Archives for category: Billionaires
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Peter Greene: The Billionaires Want to Buy the Washington State Supreme Court

By dianeravitch
November 3, 2016 //
12

In 2012, Bill Gates and friends spent close to $20 million to win a referendum allowing charter schools, after losing the previous three such referenda. To their chagrin, the Washington State Supreme Court ruled that charter schools are not public schools because they do not answer to elected school boards. Thus, they are not entitled to receive public funding intended for public schools. This made Gates and friends really angry.

Now, Peter Greene tells us what Gates and friends are doing about the mess. They are spending another load of money to oust judges on the State Supreme Court, to punish them for daring to deny public funding to privately managed charter schools. They are literally trying to buy control of Washington’s highest court.

So here’s Chief Justice Barbara Madsen, the author of the 2015 decision that ruled Washington’s charter law unconstitutional. She is being opposed by Greg Zempel who doesn’t like how capricious and random the court’s decisions are. Zempel has been backed by a pile of money from Stand for Children, an Oregon reformster group that has funneled money to his campaign from Connie Ballmer, wife of former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer; Reed Hastings, founder and CEO of Netflix; and Vulcan Inc., owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. Vulcan and Ballmer were big financial backers of the charter law that was struck down.

Also facing reformster-backed challenge is Justice Charlie Wiggins (who is nothing if not a snappy dresser). Charteristas must sense a vulnerability because as we come down to the wire, they have pumped almost a million dollars into the campaign of Federal Way Municipal Court Judge Dave Larson. Vulcan tossed in $300K and Gates threw in $200K of his own. Meanwhile, one more fly-by-night PAC, Judicial Integrity Washington has dropped $350K on a tv ad smear campaign against Wiggins featuring ads that other members of the legal community likened to the infamous Willie Horton ads used against Dukakis way back in the– well, shut up, kid. Some of us remember that.

Parent activist Dora Taylor in Seattle writes that Bill Gates is so eager to gain control of the Washington State Supreme Court that he is backing a climate-change denier for a seat on the state’s highest court.

So we know that billionaires can buy legislators; they do that all the time. Now will they be able to buy Washington’s highest court, which had the nerve to stand up for public education as defined in the state constitution?

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Privatization, Stand for Children, Washington State

Big Money Assault in San Diego School Board Elections

By dianeravitch
November 2, 2016 //
10

I hope you are not tiring of these stories about the intrusion of big money from corporate giants and billionaires into local school board races. Their goal is always the same: privatization and charter schools.

Here is the latest, from San Diego:

Who’s Behind the Big Money Takeover of San Diego County Schools?

It is the same story everywhere: The subversion of democracy as titans pour hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars into local contests. In the past, a citizen who wanted to serve on the local board could spend $10,000, $15,000, and run a respectable campaign.

But when billionaires like the Waltons, Bloomberg, Hastings, Arnold, Gates, etc, make your election their priority, they steal our democracy.

We need campaign finance laws that limit how much can be spent to foil the billionaires and DFER.

Categories Billionaires, California, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform

Bernie Sanders Opposes Mass. Question 2

By dianeravitch
November 1, 2016 //
25

Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont just posted a letter, now circulating on Twitter, stating his opposition to Question 2 in Massachusetts, which would add 12 privately-managed charter schools a year forever.

He wrote “Wall Street must not be allowed to hijack public education in Massachusetts. We must defeat Massachusetts Ballot Question 2. This is Wall Street’s attempt to line their own pockets while draining resources away from public education at the expense of low-income, special education students, and English-language learners.”

He writes that charter schools already siphon away $450 million from public schools. If Question 2 passes, the hedge fund managers and corporations will take away another $1 billion from public schools.

The statement by Bernie Sanders and the earlier statement by Senator Elizabeth Warren will certainly put an obstacle in the path of the billionaires supporting privatization and pretending to be progressives.

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

Zephyr Teachout Wants to Debate the Billionaires Funding Her Opponent

By dianeravitch
October 29, 2016 //
6

Zephyr Teachout is a genuine progressive who is running for Congress in New York. She was endorsed by Senator Bernie Sanders. He came to her district to campaign for her. She has written a vivid analysis of the hedge fund managers’ effort to privatize public education (you should read it, it is excellent). She is one of the few people in a position to influence the debate about the future of public education who understands the danger of corporate reform to our democracy. She needs our help.

Three billionaires have flooded her district with money to help her opponent. She needs our help! She deserves our help.

Can you send her $19? That is the average contribution she has been receiving.

I received this email:


I had my final debate with my opponent this week, but there’s a couple more men that voters need to hear from before election day.

I want to debate the three billionaires who are funding the majority of outside spending in our district: casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson, and hedge fund billionaires Robert Mercer and Paul Singer. The super PAC they’re funding has spent more money against us than in any of the dozens of other races they’re targeting in the entire country.

These guys think they can just dump millions of dollars into our district to try to buy this seat in Congress. Well, if that’s how these billionaires they want to do things, I think voters deserve to hear from them directly.

When I first brought up the idea of debating billionaire super PAC funders, we never heard back. So let’s try something different. I hear billionaires like money. Let’s send a message to these billionaires in a language they’re sure to understand.

Can you help us raise $50,000 for our campaign today and to send an unmistakable message about the power of our grassroots movement? Please add your $19 contribution — the average amount donated to our campaign — or whatever you can afford to help with this challenge.

I think we can get their attention by showing we can raise the kind of money that can compete with what they’re spending every day in our district.

It’s important for voters that I debate these billionaires because we should hear what the billionaires are really interested in. Because something tells me that Robert Mercer doesn’t have an opinion about how to clean up contaminated drinking water in Hoosick Falls.

I’m willing to bet Sheldon Adelson doesn’t really care about the best way to fight Lyme disease in our district. And Paul Singer maybe hasn’t even thought about the concerns farmers have about sustaining their businesses — except when it comes to how Singer can profit from the banks who deny farmers loans.

What’s happening here is exactly the problem with corruption in our democracy. Billionaires are spending unlimited amounts of money to try and buy a seat in Congress, not because they really care about the Hudson Valley, but because they want a reliable vote to protect their profits.

That’s why it’s so important for our people-powered movement to respond to these super PACs by raising $50,000 for our campaign today. Let’s show we can compete with whatever they come at us next — and maybe one of them will even come to debate before Election Day.

Chip in $19 — the average contribution to our campaign — or whatever you can afford to send an unmistakable message to the billionaires who want to buy our democracy.

Thank you,

Zephyr

CONTRIBUTE

Categories Billionaires, Corporate Reformers, Politics

A Free Book on Amazon That Explains the Plot to Privatize Public Schools

By dianeravitch
October 28, 2016 //
14

You can go to Amazon and click on this link to receive a free pdf of a 40-page report called “Who Controls Our Schools? The Privatization of American Public Education.”

It is up-to-date, concise, and well-written. It was prepared by Don Hazen, Elizabeth Hines, Steven Rosenfeld, and Stan Salett of THE INDEPENDENT MEDIA INSTITUTE.

If your friends and relatives don’t understand why you are worried about the future of public schools, share this document with them.

Here is the table of contents:

Introduction………………………………….

Analysis/Findings ……………………………..

2.1 How the School Privatization Industry Has Hijacked the Concept of Education Reform

2.2 How a Group of Billionaires Has Aggressively Pushed to Privatize the Public School System

2.3 How the Myth of “Failing Schools” Helped Spur
a Movement. . . One-Sided Propaganda Machine. . . . . . . . . . . ….

2.4 How a Lack of Transparency Undermines Schools
and Communities: Privatization in Action . . . . . . . . . . .

2.5 How Locally Elected School Boards and Democratic Governance Have Been Destroyed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
In Los Angeles, Pushing Charters,
by Every Means Necessary . . . . . . . . . . .. ……..

2.6 How the Legal Framework for Privatization
and Total Control Has Taken Hold. . . . . . . .. ……. .

2.7 How the Rapid Expansion of Privatized
Charters Is Pushed. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. ……..
Today’s Battlefront States . . . . . . . . . . . .. ……..

2.8 How to Take a Hard Look at Charter Schools
and Educational Outcomes: Rhetoric Is Not
the Same as Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ……..

2.9 How Charters Create Self-Enrichment Schemes
and Crony Capitalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Self-Enrichment……. Nepotism … Corporate Profiteering . . . . . . . . .

2.10 How School Privatization Keeps Out Regulators
or Captures Them . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Policy Recommendations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Acknowledgments ………………………………

About the Authors ……………………………….

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

A Busy Day in the Life of a Fighter for Public Schools

By dianeravitch
October 27, 2016 //
9

You will enjoy reading about Leonie Haimson’s busy and productive day. Leonie is a fighter for smaller class size, better funding for schools, and student privacy. She is founder of Class Size Matters and Student Privacy Matters. She is tireless (and unpaid). She is the most frightening antagonist for education reformers because they can’t understand people who are motivated by principle, not profit.

She started the day at the Harvard Club, outside the doors, protesting with other activists against the billionaires and dark money behind Question 2 in Massachusetts. Inside, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker had come to talk to the conservative Manhattan Institute about his efforts to lift the charter cap, thus expanding privatization of public education.

That afternoon, she learned that she and other allies had come a judicial decision to open the meetings of School Leadership Teams to the public.

She wrote:

“The Appellate court heard arguments from both sides on January 21, 2016 — and took nearly a year to rule. But finally, in another slam-dunk, unanimous decision, they reaffirmed the lower Court ruling that SLT’s are public bodies in state governance law, and thus their meetings must be open to the public. Much thanks goes to Michael Thomas, Tish James and the attorneys from NY Lawyers for Public Interest and Advocates for Justice who represented the Public Advocate and Class Size Matters in court.”

Leonie is on many boards, including the Network for Public Education and New York State Allies for Public Education, which organized the successful statewide parent opt out. She is already a hero of this blog. She is the right person to take on the billionaires. They can’t buy her or beat her.

Go, Leonie, go!

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Network for Public Education, Parents, Privatization, Resistance

Washington Post: Opiod Use Kills Thousands, Enforcement Dwindles: Why?

By dianeravitch
October 23, 2016 //
32

The Washington Post has an interesting article about a curious phenomenon: Deaths caused by opiod abuse are rising, while prosecution of those involved in the supply line by the Drug Enforcement Administration has been ebbing.

The story begins:

“A decade ago, the Drug ­Enforcement Administration launched an aggressive campaign to curb a rising opioid epidemic that was claiming thousands of American lives each year. The DEA began to target wholesale companies that distributed hundreds of millions of highly addictive pills to the corrupt pharmacies and pill mills that illegally sold the drugs for street use.

Leading the campaign was the agency’s Office of Diversion Control, whose investigators around the country began filing civil cases against the distributors, issuing orders to immediately suspend the flow of drugs and generating large fines.

But the industry fought back. Former DEA and Justice Department officials hired by drug companies began pressing for a softer approach. In early 2012, the deputy attorney general summoned the DEA’s diversion chief to an unusual meeting over a case against two major drug companies.

“That meeting was to chastise me for going after industry, and that’s all that meeting was about,” recalled Joseph T. Rannazzisi, who ran the diversion office for a decade before he was removed from his position and retired in 2015.

Rannazzisi vowed after that meeting to continue the campaign. But soon officials at DEA headquarters began delaying and blocking enforcement actions, and the number of cases plummeted, according to on-the-record interviews with five former agency supervisors and internal records obtained by The Washington Post.”

What gives?

It is always useful to follow the money trail. The article mentions Purdue Pharmaceuticals, one of the biggest manufacturers of opioids.

Purdue has made one family into billionaires: the Sackler family of Connecticut, who made Forbes list of the nation’s richest families in 2015, with a family valuation of $13.5 billion. By some estimates, more than 2 million people are addicted to OxyContin is the US. Purdue has paid out hundreds of millions in fine, and the state of Kentucky is suing the company for nearly $1 billion. Not to put to fine a point on the matter, one article blamed the opiod epidemic on one company, with its aggressive marketing: “How the American opiate epidemic was started by one pharmaceutical company.” That company: Purdue, owned by the Sackler family.

What does this have to do with education?

Jonathan Sackler of the billionaire Sacklers is a big supporter of charters and privatization. Jonathan Pelto pointed this out in this post.

Charters? Check.

50CAN? Check.

StudentsFirst? Check.

Teach for America? Check.

Students for Educational Reform? Check.

And let us not forget daughter Madeline Sackler’s worshipful film about Eva Moskowitz called “The Lottery.”

It is ironic that people who fight for the public good must turn to crowd-sourcing and GoFundMe and Kickstarter campaigns, while those who push privatization of public schools can count on fortunes created by drug abuse, death, and addiction.

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

Marla Kilfoyle: The Plan to Privatize Public Education and the Sound of Silence

By dianeravitch
October 21, 2016 //
29

Marla Kilfoyle is a teacher on Long Island and executive director of the BATS.

In this post, she describes the well-funded effort to privatize public education in New York State.

We have lived with it for so many years that it seems to be just one more issue, although it is an issue that the mainstream media completely ignores. It is the “Sound of Silence,” as she says.

She writes:

“Election season is always a difficult time for many educators and education activist. We begin to look at all the campaign donations that fly to politicians from people, and organizations, that seek to destroy public education. It is the same old players emerging here in N.Y.

“The Waltons, The Koch Brothers, StudentsFirstNY funded by Wall Street Hedge Funders like Paul Singer, Dan Loeb, and John Paul Tudor.

“The NYS Senate Republican Committee are HUGE cheerleaders for the charter movement and have received millions for this election cycle from the folks listed above. For the sake of transparency, our Governor, and a smattering of Democrats, are also cheerleaders for charter expansion and the privatization movement.

“I will have to say that NO ONE, and I mean NO ONE, is a bigger cheerleader for privatization than John Flanagan, the Republican majority leader in our Senate. He is also a member of ALEC

“The ALEC education agenda is model legislation that travels around the nation when they need to defund schools, close them, and open up unaccountable charters. They support ending public education for a competitive model of education. The problem with a competitive model is that there are always winners and losers. We should have NO losers when it comes to education in this country….

“Republican Carl Marcellino, who is running against Democrat Jim Gaughran, got not one but two, yes two, $142,590 independent expenditure from StudentsFirstNY (A20133) for media. Republican Elaine Phillips, who is running against Democrat Adam Haber, got a $271,950 independent expenditure from StudentsFirstNY (A20133). Anyone who follows the fight to save public education KNOWS that StudentsFirst has been on the frontlines of the attack on public education and public school teachers. They have been the cheerleaders for Common Core, High-Stakes Testing, School Closures, vouchers, choice, and charter expansion. The sad thing is that Marcellino is on the NYS Education Committee. Call me crazy but shouldn’t that mean he should fight for public education NOT privatization? The larger question is – who will Marcellino and Phillips be accountable to when it comes to education policy? We all know the answer to that question. The Money!

“The PAC that is distributing all this money to StudentsFirstNY – New Yorkers for a Balanced Albany is funded by anti-public education billionaires. The other PAC, New Yorkers for Independent Action, is also supported by billionaires who are anti-public education. This money is being distributed to politicians who will support their destructive agenda for public education in NY.
Bottom line is – we must get to the polls and vote anyone out who takes this money – Republican or Democrat.

“As a public educator, education activist, and mother I will NOT be voting for anyone who takes money from StudentsFirstNY, New Yorkers for a Balanced Albany or New Yorkers for Independent Action. Public education is for the public good and we should be funding that equitably, not defunding and destroying it. Public education should not be competitive where you have winners and losers. Public education is the cornerstone of our democracy and is the great equalizer.

“So, why did I title this piece the sound of silence?

“While the NYS Senate Republican Committee is raking in all this cash from anti-public education billionaires, NOT many of them have said a word about Donald Trump’s behavior. To me, silence means acceptance.

“It’s OK to malign immigrants and it’s OK to malign women….

“Oh, and by the way, the NYS Senate Republican Committee thinks it is OK to pay for and distribute anti-semitic flyers. This is a flyer that the Senate Republican Committee distributed about Adam Haber, who is Jewish and running against Republican Elaine Phillips.

“To add insult to injury this was distributed during the week of Yom Kippur.”

Open the link to see the anti-Semitic image that the New York State Republican Committee distributed about Adam Haber. This is the same committee that received millions in contributions from former Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, New York, Privatization, Teachers

Jersey Jazzman Gives a Lesson to DFER About W.E.B. DuBois and the Talented Tenth

By dianeravitch
October 18, 2016 //
13

The NAACP’s decision to call for a moratorium of charter school expansion until laws can be revised to provide accountability and transparency. This decision sent shock waves inside the corporate reform echo chamber. Would they still be able to call themselves leaders of the civil rights ipissue of our time if the NAACP disagreed with their aggressive efforts to privatize public schools?

The right wing reform headquarters called the Center for Education Reform in D.C. put out a press release accusing the NAACP of caving in to pressure from teachers’ unions. Of course, that implies that the corporate-funded conservatives at CER care more about black children than the NAACP and its national convention. Hard to believe.

Then Shavar Jeffries of the Democrats for Education Reform (the hedge fund managers’ pro-charter advocacy group) issued a statement saying that the great African-American scholar W.E.B. DuBois would be shocked to see the NAACP turn against charter schools and privatization.

Jersey Jazzman calls out Jeffries for apparently never having read DuBois. JJ points out that DuBois was clear about his commitment to an elite education for “the talented tenth.” Maybe Jeffries was acknowledging that charters are only for a small elite (which Mike Petrilli called “the strivers”). If so, that case should be stated openly and clearly, instead of pretending that charters could save “poor kids in failing schools.”

JJ also notes that DuBois was a Marxist and it was unlikely that he would support the privatization of public education. Or that he would be able to tolerate an alliance with Wall Street and hedge fund managers.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Equity, Privatization

Our Lost Poet on the “Charge of the Gates Brigade”

By dianeravitch
October 16, 2016 //
22

This is one of the very best poems from Some DamPoet. He/she wrote it after the Gates Foundation admitted that its plans were not working out as well as they hoped, but that they intended to double down on their foundering efforts. The Los Angeles Times reprimanded the Gates Foundation for its hubris. So does Our Poet.

“The Charge of the Gates Brigade” (based on “The Charge of the Light Brigade”, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson)

Half a wit, half a wit,
Half a wit onward,
All in the Valley of Dumb
Bill and Mel foundered
“Forward, the Gates Brigade!
Charge for the schools!” he said.
Into the Valley of Dumb
Bill and Mel foundered

II

“Forward, the Gates Brigade!”
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the Coleman knew
Someone had blundered.
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and lie.
Into the Valley of Dumb
Bill and Mel foundered

III

Teachers to right of them,
Teachers to left of them,
Teachers in front of them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with fact and stat,
Boldly they tuned out that,
Into the Ravitch jaws,
Into the mouth of cat
Bill and Mel foundered

IV

Flashed all their BS bare,
Dashed was their savoir faire
VAMming the teachers there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wondered.
Plunged in with mir’s-n-smoke
Valiantly went for broke;
Cluelessly rushin’
Reeled from reality’s stroke
Shattered and sundered.
VAMming attack, for naught,
Bill and Mel foundered

V

Teachers to right of them,
Teachers to left of them,
Teachers behind them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with fact and stat,
While Bill and Mel chewed fat
They that had fought the BAT
Came through the Ravitch jaws,
Back from the mouth of cat,
All that was left in end:
Bill and Mel foundered

VI

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Gates Brigade,
Bill and Mel foundered

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Common Core, Education Reform, Failure, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates
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