSUT (New York State United Teachers) endorsed IDC member Marisol Alcantara, who is running against Robert Jackson; Jackson was the city council member who sued the state for billions of dollars in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity. He is a champion for public schools and equitable funding. If you live in Robert Jackson’s district, please vote for him, not Alcantara, who supports charters and votes against raising taxes on the richest New Yorkers. If you are a teacher or a parent or a concerned citizen, vote for Robert Jackson for State Senate in District 31.

Never forget: Dark money never sleeps.

Categories Billionaires, Charter Schools, Dark Money, New York, Privatization
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