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Los Angeles Teacher: Why I Am Voting for Tony Thurmond

By dianeravitch
November 2, 2018 //
4

Marcy Winograd tought in the high schools of Los Angeles for 25 years.

She explains in this article why she is voting for Tiny Thurmond for State Superintendent of Public Instruction.

“This November,, Californians can choose a candidate for State Superintendent of Public Instruction with a track record of supporting our public schools – Oakland Assemblyman Tony Thurmond – or another far less qualified candidate Marshall Tuck—whose allegiance to the school privatization agenda threatens to bankrupt public school districts.

“I am a retired public high school English and special education teacher with 25 years experience in the Los Angeles Unified School District. For me, there’s only one right answer on this no-brainer.

“I’m voting for Tony Thurmond, a 20-year social worker, with 12 years experience working in schools, who served on both the Richmond City Council and the West Contra Costa School Board before his election to the State Assembly in 2014.

“Though both Thurmond and Tuck are registered Democrats, only Thurmond won the endorsement of the state Democratic Party – this with 89% of the delegate vote after Thurmond delivered an electrifying speech at the state convention in San Diego…

“While Thurmond toiled in the trenches as a social worker, running programs for foster youth and mental health afterschool programs, Tuck worked as an investment banker on Wall Street, rubbing shoulders with billionaires looking for the next hot stock. Later, Tuck—a Harvard business school graduate – became Chief Operating Officer for Los Angeles’ Green Dot charter school chain, which operates 29 charter schools throughout California.

“Green Dot schools are far from the wild success story that Tuck purports them to be. Green Dot school Animo Charter in Inglewood had the lowest test scores among all charter school chains – scoring zero percent proficient in 2005, 2006, and 2007 in student readiness in English to enter Cal State University.

“Tuck’s biggest backers – the California Charter School Association and the Waltons of Walmart fortune – are tethered to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ education privatization agenda that seeks to rob public schools of funding and funnel those dollars into charter schools that operate in the shadows.

“Out of the public eye, charter schools may hire administrators without credentials, use textbooks that lack state approval, appoint unaccountable school board members and cherry-pick their students to cast off the highest need students – special education students, English learners – to the neighborhood public school. Tuck’s list of supporters and benefactors – Walmart son Jim Walton (net worth 45 billion), real estate magnate Eli Broad (net worth 6.7 billion), venture capitalist Arthur Rock (net worth 1.1 billion) is a who’s who in the contemporary world of public education deconstruction, leaving far too many students behind and an education system ripe for Wall Street bankers ready to capitalize on a profitable burgeoning education market…

“In 2008 Tuck stepped down from Green Dot to become CEO of the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools (PLAS), a small group of privately managed LAUSD public schools that included elementary, middle and high schools.

“Recalled Tuck in an interview with the San Diego Union Tribune, “ …when I left Green Dot, we were opening new schools and building new cultures and then doing some you know, turnarounds, to the Partnership where we were doing you know turnarounds of existing schools.”

“This “turnaround” resulted in PLAS schools underperforming compared to LAUSD schools with similiar demographics, despite millions raised in additional private funding.

“Moreover, in nine out of ten PLAS schools, Tuck received landslide votes of “no confidence” from teachers.

“In Watts, at Ritter Elementary school, where 42% of the student body were English learners, Tuck unilaterally abolished a prized dual language immersion program, outraging parents who accused him of disregarding their civil rights and violating the State Education Code, one Tuck routinely rails against for its regulations.

“Meanwhile, students at Santee HS in downtown Los Angeles complained vociferously when Tuck slashed their popular ethnic studies classes in which they discussed racial and gender stereotypes, as well as their cultural heritage.

“What Tuck lacked in ability to improve educational outcomes he made up for with punitive policies against students of color.In the last year of Tuck’s tenure, 2012-2013, Markham Middle School and Samuel Gompers Middle Schools reported suspension rates of 14% and 17% respectively—shameful statistics in light of the overall LAUSD suspension rate of 1.7%. According to arecent report from the UCLA Civil Rights Project suspensions resulted in over 760,000 days of lost instruction in the 2016-2017 school year alone, with students of color in grades 7-8 the most impacted, a particularly distrubing finding because repeated suspensions set up students for failure, for what policy makers term “push-out”—pushing the most challenging students—the ones who need counseling and mentoring the most—onto the street to drop out of school althogether in 9th grade. This is what they call the school-to-prison pipeline…

“Ultimately, we need a state schools chief who believes in our public schools and public teachers, not one who goes to war against them.

“California voters must decide: vote for the teachers’ choice, Tony Thurmond, or the billionaires’ choice, Marshall Tuck.”

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Billionaires, California, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization

ACLU of Northern California Condemns Pro-Marshall Tuck PAC for Misleading Attacks on Tony Thurmond

By dianeravitch
November 1, 2018 //
10

Marshall Tuck’s billionaire funders have given his campaign $30 million, double what his opponent Tony Thurmond has raised.

Tuck’s campaign has used his money to run negative attack ads against Thurmond. Things got so bad that the ACLU OF Northern California issued a statement condemning Tuck’s PAC for misuse of its name in misleading advertising.

These vicious campaign ads raise an important question about Marshall Tuck’s character. Should someone who plays dirty be the education leader of California? Is Tuck so desperate to win that he will stoop so low? Are these Trumpian values appropriate for an educator?

Here is the Northern California ACLU statement.

The Thurmond campaign responded:

Contact: Madeline Franklin
209-210-8950

ACLU of Northern California Condemns Pro-Marshall Tuck PAC EdVoice For Misleading Attacks on Tony Thurmond

Thurmond campaign called for TV ads citing ACLU to be taken down after ACLU of Northern California called EdVoice tactics misleading and damaging.

San Francisco – Thursday, November 1, 2018 – ACLU of Northern California (ACLU-NC) Executive Director Abdi Soltani sent a strong letter to Bill Lucia, EdVoice Executive Director, condemning his organization’s decision to use the ACLU name in mailers attacking Assemblymember Tony Thurmond, a candidate for State Superintendent of Public Instruction. The Thurmond campaign called on Marshall Tuck to join them in calling for an apology to California voters and to demand TV ads also using the ACLU name to be taken down.

“I am writing to express my strong disappointment in EdVoice’s decision to use the ACLU name in your direct mail in a manner that is confusing voters and harming the ACLU of Northern CA,” wrote Soltani. “We have already publicly clarified that we have nothing to do with this mailer or your campaign. EdVoice is not a fly by night organization, and with your decision, you have damaged your reputation and standing with the ACLU-NC.”

Mailers and TV ads attacking Thurmond and prominently featuring the ACLU name are paid for by “Students, Parents, and Teachers Supporting Marshall Tuck for Superintendent of Public Instructio 2018n, a Project of EdVoice,” which is a committee funded by several pro-charter school industry billionaires including Netflix CEO and EdVoice board member Reed Hastings.

The ACLU of Southern California also released a statement on the “misleading” mailer. Soltani demanded a meeting with Lucia and the board chair of EdVoice after the election to discuss their strong concerns, while the Thurmond campaign suggested that Tuck join in calling on EdVoice to publicly apologize and take down TV ads which are still using the ACLU name.

“It’s worst form of politics to exploit the ACLU name to mislead voters into supporting Marshall Tuck,” said Madeline Franklin, Thurmond’s campaign manager. “The sad irony here is that the ACLU of California gave Tony Thurmond a 100% legislative voting record. Tony’s spent his entire career as a social worker and public servant serving the same kids the ACLU fights for, including foster youth, students of color, and youth in the juvenile justice system.”

Franklin continued:

“If Marshall Tuck has any regard for the ACLU’s core values for individual rights, including Californians’ voting rights, he should join the Thurmond campaign in calling on his supporters to publicly apologize to the California voters who have been misled by these egregious ads and call for the remaining TV ads to be taken down immediately.”

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Categories Accountability, California, Cheating, Education Reform, Lies

Please Share This Short Video with Everyone You Know in California

By dianeravitch
November 1, 2018 //
6

This is the election for State Superintendent of Public Instruction in less than two minutes.
Stop the corporate takeover of public education in California.

Please email it to every voter you know in California. Tweet it. Share it on social media.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Billionaires, California, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization

California: The Out Of Town Billionaires Who Want to Buy and Privatize Public Schools

By dianeravitch
November 1, 2018 //
22

California has more charter schools than any other state. In part, this is because Governor Jerry Brown is a charter school ally, having opened two charters when he was mayor of Oakland. This great progressive governor had a blind spot about charters and ignored the proliferation of charters that were fraudulent and openly embezzled money from taxpayers to fatten their own wallets.

The study linked below lists the billionaires who bought the LAUSD election in 2017.

These are the same billionaires who are now bankrolling Marshall Tuck in his bid to become State Superintendent of Public Instruction. In that role, he would manage the growth of the charter industry and the decline of public schools. This is exactly the goal of Betsy DeVos.

A vote for Tony Thurmond is a vote to stop privatization and to improve public schools.

See the entire report on “out of town billionaires” here.

Learn the names of those who want to purchase the public sector and hand it over to pother entrepreneurs.

Will the voters be hoaxed?

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, California, Charter Schools, Education Reform, Fraud

San Rafael, California: School Board Candidate Shamed for Taking TFA-LEE Cash, from Walton and Bloomberg

By dianeravitch
November 1, 2018 //
6

In San Rafael, California, a School Board Race has been roiled by charges that one candidate took money from Leaders for Educational Equity (LEE), the little-known political arm of Teach for America.

LEE is funded by the usual out-of-State billionaires, including Alice Walton and Michael Bloomberg.

Other candidates wonder why this one guy became the favorite of out-of-State billionaires.

Good question.

These billionaires don’t give money for no reason. They expect something in return.

It’s a very good sign when citizens raise questions and follow the money.

The money is poisoning our politics.

Exposing it is necessary to save our democracy and prevent the billionaires from buying whatever they want. Including school boards and democracy.

To learn more about the billionaire raid on local school board, read this report from NPE Action: Hijacked by Billionaires: How the Super Rich Buy Elections to Undermine Public Schools.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Bloomberg, Michael, California, Corporate Reform, Democracy, Teach for America

Valerie Strauss on the Race between Marshall Tuck and Tony Thurmond for State Superintendent of Public Instruction in California

By dianeravitch
October 31, 2018 //
17

Valerie Strauss summarizes the race between Marshall Tuck and Tony Thurmond.

Tuck has raised nearly $30 million from the billionaires who support charter schools; Thurmond has raised about $15 million, mostly from labor unions, teachers, and Democrats.

Tuck is supported by the Republican party. Although he claims to be a Democrat, he was booed at the state Democratic convention.

She writes:

One of the loudest and most expensive state races in the country is between two Democrats vying to win the nonpartisan position of superintendent of public instruction in California. More money is being spent on the race — for a position that has no independent policymaking power — than in most U.S. Senate campaigns.

The fight — the costliest in the state’s history for this post, with more than $43 million in campaign contributions, according to EdSource — is between state legislator Tony Thurmond and Marshall Tuck, a former charter school network president.

Thurmond, who was elected to the California State Assembly in 2014 from the East Bay, has been a teacher, social worker, city councilman and school board member. Tuck is a former banker who became the first president of the Green Dot network of charter schools in Los Angeles. After that, he founded a nonprofit that used privately donated money from the wealthy to help turn around troubled traditional public schools. Four years ago, he ran unsuccessfully for state superintendent in a race that cost some $30 million (with a lot of it coming from billionaires backing Tuck)…

The fight between Thurmond and Tuck is the latest chapter in a long-running debate about public education in a state with a scandal-ridden charter school sector and severely underfunded traditional school districts. California has more charter schools — which are publicly funded but privately operated — and more charter students than any state.

Should Tuck win, supporters of charter schools will take heart. If Thurmond triumphs, supporters of traditional public education will.

Tuck has raised far more than Thurmond, about $5 million in direct contributions, compared with $3.1 million for Thurmond, according to the Associated Press. Most of the money in the race has gone through political committees that can accept unlimited amounts of money but are not allowed to coordinate with the campaigns. In this arena, Tuck is far ahead, with two committees backing him taking in $24.1 million, according to Ed Source, with a committee supporting Thurmond’s bid taking in $11.5 million so far.

Much of Tuck’s contributions have come from billionaires who support charter schools and many who live out of state. Wealthy donors include Michael Bloomberg of New York; Eli Broad of Los Angeles; and Alice Walton of Texas, who has donated millions of dollars to his campaigns over a period of years. Netflix chief Reed Hastings and Gap founder Doris Fisher have also donated. And, not surprisingly, he is backed by the California Charter Schools Association (which celebrated the controversial 2017 confirmation of Betsy DeVos as U.S. education secretary).

We will find out in a few days whether out of state billionaires can buy the race.

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

Robert Skeels: Who Is Marshall Tuck?

By dianeravitch
October 30, 2018 //
1

Robert Skeels does a deep dive into Marshall Tuck’s record and decides that his ethnocentric values do not suit him to be the next Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Based on his experience in the charter sector, Tuck claims to be an educator, but Skeels pegs him as a banker.

Tuck’s friends in the charter industry claim that Tuck was a great success but Skeels questions their data.

Skeels writes:

Business banker Marshall Tuck is running for California State Superintendent of Public Instruction again. He’s backed by the same ideologically charged billionaires as the last time — several of whom supported reactionary measures like Proposition 8. With nearly unlimited funding, voters will be deluged with Tuck’s messaging. There’ll be plenty of unsubstantiated claims that he ran successful schools.

Marshall Tuck is running for California State Superintendent of Public Instruction again, backed by the same ideologically charged billionaires as the last time — several of whom supported reactionary measures like Proposition 8.

Those ads won’t reveal the truth about Tuck’s record. There’ll be no mention that when he ran the Green Dot Charter Corporation, one of his high schools “achieved” the dubious distinction of back-to-back years of absolutely zero students scoring proficient on the mathematics portion of the California State University (CSU) entrance examination. There won’t be discussion of how, under Tuck, one Partnership for Los Angeles Schools’ (PLAS) high school went five years without achieving even twenty percent of students scoring proficient on either the mathematics or the English portion of those same CSU exams. Five years. These awful proficiency rates were reflected in Scholastic Aptitude Tests (SAT) scores as well. Under Tuck’s “leadership” the schools he managed were among the very lowest scorers on the SAT in Los Angeles County, year after year.

Tuck’s record of terrible academic results isn’t the only issue that will be carefully obscured. His abject treatment of students of color, in a fashion much like his contemporary counterparts Tom Horne and John Huppenthal in Arizona, is something he works hard to hide. It’s time to shine a bright light on this.

Using their positions of authority, Tuck, Horne, and Huppenthal closed down popular, research proven, Ethnic Studies programs. Tuck did it at PLAS schools like Santee High School when he was their “CEO.” The other two did it while they were Superintendents of Public Schools in Arizona. Tuck went a step further than the others — he also restricted and shuttered both Heritage Language Programs and Dual Language Immersion programs. These important language programs were well regarded and research proven. The language program closures and restrictions were so egregious that a Uniform Complaint Cause of Action was filed jointly by Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and Public Counsel Law Center on behalf of the families whose civil rights Tuck violated. Additionally, Tuck closed down other critical programs including health education .

In the end, after a long battle, Horne and Huppenthal’s attacks on students of color by eliminating Ethnic Studies in Arizona were defeated in court. The judge’s opinion noted that the two were “capitalizing on race-based fears.” Both politicians would later find themselves voted out of office. Tuck, whose record on these programs mirrors that of Horne and Huppenthal, is facing a California with very different values than his. In 2016, in contradiction to Tuck’s penchant for opposing bilingualism, Californian voters passed Proposition 58 — reestablishing bilingualism as mainstream. Furthermore, school districts have been passing resolutions instituting Ethnic Studies programs. On the state level advances for Ethnic Studies like AB-2016 have proven that Californians don’t share Tuck’s aversion to programs that celebrate diversity and encourage youth to explore their history.

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

Tom Ultican: Who Should Be the Next Leader of California Schools? A Banker or a Social Worker?

By dianeravitch
October 28, 2018 //
12

Tom Ultican, retired teacher of physics and advanced mathematics in California, here describes the billionaires and bad policies behind Marshall Tuck’s campaign for State Superintendent of Public Instruction.

He sees the Tuck campaign as a new front in the “Destroy Public Education Movement,” which he has written about extensively.

Here are some of the Big Money contributors to Tuck’s campaign:

The Waltons control Walmart and have been spending heavily to privatize public schools for more than three decades.

Bill Bloomfield is a rich guy from LA who has also poured $7,000,000 into independent expenditures for Tuck.

The Rogers family is the main local force behind the privatization of Oakland’s school system.

Doris Fisher founded The Gap with her husband Don. They have spent extensively promoting charter schools and were the first significant benefactors for the KIPP franchise.

Eli Broad is the only person to found two fortune 500 companies. He announced plans to charterize half of Los Angeles’s schools and published a guide for closing public schools.

John Scully was the former CEO of Apple and consistently supports school privatization.

David Horowitz is a Republican activist who gained notoriety for his anti-affirmative action campaign.

Arthur Rock is Silicon Valley royalty who spends lavishly to support school privatization.

Peter Chernin was COO of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. He is also a movie producer of some note.

Reed Hastings is possibly the most dedicated destroy public education billionaire. He sat on the board of the California Charter Schools Association for many years.

Richard Riordan is the billionaire former Mayor of Los Angeles who spends millions on public school privatization.

John Arnold is the ex-Enron executive who did not go to jail. He and Reed Hastings have each invested $100 million in a new national school privatizing organization called The City Fund.

Jonathan Sackler is the heir to the billionaire inventors of Oxycontin. Besides selling addictive drugs, Jonathan invests in the privatization of America’s schools.

Les Biller is a former CEO of Wells Fargo bank. He and his wife have a foundation in Seattle, Washington where they give heavily to charter schools.

Julian Robertson Jr. is a hedge fund manager in Chicago who thinks California really needs Marshal Tuck.

Stacy Schusterman is an energy industry heir from Tulsa, Oklahoma. She has been particularly active in California school board elections.

Michael Bloomberg is the billionaire former New York mayor who spawned Joel Klein, Eva Moskowitz and Michelle Rhee. He spends heavily on California school board elections.

The big money is not in direct contributions like those listed above. It is in the money for independent expenditure committees that do not have contribution limits. For example, the Ed Voice for the Kids Pac has already reported spending over $13,000,000 in support of Tuck (Id 1243091). There are many more of these PACs spending money to elect Tuck such as Education Reform Now Advocacy for Tuck and Charter Public Schools Political Action Committee.

Ultican contrasts the two candidates:

Tony Thurmond was born in Monterey, California. His father was stationed at the Fort Ord Army base. Tony’s father abandoned his family of four children. Thurmond’s Panamanian immigrant mother became a school teacher and moved the family to San Jose.

Tragedy struck six-years-old Tony when his mother died of cancer. Tony and a brother moved to Philadelphia where they were raised by a cousin.

After graduating from high school in Philadelphia, Tony matriculated to Temple University where he was elected student body president and received a BA in psychology. He attended graduate school at Bryn Mawr earning a dual masters in Law and Social Policy and Social work.

The most disgusting statement in the San Diego Union editorial read, “In his interview with us, Assemblyman Tony Thurmond, D-Richmond, who finished second to Tuck in the June primary, seemed just as affable but not nearly as ambitious as Tuck.” In case that was too subtle; Tony is a black man.

After rising above his traumatic childhood and becoming educated, Tony married and returned to California in 1998. For the 20 years preceding his election to the California State Assembly, Thurmond served in various positions at non-profit social service agencies. Tony says it was his public school education that helped him become at 20-year social worker and serve on a school board, a city council and now the California State Assembly.

Tony has two daughters in public school.

Marshall Tuck received an MBA from Harvard University in 2000 and a BA in Political Science from University of California Los Angeles in 1995. He grew up in the San Francisco Bay area and has a wife and son.

He spent some time as a consultant at Mitt Romney’s Bain & Co. He was an investment analyst at the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone. He moved to Los Angeles to work at Salomon Brothers as an investment banker focused on both mergers and acquisitions. After a brief stint in sales for a Software company, in 2002, Tuck was hired by Green Dot Charter Schools as Chief Operating Officer.

In 2007, Los Angeles Mayor Anthony Villaraigosa had been rebuffed in his efforts to take control of Los Angeles Unified School District. He did convince a few donors to underwrite the takeover of a small number of schools in areas which had suffered years of poor standardized test results. They created a non-profit called Partnership for LA and Villaraigosa tapped Marshall Tuck to lead the Partnership.

Tuck had by then become the CEO of Green Dot. The year he left for the Partnership, Green Dot schools posted nine of the fifty lowest SAT scores among Los Angeles schools.

Tuck was extremely unpopular at the Partnership. The Sacramento Bee reported, “Teachers passed a vote of no confidence at nine of the schools at the end of the first year, leading to independent mediation.” An online education news paper in Los Angeles, School Matters, reported, “Many of us hoped that when right-wing business banker Marshall Tuck was ignominiously forced to step down as the ‘CEO’ of the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools (PLAS), that we might have heard the last of Tuck altogether.”

Tuck’s authoritarianism and lack of education background has led to serial failures, however, those forces trying to privatize California’s public schools find his style to their liking.

In 2014, when Tuck lost the most expensive SPI race in California’s history, his allies were there to take care of him. Even though he has no training as an educator, he was made Educator-in-Residence at the New Teacher Center (NTC). Bill Gates has granted NTC $26,305,252 since 2009.

This Contest is Very Important If You Value American Democracy

Marshall Tuck is the representative of the Destroy Public Education billionaires who are spending massive amounts of money to get him elected. It is widely understood that elected school boards are the soil from which American democratic government rejuvenates itself. Dark “DPE” forces are undermining democracy in this country by destroying the people’s 200-years-old public education system. They must be stopped.

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Dark Money, Education Industry, Funding, Privatization

I Endorse Claudia Rossi for Santa Clara County Board of Education

By dianeravitch
October 26, 2018 //
0

If you live in Santa Clara County, California, I urge you to re-elect Claudia Rossi to the County Board of Education.

Her opponent has tweeted his support for Sheriff Joe Arpaio and other Trump policies. He recently received $7,000 from a “Reform” campaign funding group.

Claudia Rossi is a strong advocate for public schools.

Last May, Rossi asked questions about the operations of a charter school that was up for renewal. As a county trustee, it is her job to ask questions. The CEO of the charter school threatened her with a defamation lawsuit, and the ACLU stepped in to defend Rossi’s right to ask questions.

California needs more trustees with Claudia Rossi’s integrity and courage. It does need another rubber-stamp for the charter lobby.

Please vote for Claudia Rossi.

Categories California

I Endorse Anna Molander for Sacramento City School Board

By dianeravitch
October 25, 2018 //
0

Anna Molander is a parent advocate in Sacramento City, California. She is running for school board to fight for students, teachers, and public schools. She has a progressive voice and is the real deal.

I endorse her candidacy. I hope you will vote for her.

https://anna4sackids.com

Categories California
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