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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

Jackie Goldberg: LAUSD Must Reduce Class Sizes Now!

By dianeravitch
October 24, 2018 //
10

Jackie Goldberg is one of the premier advocates for children and public education in California and, indeed, the nation. She was a classroom teacher for 17 years, a member of the Los Angeles school board, and a member of the Legislature, rising to chair of the State Assembly Education Committee. She is a legendary figure to supporters of children and public schools.

She writes in the Los Angeles Times that the LAUSD board must act to reduce class sizes, which in some schools, exceed 40 students.

A few excerpts from her excellent article:


Today, classes of 45 students or more are not uncommon in most secondary schools. (This excludes kindergarten through third-grade classes, which receive state funding specifically for class-size reduction.).

If the district truly wants its students to learn more, it should get rid of Section 1.5 and immediately begin hiring 2,000 new teachers to meet the class-size goals that are already laid out in the current contract. [Section 1.5 is a waiver from a class-Size reduction agreement.]

This would cost $200 million more each year. That may sound like a lot, but the district has a minimum of $1.8 billion in reserve.

Opposition to class-size reduction comes from the top. When I chaired the Assembly Education Committee, lobbyists would often come in and argue that the cost of reducing class sizes in California’s public schools was simply too high.

When I asked these lobbyists where their own children attended school, many if not all of them would respond that they sent their children to private schools — some to schools where tuition could cost as much as $45,000 a year and classrooms would have as few as a dozen students.

In other words, although they paid considerable tuition rates for their own kids to benefit from small classes, they considered it perfectly acceptable for children who live in poverty — 80% of the LAUSD student population — to be relegated to the third-largest class sizes in America. Really?

There is also some quiet opposition coming from a few well placed charter-school advocates. Why? Because if the district were to reduce class sizes by hiring 2,000 additional teachers, it would need to provide 2,000 classrooms to those new teachers — classrooms that some charter-school advocates are eyeing for themselves.

The Board of Education at LAUSD needs to put its students first. Though it claims to do so at nearly every meeting and on seemingly all of its printed materials, its claims are often empty rhetoric.
Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute from L.A. Times Opinion »
It is common sense that smaller classes make for better learning environments and higher grades and test scores. It’s also well documented.

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Class size, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Los Angeles

Senator Kemala Harris Endorses Tony Thurmond for State Superintendent of Public Instruction in California

By dianeravitch
October 23, 2018 //
7

You may have noticed that I have posted several times about the importance of electing Tony Thurmond to be the next Superintendent of Public Instruction in California. I do this because California is a very large, very important, very influential state. Even though California is a blue state, the privatizers have a strong Foothold there because there is a concentration of tech billionaires, p.us Eli Broad, who believe that public schools should operate like businesses. It worked for them, so naturally they think it’s right to impose their beliefs on education. These billionaires’ influence is increased by the huge money flow into the state from out-of-State billionaires like Michael Bloomberg of New York City. Currently, the billionaires have placed their bets on Marshall Tuck, a candidate who morphed from banker to charter leader.

Tony Thurmond is a social worker and a legislator. He identifies with the kids he wants to help.

Senator Kemala Harris made a video on behalf of Tony Thurmond. By doing so, she risks alienating the billionaires who play a large role in choosing presidential candidates.

Bravo to Senator Harris!

It is not easy for a person in politics to thumb her nose at the richest people in the state.

She is a woman of principle.

Oh, and by the way, when both Thurmond and Tuck asked for the endorsement of the California Democratic Party, 95% of the delegates endorsed Tony Thurmond. Tuck has the endorsement of the California Republican Party.

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

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

By dianeravitch
October 21, 2018 //
5

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

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

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

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

Wolfe writes:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Categories Billionaires, California

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

By dianeravitch
October 17, 2018 //
17

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Billionaires, California

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

By dianeravitch
October 16, 2018 //
21

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

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

Tony Butka explains who Tony Thurmond is:

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

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

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

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

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

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

– getting increased funding for early education programs;

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

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

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

He concludes:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, California, Education Reform

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

By dianeravitch
October 10, 2018 //
3

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

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

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

He writes:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NPE Action Endorses Tony Thurmond for Superintendent of Public Instruction in California!

By dianeravitch
October 4, 2018 //
6

The Network for Public Education Action Fund endorses Tony Thurmond for Superintendent of Public Institution in California!

California is a mess because of the intrusion of billionaires into education, billionaires who do not send their own children to public schools but want to control and privatize them. They pour millions into school board races, and they are now pouring millions into the state superintendent race, in hopes of capturing that important position.

Tony Thurmond’s opponent, Marshall Tuck, has a long history in the charter industry. Although he claims to be a Democrat (as in DFER), Tuck was endorsed by the California Republican party. Thurmond won the support of 95% of the delegates to the California Democratic party convention. Tuck was also endorsed by Arne Duncan, and Duncan’s endorsement means support of charter schools, high-stakes testing, and misuse of test scores to evaluate teachers.

California desperately needs accountability and transparency for its unregulated charter sector, not a fox in charge of the henhouse.

Please help Tony Thurmond. He is wildly outspent by the candidate of the billionaires, including Eli Broad, Reed Hastings, Arthur Rock, and the Walton family.

This is the NPE Action statement:

The Network for Public Education Action proudly endorsed East Bay Assemblyman, Tony Thurmond, for California State Superintendent of Public Instruction.

We are writing today to remind you just how important your support for Tony Thurmond is.

Marshall Tuck, a corporate reformer, is gaining ground thanks to millions supplied to his campaign by the California Charter School Association and its allies.

Here is what one of the state’s leading public school advocates Professor Julian Vasquez Heilig had to say about this race:

“Marshall Tuck would clearly be an important ally for the Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos education agenda in California. In contrast, Tony Thurmond has vowed to lead the resistance against their education agenda. Marshall Tuck has millions of campaign dollars given to him by his billionaire allies and others lobbying to privately control and privatize public education in California. While Tuck has millions, Thurmond has people power. As Superintendent of Public Instruction he would be our champion for community-based solutions and better funding for education across our state.”

It is no wonder that Tuck is the darling of the charter-school backing billionaires.

Tuck is a former charter school executive and CEO. In 2014, Tuck ran an unsuccessful campaign for State Superintendent, losing to incumbent Tom Torlakson. Tuck was heavily funded by outside money from national charter advocates, including Michael Bloomberg, Eli Broad, the Waltons, Laurene Powell Jobs, Arthur Rock and John Arnold. Thurmond stated that, “California’s voters don’t want this election to be bought by the Walton family, Eli Broad, and other billionaires who want to privatize public education.”

Thurmond is passionate about improving public schools. His public school education prepared him for a 20-year career in social work, where he ran after-school programs and taught life skills and career training. Those years of experience provided him with a unique perspective into the lives of California’s youth.

Thurmond has vowed to “lead the resistance against Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos and their agenda to undermine and defund our public education system,” promising that he will not support policies that seek to divert taxpayer dollars from public education to private schools.

Thurmond has already received numerous endorsements, including the endorsement of Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tom Torlakson. Thurmond will be on the general election ballot on November 6th. NPE Action urges our over 21,000 supporters in California to educate and inform your friends, family, neighbors and colleagues about Thurmond’s campaign and the importance of this election for the future of public education in California.

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