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Illinois: An Urgent Message from Chicago Teachers

By dianeravitch
May 17, 2017 //
6

The Chicago Teachers Union called on public-spirited citizens across the state to urge the State Senate to vote for legislation on behalf of Chicago’s students, teachers, and public schools.

The end of the session in Springfield draws nigh. Please make calls to Springfield today & tomorrow for public education, teachers, (Chicago and the rest of the state too), and for progressive state revenue, 1-217-782-2000:

From the CTU:

“Since 2010, the Chicago Teachers Union has recognized that our path forward—while not easy—is clear. Our school communities must have a different governing structure, progressive revenue for a new funding formula and a stronger voice for educators in order to secure the schools Chicago children deserve.

“We are working to unwind harmful legislative actions that have created a second-tier school district, and resulted in declining revenue and corrupt governance. Over the past month, several CTU-backed bills have passed out committee and need your support to pass out of the House chamber.

“Once again, the bill to decommission the unelected and unaccountable Illinois State Charter School Commission—HB768 (Welch)—passed out of the House with a vote of 61-46. Call the Senate

“The majority of the members—63-54— of the Illinois House of Representatives agree that Chicago Teachers deserve their voice. The House advanced HB1253 (Tabares) to the Senate. The bill will restore the full collective bargaining rights of Chicago educators. In 1995, a Republican-controlled Illinois General Assembly along with a Republican governor enacted legislation that was designed to undermine collective bargaining rights for teachers only in the city of Chicago. This legislation contributed greatly to oversized classrooms; the loss of experienced teachers; the decline of Black and Latino teachers through runaway privatization. Call the Senate

“HB3720 (Harper) is a tax increment finance (TIF) reform bill that will bring true transparency to TIFs and provide funds for special education and trauma services in our schools. The bill passed the House with a veto proof majorityof 75-39. Call the Senate

“SB1719 (Senator Daniel Biss) is a bill that will establish a privilege tax on private equity and hedge funds. These millionaires and billionaires earn about $4.8 billion per year in under-taxed income. SB1719 will allow the state of Illinois to capture the revenue lost through this loophole and provide an estimated $500 million per year.

“From other teacher and grass roots groups:

“A) HB 3393 – Close Rauner’s Tax Loopholes – specifically the Carried Interest Loophole Call both the House and the Senate, Madigan has blocked this by placing it in the Rules Committee – so please call his office as well.

“B) HB 1774 This is for the Elected School Board for Chicago – we must move this bill but Madigan stopped it in the House and put it into the Rules Committee – Call the House and Madigan to get this moving.

“C) HB 3567 Cap the expansion of charters in financially strapped school districts – yahoo! Madigan has blocked this one as well so please call the House and Madigan.”

Virus-free. http://www.avg.com

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Chicago, Democracy, Unions

Laura Chapman: The Bradley Foundation’s “Enemies List”

By dianeravitch
May 17, 2017 //
27

Laura Chapman, our much loved reader and brilliant researcher, dug into the recently released files on the Bradley Foundation. An earlier post described the reach and riches of this very conservative foundation, which has underwritten the proliferation of vouchers.

She writes:

In August 2014, the board of the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation asked for a list of “organizations that attack groups and people helping the Foundation further its mission” so it could determine ways “to mitigate the damage they do.”

In response, a veteran staffer compiled a list of 17 liberal organizations. In October 2014, internal documents say the board “received the presentation of the list favorably” and agreed to pursue “potential grant making options in the area.”

I constructed a spreadsheet of the Bradley list of liberal organizations. Some were for-profit public relations firms, many were 501 (c)(3) non-profits with a companion 501 (c)(4) that allows for limited forms of “political action.” Here is an edited list of some of the organizations, causes, and activities that really bothered the Bradley Foundation.

For-profit public relations firms.
Berlin Rosen. Known for devising a media strategy for a national “fast-food workers strike.” Clients: Service Employee International Union’s Committee on Political Education, League of Conservation Voters, New York University Law School’s Brennan Center for Justice, Russell Sage Foundation, United Nations Foundation.

Fenton Communications. Clients include liberal groups in education, environment, health, human rights, philanthropy, women’s issues, global issues, and the labor movement. Fenton was the architect of the “Alar scare” about a cancer-causing chemical used by apple growers. Specific clients; AFL-CIO, Service Employees International Union, Natural Resources Defense Council.

FitzGibbon Media. Clients have opposed solitary confinement for Chelsea Manning, pushed for gun control after Sandy Hook, and supported the film “Dirty Wars” about Obama’s program of targeted-assassinations and drone strikes. Clients: Ford Foundation, Amnesty International, Climate Parents, Color of Change, Common Cause, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, Netroots Nation, Social Security Works, Wisconsin Progress.

Change.org. A hybrid, certified as a “B Corporation” by the non-profit “B Lab” A “social-enterprise” that sells email addresses for petitions on issues.The estimated cost of a sponsored petition is $1.75 per email address. Estimated 40 million users in 2012.

Non-profits (c)(3) and( c)(4) action groups
Alliance for Justice. Group of 100 entities with Alliance for Justice Action Campaign. Monitors judicial selection, guides advocacy groups, produces documentaries, lobbies for liberal agenda.

American Bridge 21st Century Super PAC with American Bridge 21st Century Foundation. Employs 44 people in 41 states. Conducts opposition research on conservative political candidates. Credited with 2006 “Macaca” scoop, a video of candidate George Allen’s gaffe in a Virginia Senate race.

Center for American Progress and Think Progressblog with the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Especially critical of the Koch Brothers and their supporters. The Bradley Blog said it was attacked in a August 2011 CAP report “Fear, Inc.:The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America.”

Center for Media and Democracy, founded by John Podesta. Maintains ALECExposed.org.,PRWatch online, and SourceWatchplatform. Launches investigations and “strategic public-education campaigns.”

Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington (CREW). Files government complaints and lawsuits against corrupt politicians and interest groups. Maintains BermanExposed.com

Color of Change Project of Citizens Engagement Laboratory (CEL) and CEL Education Fund. Aim: “Strengthen Black America’s political voice.” CEL led the campaign against the Bradley Foundation and American Legislative Exchange Council in the wake of the killing of Trayvon Martin.

Common Cause with Common Cause Education Fund. An anti-corruption and campaign-finance “watchdog.” Opposes the agendas of the Koch brothers and American Legislative Exchange Council.

Democracy Alliance. A private financial clearinghouse for liberal policy groups and a matchmaker for allies that are not structured as a (c)(3). The Alliance has over 150 invited “partners” who pay an initial $25,000 fee and $30,000 in annual dues. They must give at least $200,000 per year to endorsed groups.

Media Matters for America and Media Matters Action Network. Documents conservative media bias via “fact-checking,” especially Rush Limbaugh, Fox News hosts and guests.

Mother Jones, published by Foundation for National Progress. MJ covers conservative “dark money” and elections. Caught Mitt Romney’s comment about “47%” of Americans who are living from government programs and pay no income tax.

One Wisconsin Now with One Wisconsin Institute. Created and maintains BradleyWatch.org

Open Society Institute. According to the Bradley Foundation the OSI “supports leftist groups many of which aggressively attack conservatives.”

Progress Now. In 2012 had an email list exceeding 2.4 million for use on state and local issues.

“Enemies” of the Bradley Foundation include fourteen organizations that support collective bargaining. Seven of these sent money to the Service Employees International Union and its Committee on Political Education. Others supported the AFL-CIO, National Education Association, American Federation of Teachers, Communication Workers of America, and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).

George Soros comes up as the one person whose liberal causes are supported by ten of the organizations on the Bradley Foundation enemies list. In 2017, Soros was among the wealthiest Americans with an estimated net worth of $25.2 billion. My Google search on Soros‘ name today returned many alt-news briefs claiming he was dead or was wanted “dead or alive.” As of May 14, 2017 he is alive. The Google links to these alt-facts may have been launched with some support from the Bradley Foundation. For background on Soros see the wikipedia.org website.

The Tides Foundation put money into six organizations on the Bradley enemies list. The net worth of the Tides Foundation in 2015 was $219.6 billion. The foundation seeks “ a world of shared prosperity and social justice, founded on equality and human rights, a sustainable environment, healthy individuals and communities, and quality education.” The Tides Foundation has initiated projects financed through social impact bonds, also known as pay for success contracts. These can yield profits for investors. In this respect the Tides Foundation operates from a less extreme version of the “markets are best” philosophy which the Bradley Foundation aggressively supports.

I have not checked on the current status of the “liberal” organizations targeted by the Bradley Foundation in 2014.

https://projects.jsonline.com/news/2017/5/5/bradley-foundation-enemy-list.html

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Education Industry, Privatization

Inside the Bradley Foundation: Documents Reveal Plan to Spread Right-Wing Ideology, State by State

By dianeravitch
May 17, 2017 //
15

Hackers broke into the computers of the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation and released a treasure trove documenting the aggressive efforts to spread right-wing ideology.

I posted about these documents earlier, citing an article called “Weaponized Philanthropy” by Mary Bottari.

There is so much material that there will be many articles and books about the political uses of an allegedly charitable foundation.

Here is another article about the Bradley Foundation by Alex Kotch, which appeared in Raw Story and AlterNet.

He writes:

New investigations by Daniel Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Mary Bottari of the Center for Media and Democracy analyze hacked internal documents, which reveal that much like the Koch network, the Bradley Foundation has launched a national strategy to help conservatives control the branches of state governments and alter state policy to lower taxes, shrink government and attack labor unions.

The Bradley Foundation, which has historically supported taxpayer-funded “school choice” initiatives and work requirements for welfare recipients, is named after Lynde and Harry Bradley, two brothers who founded the profitable factory automation manufacturer Allen Bradley Co. After Lynde’s death in 1942, the Allen-Bradley Foundation was established. When Allen Bradley was sold to Rockwell International in 1985 for $1.7 billion, the foundation’s assets ballooned and it became the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation as it added a focus on promoting the brothers’ conservative ideology on a national scale.

Thirty gigabytes of Bradley Foundation internal documents hacked by a group named Anonymous Poland reveal that after a $200 million influx of cash in late 2012 from the trust of Caroline Bradley, Lynde’s wife, the Bradley Foundation geared up to fund networks of conservative think tanks, legal centers, candidate recruitment organizations, media outlets and advocacy groups in 13 states, based on the foundation’s successful efforts in Wisconsin. The foundation had already laid the groundwork for a welfare-to-work program and a private school voucher system and defended GOP Gov. Scott Walker in a campaign finance probe, helping him survive a recall election prompted by his dismantling of public-sector unions.

Now the foundation is focusing on five states it views as having a strong conservative infrastructure, thus making them ripe for rightward change. The foundation is working to expand conservative power in Colorado, North Carolina, Oregon, Washington and Wisconsin by funding established networks of right-wing organizations that promote conservatism and help far-right candidates win elections. It’s a long-term strategy that “can take decades,” according to the longtime CEO of the foundation, Rick Graber, who recently stepped down from his post.

Be prepared, if you live in Colorado, Noth Carolina, Oregon, Washington, or Wisconsin. The Bradley Foundation is coming for your public schools.

Categories Billionaires, School Choice, Unions, Vouchers, Wisconsin

A Teacher in Florida Reacts to the LAUSD Election

By dianeravitch
May 17, 2017 //
38

The good guys lost. The guys with the backing of the billionaires won. The public schools of Los Angeles will shrink in numbers as the charter industry takes charge of the district.

Although the charter candidates wrapped themselves in the banner of Obama and Duncan, their victory is indeed a victory for the Trump-DeVos agenda.

A teacher in Florida reacted:


I am sitting here at 6 am in So. Florida crying. I feel like I am living in a nightmare and can’t wake up. So many good teachers jumping ship and the new ones coming in are doing so with no intention of making this nearly impossible job a career. With the chaos of moving ESE behaviors into the gen ed popuation as it is “least restricitve” to “restorative justice” (time out for desk throwers and send ’em back to class), overworked and overwhelmed guidance counselors, shared psychologists with 3-4 schools and an IDIOT state legislature that loves “births”, hates “lives” and depises the poor. Does anyone else see this as the beginning of the end of a free society or am I catastrophizing? What is wrong with this country? Why can’t the public see what is happening? If they see, why don’t they care? The defeat in teacher’s eyes is palpable. It can’ t continue.

As devastating as the defeat in Los Angeles is, we cannot give up hope for the future. As the saying goes, it is always darkest just before the dawn. This darkness is deep right now, and the dawn is nowhere in sight.

But the only certainty of defeat is giving up. The loss in Los Angeles was due to money and lies, but also apathy.

The message is clear: if we don’t rally the people, the parents, the citizens who owe their education to public schools, we will lose. If we give up trying, we will lose. Those of us who believe in democratic control of public schools that take responsibility for all children, that are financially and academically accountantable, that hire only certified staff, must fight on.

We must not lose hope. Without hope, we are lost. Hard as it is to sustain hope, we must persist. To abandon the struggle is to abandon our belief in a basic democratic institution. We can’t and we won’t. The struggle is not over, nor is it lost. Consider the loss in L.A. to be a loud wake-up call to fight the free-market ideologues and entrepreneurs. Consider it a challenge to redouble our efforts to save public education and resist privatization.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Lies, Los Angeles, Privatization, Propaganda, Resistance

Los Angeles: Early Returns Favor Privatizers

By dianeravitch
May 17, 2017 //
9

The results are just starting to be reported in the Los Angeles school board election. First to report are the absentee ballots, which put the corporate reformer Nick Melvoin into a 60-40 lead over Steve Zimmer. The turnout was very low. Imelda Padilla trails 52-48.

You can watch the official returns here. They are updated every 40 minutes.

http://cityclerk.lacity.org/election/results.html

Eli Broad must be opening Dom Perignon. He is on the verge of buying control of the public schools.

If he breaks it, he owns it.

Categories Billionaires, Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Los Angeles, Privatization

Peter Dreier: Who Are the Corporate Plutocrats Trying to Defeat Steve Zimmer in Los Angeles?

By dianeravitch
May 14, 2017 //
1

Peter Dreier, professor of political science at Occidental College in Los Angeles, warns that a cabal of billionaires are trying to defeat Steve Zimmer in order to take control of the public schools and privatize them. The vote on May 16 is in the national spotlight.

Can a handful of billionaires buy control of the nation’s second largest school district?

Before naming names, Dreier writes:

Some of America’s most powerful corporate plutocrats want to take over the Los Angeles school system but Steve Zimmer, a former teacher and feisty school board member, is in their way. So they’ve hired Nick Melvoin to get rid of him. No, he’s not a hired assassin like the kind on “The Sopranos.” He’s a lawyer who the billionaires picked to defeat Zimmer.

The so-called “Independent” campaign for Melvoin — funded by big oil, big tobacco, Walmart, Enron, and other out-of-town corporations and billionaires — has included astonishingly ugly, deceptive, and false attack ads against Zimmer.

This morning (Friday) the Los Angeles Times reported that “Outside spending for Melvoin (and against Zimmer) has surpassed $4.65 million.” Why? Because he doesn’t agree with the corporatization of our public schools. Some of their donations have gone directly to Melvoin’s campaign, but much of it has been funneled through a corporate front group called the California Charter School Association.

To try to hoodwink voters, the billionaires invented another front group with the same initials as the well-respected Parent Teacher Association, but they are very different organizations. They called it the “Parent Teacher Alliance.” Pretty clever, huh? But this is not the real PTA, which does not get involved with elections. In fact, the real PTA has demanded that this special interest PAC change their name and called the billionaires’ campaign Zimmer “misleading,” “deceptive practices,” and “false advertising.”

These out-of-town billionaire-funded groups can pay for everything from phone-banks, to mailers, to television ads. Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez described the billionaires’ campaign to defeat Zimmer, which includes sending mails filled with outrageous lies about Zimmer, as “gutter politics.”

As a result, the race for the District 4 seat — which stretches from the Westside to the West San Fernando Valley — is ground zero in the battle over the corporate take-over of public education. The outcome of next Tuesday’s (May 16) election has national implications in terms of the billionaires’ battle to reconstruct public education in the corporate mold.

The contest between Melvoin and Zimmer is simple. Who should run our schools? Who knows what’s best for students? Out-of-town billionaires or parents, teachers, and community residents?

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Democracy, Los Angeles, Privatization

Thomas Ultican: Shakespeare and the “Ocean God”

By dianeravitch
May 13, 2017 //
4

Thomas Ultican teaches physics and mathematics to high school students in San Diego.

In this post, he describes a wonderful day at the home of one of the nation’s greatest oceanographers, where middle school students performed scenes from Shakespeare.

The event was sponsored by the San Diego Shakespeare Society to raise funds for middle and high schools.

You will enjoy his account of a very wonderful day in a fabulous setting.

This is one of many events sponsored by the San Diego Shakespeare Society. Inspired by the idea “Teach a child Shakespeare at an early age and they can learn anything,” the Society sponsors many events for K-12 students. Amongst the largest of these is the annual event held on the various stages in Balboa Park’s Prado area at which about 500 students perform 10-minute scenes.

Ultican concludes his post by noting the virtue of philanthropy motivated by civic spirit:

It was such a pleasure to see how great people share their largess. After years of watching pseudo philanthropy harm public schools, it was refreshing to see genuine public spirit on display.

Can you imagine how wonderful it would be if Bill Gates, Eli Broad, Reed Hastings, Michael Bloomberg, the Walton Family, Doris Fisher (the Gap), John Arnold, Michael Dell, and the other billionaires spent their millions enriching the lives of students and teachers, instead of trying to privatize their public schools. I recently saw Bette Midler in “Hello, Dolly” on Broadway (wow wow wow–she was fantastic!), and learned in the program notes that she (though not a billionaire) raises money for a program called “Stages for Success,” which renovates public school auditoriums so that students have a performance space. Now, that’s philanthropy!

Categories Arts Education, Billionaires, California

Los Angeles: The Scurrilous Smear Campaign Against Steve Zimmer

By dianeravitch
May 13, 2017 //
14

The run-off campaign in District 4 in Los Angeles for School Board has turned into a national issue. The race between Steve Zimmer, president of the Los Angeles school board, and his challenger, Nick Melvoin, has become an epic struggle between supporters of public schools and supporters of privatization.

Zimmer entered teaching through Teach for America but, unlike the typical TFA, he stayed in the classroom in Los Angeles for 17 years.

Blogger “Red Queen in L.A.,” a parent of children in LAUSD, says this is a dirty and disgraceful campaign, and almost all the dirt has come from Nick Melvoin’s camp. Melvoin is running a campaign based on lies, propaganda, and smears. He is smearing not only Zimmer, but public education. He doesn’t deserve to be elected.

Steve Zimmer understands the gravity of his responsibility as president of the school board. He is a man of honesty, candor, and dignity. Melvoin is a puppet of out-of-town billionaires.

She writes:


Negative Ads Undermine Democracy

Mostly, the fourth board district school board race has been one of incessant negativity and lies. Why do we permit this uncivilized behavior? I can tell you in walking my neighborhood I am met with deep weariness, wariness and hostility. This is the legacy of democracy abused. This race has been nothing if not about Big Lies and electoral abuse, and that’s a lesson being bought – and paid for – dearly.

Independent Committee expenditures (IECs, the new normal for “PAC”s) in favor of both candidates have been about the same, averaging $1.8 million dollars at the moment. Each. You read that right. Think of the children. (Think of the printers.)

What is not similar is IC expenditures in opposition to their candidate. Melvoin’s IC devotes half an order of magnitude more in slandering Zimmer than his IC spends to oppose Melvoin.

Thus quite apart from the overall total spent which is obscene, a dramatic distinction between candidates is evident from what’s being spent to smear the other guy. Zimmer’s adherents spent less than one-quarter, 25%, of that average toward denigrating their opposition ($441K). Melvoin’s buddies sunk 140% of that average spent in support of their candidate ($2.4 million) on negative ads.

In fact, the amount Zimmer’s IEC devoted to negative campaigning is so comparatively trivial, the negligible difference between both campaign’s positive expenditures, which is just 6% – this sum ($114K) is 25% of what Zimmer’s camp spent in negativity altogether. His challenger spent 5.5x as much as the incumbent in stuffing our mailboxes with scurrilous lies.

So the current overall total of IECs is $6.4 million, and the electorate has responded with a resounding: “Beat It”.
The blowback to our electoral democracy is fierce. When I try to speak with my own neighbors with whom I have worked side-by-side for over twenty years improving their neighborhood, my neighborhood, everyone’s lives, their doors stay shut and they make clear they are fortressed against hearing anything “political”.

What they have absorbed are buzz words: “bad”, “failing”, “violent”, “drop-out”, “waste”, “fraud”, “scandal” – and on and on and on.

What they have forgotten is that their littlest neighbors, my children, are part of that system being smeared. And I volunteer within that system improving it just like I work to improve our neighborhoods….

That is what is Trumpian about the might of the California Charter Schools Association’s money and their power in this battle for the school board. Intimidation, slander and ultimately electoral paralysis. They strive to overwhelm us with false equivalence such that even the stark consequence of ideological differences so riven as represented by these candidates, is obscured.

Please do not let all this money win your single democratic voice. You must turn out to the polls in order to use it. This is the one and only way to assert Resistance.

VOTE FOR STEVE ZIMMER ON MAY 16:

KEEP OUR PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM PUBLIC

Categories Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Lies, Los Angeles, Privatization

L.A. Times Endorses Trump-DeVos Ticket for School Board

By dianeravitch
May 12, 2017 //
39

I was curious to see whether the L.A. Times editorial board would stand up for public education or would join the chorus of privatization and greed.

Would the editorial board be offended that billionaires are swamping the district with millions to promote the privatization candidates?

Would they recall all the stories about charter scandals and corruption that the newspaper has reported? Would they forget about the Celerity charter chain, whose CEO used the school credit cards for resorts, fancy hotels, lavish meals, couture clothing, and chaffer-driven limousines?

Could they possibly endorse the candidates benefitting from the money poured in by the likes of the Walton family and other out-of-town Republicans and rightwing corporate Democrats?

They could and they did.

Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised that they endorsed the candidates who are best equipped to promote the Trump-DeVos privatization agenda. And I won’t attribute it to the fact that the newspaper accepts $800,000 a year from Eli Broad for its education coverage, the elderly billionaire who has a fetish about stamping out public education. The editorial board has the chutzpah to refer to puppets of the charter industry as “independent thinkers.” If those two fit the L.A. Times’ definition of an “independent thinker,” they must be reading from a script provided by the billionaires who pull their strings.

Categories Billionaires, Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Los Angeles, Privatization

Los Angeles: Outside Money Continues to Pour in to Buy Control of LA School Board for Charter Industry

By dianeravitch
May 12, 2017 //
4

If you live in Los Angeles in one of the districts where there is a run-off, please vote for Steve Zimmer or Imelda Padilla.

Don’t let the billionaires buy control of the public schools. They don’t want to improve them. They want to turn them over to the unregulated, scandal-ridden charter industry.

Don’t be fooled: charters and choice and privatization are the Trump-DeVos agenda!

Howard Blume reports in the Los Angeles Times on the flood of outside money that is flowing into the high-profile run-offs for two crucial seats on the Los Angeles school board. The charter billionaires are dumping millions into the campaign to defeat Steve Zimmer, president of the school board, and into the race between Imelda Padilla and charter supporter Kelly Fitzpatrick Nonez.

The election is May 16. It will determine whether the charter industry can buy control of the nation’s second largest school district.

The owner of Netflix, billionaire Reed Hastings, has gifted $5 million to the California Charter School Association. Hastings memorably told a meeting of CCSA that he looks forward to the day when there are no more elected school boards in the nation. Democracy is a problem for corporate reformers. It is so much easier to just buy up the competition, instead of giving ordinary people a vote that is equal in power to the vote of a billionaire.

Two members of the billionaire Walton family from Arkansas have given to the charter candidates. They are part of America’s wealthiest family, whose riches were gained by paying low wages to their non-union employees.

Teachers unions have supported Zimmer and Padilla, but the unions’ money comes from their hard-working members, not from a family fortune or billionaires with no limits on what they spend.

Outside spending for Melvoin has surpassed $4.25 million; for Zimmer, $2.16 million.

Both charter-backed candidates have raised more money for their own campaigns than their opponents have.

Charters are privately operated public schools that are exempt from some rules that govern traditional campuses. Most are nonunion.

CCSA Advocates can use donations for any political purpose, but the L.A. school board race — the most expensive in the nation — has been its primary project.

Besides having money, Hastings is a desirable donor for the charter side in left-leaning California. He’s been a regular and reliable contributor to Democratic causes and candidates. That’s a valuable attribute given the state’s anti-Trump political climate — because the Trump administration has made increasing the number of charter schools a central goal.

Like Trump’s Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, Hastings is an ardent, longtime advocate for charters and a major donor to charter causes. (California Gov. Jerry Brown also strongly supports charters, though not as a big-money contributor.)

The teachers union casts donors such as Hastings in the role of outside billionaire trying to buy a local election. Hastings has insisted he simply wants to support meaningful steps to improve public education.

The “outsider” tag also applies to some other donors; some are notably associated with conservative or anti-union politics, or both.

Major CCSA Advocates donors since last September include:

Former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan: $1 million. (Riordan gave another million to a second, allied campaign to defeat Zimmer.)
Conservative GAP co-founder Doris Fisher: $1.05 million
Walmart heir Jim Walton: $500,000
Philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs (whose late husband, Apple founder Steve Jobs, was assertively anti-union): $250,000
Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg: $200,000
Walmart heir Alice Walton: $200,000…

United Teachers Los Angeles ended 2016 with about $366,000 in a political action committee established to support its candidates, according to public filings.The union also had $286,000 in a fund for “issues” messages. That latter fund has been tapped to put out flyers with messages such as, “Thank Steve Zimmer for student recovery day.”

Issues advertising cannot refer to an election or an election date. Nor can it urge voters to vote a certain way. But there’s a clear political benefit for the union-backed candidates.

UTLA also collects an average of $9.50 a month from the 22% of its 32,000 members who have agreed to contribute, totaling about $67,000 a month from January onward, said union political director Oraiu Amoni. This money is split about 60-40 between candidate and issues messages.

And last week, union members voted to borrow $500,000 from their strike fund for such messages. Past debts to the strike fund will not be paid off until 2020, according to Amoni.

UTLA also is spending a smaller but undisclosed amount as part of a “We Are Public Schools” media campaign, which includes billboards with positive messages about public schools. Some feature pictures of Zimmer or Padilla.

Besides the American Federation of Teachers, other unions have kicked in for those candidates — notably the National Education Assn. with $700,000 and the California Teachers Assn. with $250,000.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Los Angeles, Privatization
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