Archives for category: Democrats for Education Reform
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The Reformers’ “Fight Club”

By dianeravitch
June 29, 2012 //
25

Back when I was on the right side of the political fence, I was on the editorial board at Education Next. It is supported by the Hoover Institution and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, both conservative think tanks with which I was affiliated. The journal, which is based at Harvard and edited mainly by Paul Peterson, was created to counter what was seen as the liberal bias of the mainstream education media.

Education Next is a well-edited journal (I used to write a monthly book review there), but it does have a strong bias in favor of charter schools, vouchers, and testing. It is the journal of the corporate reform movement.

The current issue of Education Next has a fascinating article about the “reformers’ fight club.” I have been writing and speaking about the interconnections among these organizations (and there are many more), and it is good to see confirmation of what I have been saying.

For some reason, these incredibly rich and powerful organizations like to portray themselves as underdogs in contrast to the teachers’ unions.

So, get this picture: On one side are the 3.2 million teachers who belong to the NEA and the AFT. On the other side are the Gates Foundation ($60 billion), the Broad Foundation (billions), the Walton Foundation (billions, and spent $159 million this past year alone on education grants), the Dell Foundation, big corporations, Democrats for Education Reform (Wall Street hedge fund managers who can pump millions into political campaigns at will), and 50CAN (more hedge fund managers). And there are supposedly “liberal” advocacy groups like Education Trust and Ed Sector.

Gosh, that is surely an unequal lineup. No wonder the “fight club” feels like underdogs. Those teachers’ unions are just so doggone powerful and rich. Why, they have the big foundations and Wall Street trembling. Who knew that teachers had so much power?

Diane

Categories Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, ConnCAN, Corporate Reformers, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Reform, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), Privatization, Race to the Top, Stand for Children

Chicago Democrats and Wall Street at War with CTU

By dianeravitch
June 25, 2012 //
24

More evidence, this time in the Chicago Tribune, that Wall Street hedge fund managers and Obama Democrats are pouring money into the fight against the public school teachers of Chicago.

I know that Republicans get a hearty laugh when they see Democratic mayors like Rahm Emanuel and Cory Booker and Antonio Villaraigosa at war with the teachers’ unions in their cities. I am on several conservative mailing lists and I can practically hear they snickering and cheering every time a Democcratic mayor praises school choice, privatization, and charters while warring with the teachers.

I wonder if any of the people at the White House pause to wonder how these district-level battles will affect the election in 2012? Remember, the Presidential election?

Will teachers who have been pounded into submission by Rahm Emanuel and Obama operative and Wall Street titans vote for Obama? Maybe they will hold their noses and vote, but will they knock on doors, will they call their friends and relatives, will they volunteer on election day to help the same people that are now bullying them?

Just asking.

Diane

Categories Chicago, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Reform, Emanuel, Rahm

Wall Street Money Backs Rahm

By dianeravitch
June 23, 2012 //
5

It’s no surprise to discover that the organization representing Wall Street hedge fund managers is putting big money into Rahm Emanuel’s war against the Chicago Teachers Union. The group, which calls itself Democrats for Education Reform, is a major contributor to political advocacy for charter schools. It raises money for influential candidates in local, state and national political races. Money talks.

DFER, as it is known, does not like public schools. It loves privatization. Privatization works for Wall Street. So does deregulation.

DFER and Stand for Children are working together against the interests of public school teachers in Chicago, 90% of whom voted to authorize a strike (actually 98% of all those who cast a vote).

You can bet that DFER and Stand will flood the airwaves with slick commercials to promote Mayor Emanuel’s vision of education for OPC (other people’s children): crowded classrooms; schools with no teachers of the arts; schools with no libraries; endless testing and test-prepping; big contracts for consultants and experts; longer school days with no compensation for teachers; and lots more privatization.

Here’s a thought for DFER, Stand and Mayor Emanuel: Why not support the same quality of education for the children of Chicago public schools that you want for your own?

Diane

Categories Arts Education, Chicago, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Reform, Emanuel, Rahm, Stand for Children

Is This a Conflict of Interest?

By dianeravitch
June 17, 2012 //
12

Last spring, Louisiana held a crucial election that determined who would control the state’s Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Governor Bobby Jindal–the uber-conservative education reformer with a plan to replace public education with vouchers and charters–wanted to take control.

He rallied his friends and allies to win the decisive seat on the board, which was held by a local attorney, Louella Givens. Jindal’s candidate was Kira Orange Jones, the director of TFA in New Orleans.

According to Education Week, Orange Jones collected nearly $500,000 for her campaign.  She raised large sums of money from the business community and from out-of-state donors, including Mayor Bloomberg, who sent a last-minute contribution of $100,000. Orange Jones also received campaign funds from Democrats for Education Reform, the pro-charter Wall Street hedge-fund managers organization.

Educators rallied to support Givens, but she raised only $9,000. In a runoff, Orange Jones won.

Now questions have been raised about the propriety of having a member of the state board who works for an organization that receives contracts from the State Department of Education. Orange Jones says there is no conflict because TFA gets its contracts from the state education department, not the state board.

The potential for conflict of interest goes well beyond the contracts that are written specifically for TFA. Every time the state board of education approves charter schools, it is implicitly expanding the number of jobs available for members of TFA. Every expansion of charters across Louisiana will benefit TFA teachers and alums who run charters.

Don’t expect Governor Jindal to launch an investigation. The question in Louisiana is whether there is anyone independent of the Jindal machine (or TFA–the state superintendent is a TFA alum).

Diane

Categories Bloomberg, Michael, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Reform, Jindal, Bobby, Louisiana, Teach for America TFA

Democrats tell DFER to Stop Using Party Name

By dianeravitch | Aside
May 17, 2012 //
7

Two Democratic party groups in California have publicly protested the use of the word “Democrats” by the hedge-fund managers’ charter advocacy group Democrats for Education Reform.

The Los Angeles Democratic Party and the Democratic Party of San Fernando Valley have complained that the Wall Street group–whose education policies are indistinguishable from those of the GOP–should cease and desist using the word “Democrats” in their name as it confuses voters. Here is the LA complaint: http://www.lacdp.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/LACDP-2012-DFER-Cease-Desist-Final.pdf.

The Democratic Party of San Fernando Valley distributed a flyer, but I don’t have a link for it.

The complaint is the same. DFER is supporting conservative candidates who are not the candidates of the Democratic party. DFER, of course, advocates for charter schools and for evaluation of teachers by test scores. The Democratic party has traditionally supported public education, not privately managed charters (of course, President Obama has broken new ground by endorsing GOP education policy).

But what is clear in these complaints is that the grassroots Democrats are not yet ready to embrace, as the President has, the Republican program of testing, accountability, and school choice.

Categories Democrats, Democrats for Education Reform

California: Two Democratic Party Groups Protest DFER Use of “Democrats”

By dianeravitch | Aside
May 17, 2012 //
0

Two Democratic party groups in California have publicly protested the use of the word “Democrats” by the hedge-fund managers’ charter advocacy group Democrats for Education Reform.

The Los Angeles Democratic Party and the Democratic Party of San Fernando Valley have complained that the Wall Street group–whose education policies are indistinguishable from those of the GOP–should cease and desist using the word “Democrats” in their name as it confuses voters. Here is the LA complaint: http://www.lacdp.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/LACDP-2012-DFER-Cease-Desist-Final.pdf.

The Democratic Party of San Fernando Valley distributed a flyer, but I don’t have a link for it.

The complaint is the same. DFER is supporting conservative candidates who are not the candidates of the Democratic party. DFER, of course, advocates for charter schools and for evaluation of teachers by test scores. The Democratic party has traditionally supported public education, not privately managed charters (of course, President Obama has broken new ground by endorsing GOP education policy).

But what is clear in these complaints is that the grassroots Democrats are not yet ready to embrace, as the President has, the Republican program of testing, accountability, and school choice.

Categories California, Democrats, Democrats for Education Reform

Something Scary Happened Last Night

By dianeravitch
May 12, 2012 //
85

I got an email last night from Leo Casey at the United Federation of Teachers, informing me that the UFT had just received a dump of emails from the New York City Department of Education, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. Leo noticed that Deborah Meier and I were mentioned several times in the emails and so he shared the trove with us.

Pretty ugly stuff. Read it here, in two parts, if you can open a google document:

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B1Ghj5xYLG5Ka0c2RUJLWHhNSmM

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B1Ghj5xYLG5KcjZTem95WjZnUUU

The first thing I noticed was the chummy exchanges between the public officials in change of the New York City public school system and the top dogs of the charter leadership–the Wall Street hedge fund managers, the leader of Democrats for Education Reform (DFER), the leader of the New York City Charter Center, and various others. It comes clear that there is a strong and concerted effort to hand over as much public space as possible to the charters. The charter leaders are not the poor and oppressed of New York City; they are the powerful and monied, and the public officials who are paid to protect and support the PUBLIC schools of New York City are working hand-in-glove to advance the interests of the privately-managed charters, not the public schools. You will also notice, in one of the emails, that the charters are very concerned to make sure that there is no cap on their executive compensation. Heaven forbid! It’s important that their leaders continue to pull down $400,000 a year to oversee a few small schools.

The collusion between those who are sworn to protect the public schools and those who are incentivized to privatize them is surely the most important thing to be gleaned from this correspondence.

For me, the other interesting point is that they are so afraid of any criticism. They are especially afraid of Deborah Meier, me and Jonathan Kozol. They refer to columns by Deborah Meier and myself–she an educator with decades of experience, I a historian with a long view–as “moronic” and “idiotic.” They refer to Jonathan Kozol and me as “deranged crackpots.”

How can anyone take these mean-spirited, ignorant, arrogant people seriously?

The only thing frightening about them is that they are clamoring–with some success–to take control of the education of innocent children. Now, that is really scary! That is the scary thing that happened last night.

Diane

Categories Corporate Reformers, Democrats for Education Reform, NYC, Ravitch, Diane
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