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Trump Goes Off the Rails in First Cabinet Meeting: “It’s All About ME!”

By dianeravitch
January 3, 2019 //
39

I’m on an Amtrak train on my way to Washington, D.C., to see the new Democratic members of Congress sworn in. A friend, Donna Shalala of Miami, is one of that group. It’s a bright new day in America. The Constitution and its balance of powers is coming to life to rein in an unhinged, ignorant, vengeful President who arrived knowing nothing about government or policy and has learned nothing.

Ann Gearan of the Washington Post reported on Trumps bizarre Cabinet meeting, the first of the New Year, in which he found plenty of time to boast about himself. Bear in mind that Trump has never worked in an environment in which anyone had the power to say no to him. In his family business, he was King. For his first two years in office, no one dared challenge him, and in the rare instance where they tried, they were ousted (think Mark Sanford) or quit (think Flake and Corker).

Now the Emperor must face hostile majority in the Houseof Representatives. Democracy lives. The King is mad.

Here is a summary of yesterday’s Cabinet meeting:

President Trump, 12 days into a government shutdown and facing new scrutiny from emboldened Democrats, inaugurated the new year Wednesday with a Cabinet meeting. It quickly became a 95-minute stream-of-consciousness defense of his presidency and worldview, filled with falsehoods, revisionist history and self-aggrandizement.

Trump trashed his former secretary of defense, retired four-star Marine Gen. Jim Mattis, as a failure after once holding him out as a star of his administration.

“What’s he done for me?” Trump said.

He claimed to have “essentially” fired Mattis, who had surprised the White House by resigning in protest last month after the president’s abrupt decision to pull U.S. forces from Syria.

And Trump, who did not serve in the military and received draft deferments during the Vietnam War, suggested he would have made a good military leader himself.

“I think I would have been a good general, but who knows?” Trump said.

Trump on Mattis: ‘President Obama fired him and … so did I’

President Trump spoke about his former defense secretary at a Cabinet meeting Jan. 2, saying he was not “too happy” with how Jim Mattis handled Afghanistan. (The Washington Post)
He took credit for falling oil prices, arguing they were the result of phone calls he made to the leaders of oil-producing nations.

“I called up certain people, and I said let that damn oil and gasoline — you let it flow, the oil,” he said.

And Trump defended his push to fund his promised border wall, parrying complaints from Democrats who have called the wall immoral by remarking, “Then we have to do something about the Vatican, because the Vatican has the biggest wall of them all.”

Trump is entering his third year in the White House with his presidency at its most challenging point.

Democrats bent on investigating his administration and stymieing his agenda will take control of the House on Thursday. The thriving economy he once touted as evidence of his success is showing signs of strain, with financial markets tumbling in recent weeks due in part to worries over his policies and stewardship of the government. And his new year began with former GOP presidential nominee and incoming Utah Sen. Mitt Romney penning a harsh critique, cheered by the president’s Republican detractors, that argued Trump “has not risen to the mantle of the office.”

Trump seemed mindful of all this Wednesday as he attempted to seize the spotlight by staging an unusual Cabinet meeting that was geared more toward garnering public attention than serving as a venue for the internal deliberations of his administration.

After saying last month that he would proudly take responsibility for the government shutdown over wall funding, he sought to blame Democrats for not sticking around over the holidays to negotiate. He said he stayed in Washington because the border security debate was “too important a subject to walk away from.”

“I was here on Christmas evening. I was all by myself in the White House — it’s a big, big house — except for the guys on the lawn with machine guns,” he said.

But Trump added confusion to the debate by undercutting Vice President Pence, seated nearby, in dismissing the offer he and other administration officials made to Democrats late last month of accepting $2.5 billion for the wall.

He described the recent stock sell-off as a “glitch” and said markets would soar again on the strength of trade deals he plans this year. But House Democrats may stand in the way of the first of those, a renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, and markets have been rattled most by the tariffs Trump has imposed on China.

Trump dismissed Romney’s scathing criticism of how he’s conducted his presidency, saying Romney should be more of a “team player,” and played down the idea he could face a primary challenge in 2020.

“They say I am the most popular president in the history of the Republican Party,” Trump said.

Amid concerns within his own party about whether he will pull troops out of Afghanistan, Trump offered a discursive and somewhat inscrutable account of the fall of the Soviet Union, blaming it on the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

“Russia used to be the Soviet Union. Afghanistan made it Russia, because they went bankrupt fighting in Afghanistan,” Trump said.

His point was that the United States should pull out of hopeless and expensive wars, but he skipped over the many reasons for the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 as he held up the loss of empire as an example.

“The reason Russia was in Afghanistan was because terrorists were going into Russia. They were right to be there,” he said, breaking with the stance taken by past U.S. administrations that the invasion was an illegitimate power play against a neighboring nation. “The problem is, it was a tough fight. And literally they went bankrupt; they went into being called Russia again, as opposed to the Soviet Union. You know, a lot of these places you’re reading about now are no longer part of Russia, because of Afghanistan.”

The semblance of a traditional Cabinet meeting broke out from time to time, including when Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, joining by video connection, briefed the group on the administration’s border security efforts and set the tone by claiming, “Mr. President, now more than ever we need the wall.”

Trump’s Cabinet is pocked by vacancies, as the roster of deputies and placeholders around the table illustrated.

Mattis’s formerly prominent place at the Cabinet table was occupied Wednesday by a little-known deputy, Patrick Shanahan, who mostly looked down at his notes as Trump called Syria, where more than 2,000 U.S. troops are deployed, a lost cause of “sand and death.”

Several officials in attendance interjected praise for the president at different points.

“I want to thank you for the strong stand you have taken on border security,” Pence told him.

Trump, a large poster of himself evoking “Game of Thrones” on the table before him, complained about allies and partners from Afghanistan and Pakistan to India and Germany. They don’t pay their way or expect too much from the United States, Trump said, claiming anew that he is insisting on a reboot of the old expectations about U.S. aid and military obligations.

He claimed that if he wanted to, he could have any government job in Europe and be popular there. He cast his unpopularity among European publics as a sign he is doing his job well.

He defended his controversial negotiations with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un by stating that if he had not reached out, there would have been a “big fat war in Asia.”

A second summit with Kim will happen soon, Trump predicted. He did not mention Kim’s veiled threat, in a New Year’s message, that the United States must not try his patience.

Trump’s critics and skeptics on North Korea say he lost leverage by agreeing to the first summit last year and would only lose more with another face-to-face meeting now.

The president, who frequently faces criticism for his light public schedule, also bemoaned the lack of credit he has received for what he views as the many accomplishments of his first two years.

“I have to tell you, it would be a lot easier if I didn’t do anything, if I just sat and enjoyed the presidency, like a lot of other people have done,” Trump said.

Categories Fake, Ignorance, Lies

Waltons Are Shamefully Targeting Black Communities with Privatization Promises

By dianeravitch
December 24, 2018 //
42

The Waltons are an especially cynical bunch of billionaires. The family collectively is said to be worth something between $150-200 Billion. Alice Walton, at $46 Billion, is the richest woman in the world.

They have a family foundation, the Walton Family Foundation, which proclaims its love for children by funding privately managed charter schools. They boast that they have funded one of every four charter schools in the nation.

If they really cared about children, they would pay their one million employees at least $15 an hour. That would do more to help children than all their charter schools. But, as is well known, they pay low wages and are vehemently anti-union. When Walmart comes into a town, they drive every mom-and-pop store out of business, then give mom and pop a part-time job as “greeters” at the new big box store. If the Walmart is not profitable, they close it and move on, leaving all the small towns within 25-50 miles with empty main streets, their stores closed.

Now the Waltons, we learn from this excellent article by Sally Ho of the AP, have decided to target Black communities, to woo them away from public schools and to promise them the world in their privately managed charter schools. They woo them to enroll in a school where parents have no voice and children have no rights. If they don’t like it, they can leave. And by luring them away from their public school, the Waltons guarantee that the public schools will lose funding, fire teachers, have larger class sizes, and not be able to offer electives, while possibly eliminating recess and the arts.

This is not philanthropy. This is villainthropy. Nobody does villainthropy better than the Waltons. They have already forgotten that Sam Walton, the creator of their family wealth, graduated from a public high school, the David H. Hickman High School in Columbia, Missouri. He would be ashamed of what his progeny are doing: Destroying the public institution that served the public good and made it possible for him to rise in the world. The entire Walton clan and everyone riding their gravy train should be ashamed of themselves. Probably they are not capable of shame.

Amid fierce debate over whether charter schools are good for black students, the heirs to the Walmart company fortune have been working to make inroads with advocates and influential leaders in the black community.

Walton family, as one of the leading supporters of America’s charter school movement, is spreading its financial support to prominent and like-minded black leaders, from grassroots groups focused on education to mainstream national organizations such as the United Negro College Fund and Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, according to an Associated Press analysis of tax filings and non-profit grants data…

While some black leaders see charters as a safer, better alternative in their communities, a deep rift of opinion was exposed by a 2016 call for a moratorium on charters by the NAACP, a longtime skeptic that expressed concerns about school privatization, transparency and accountability issues. The Black Lives Matter movement is also among those that have demanded charter school growth be curbed.

When NAACP leaders gathered to discuss charters in 2016, a group of demonstrators led the Cincinnati hotel to complain to police that they were trespassing. The three buses that brought the 150 black parents from Tennessee on the 14-hour road trip were provided by The Memphis Lift, an advocacy group that has received $1.5 million from the Walton foundation since 2015.

Please open the link to see the graphic that shows how the Waltons are funding leading black organizations, to buy their support for the privatization of public education, where parents have voice and children have rights.

Can you imagine learning civics in a Walton-funded school? Do they teach poor children and black children not to vote? Do they learn to sing the praises of unbridled capitalism? Do they learn to despise the common good? Do they teach deference to your betters? Do they teach children that protest is wrong and that rich people should never be taxed?

I’m reminded of a visit I paid to New Orleans in 2010. I was speaking at the historically black Dillard University. The audience contained many fired teachers. I spoke and we had a dialogue about what had happened to New Orleans. One woman got up and said plaintively, “First they stole our democracy, then they stole our schools.”

Black families should be wary of anything that the billionaires are promoting. If they won’t pay their workers a living wage, they can’t be trusted with the children of the workers.

Let’s hope that the Waltons are visited by the ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and Christmas Future.

I wish all of you a very Merry Christmas, and I wish the Waltons the gift of a soul and a conscience and a new birth of concern for their fellow men and women.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Lies, Privatization, Walton Foundation

Gary Rubinstein: How Can a School with a 100% College Acceptance Rate Be a Failing School?

By dianeravitch
December 10, 2018 //
19

Gary Rubinstein began his career in Teach for America but became a career math teacher in New York City. He also writes a blog, where he has achieved fame and notoriety as the nation’s ultimate fact-checker of “miracle schools” whose claims are too good to be true.

As he explains in this post, he first entered the arena of miracle-School mythbusting when he heard Arne Duncan boast about a charter school in Chicago that had once been a low performing public school. That charter, Urban Prep, Duncan said, now had a 100% graduation rate and a 100% college acceptance rate. Rubinstein checked the data and found that the school had high attrition and low pass rates on state tests, lower than Chicago public schools.

“Urban Prep Charter School in Chicago is the original ‘miracle school.’ Seven years ago at the Teach For America 20th anniversary alumni summit, I heard Arne Duncan talk about how they had 100% of their senior class graduate and how 100% of them went on to college after they shut down the public school in that building and replaced it with a charter school.”

He was roundly criticized by charter trolls on Twitter but he was unfazed.

Now he finds this charter, with its miraculous outcomes, has expanded to a chain of three, all boasting the same 100% college acceptance rates. But the city may close one of them for low performance.

Rubinstein checked the data. See what he found.

It is astonishing. All three campuses perform worse than the Chicago public schools. The real miracle is that they still have a 100% college acceptance rate.

Where is the New York Times?

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Chicago, Education Industry, Education Reform, Lies, Privatization, Testing

John Thompson: Goliath, King of the Zombies

By dianeravitch
November 21, 2018 //
18

John Thompson here writes about his reaction to the annual conference of the Network for Public Education, where the implicit theme was that David is beating Goliath, but Goliath just keeps stumbling forward, crushing public schools and advancing privatization, with no evidence of success. I argued, in the opening address of the conference, that the Reformers are akin to Goliath, and that Goliath has failed and failed again but is so powerful that he continues to wreak destruction on communities. He is among the Walking Dead. He is, in fact, a zombie.

Thompson was a teacher in Oklahoma; he recently retired. He lives in the belly of the beast, a state where Goliathians control the legislature and the governorship. At least they don’t pretend to be “progressives.” They are DeVos-Trump extremists, with links to ALEC and the Koch brothers.

Thompson admits that he was slow in realizing that the Reformers are intent on undermining public schools and that they were acting in concert. But he is convinced now, not only that they are doing so, but that their promises have not been kept and that, in fact, they have failed wherever they set their sights.

He ends with this:

Knowing that Indianapolis is at the heart of the dying, but still dangerous corporate reform movement, I expected that Chalkbeat would choose its words carefully and make sure that its reporting didn’t threaten its donations from Goliath. Chalkbeat Indianapolis didn’t cover the NPE conference but Matt Barnum of Chalkbeat New York has been covering Indiana’s Mind Trust and its successor, the City Fund. (Chalkbeat Indiana has since linked to WFYI Indianapolis’s report on one of the city’s 20 “innovation schools” which is receiving $1.3 million in management fees.)

This leads to the biggest question that I brought to the NPE. We Oklahomans have failed to communicate with our state’s edu-philanthropists on how their science-based, holistic early education and trauma-informed instruction programs and the Indianapolis Goliath are inherently incompatible. We know that the City Fund seems to have its eye on Deborah Gist’s Tulsa Public schools. We could use some help from NPE conference participants in explaining to Tulsa philanthropists why their “portfolio model” is likely to undermine their contributions to high quality pre-k, just like it did in New Orleans.

As a lobbyist for Planned Parenthood and a board member for the ACLU/OK, I developed great respect for the Kaiser and Schusterman foundations and other Tulsa philanthropists. I still struggle to understand how those leaders could not see how their humane, evidence-based programs are threatened by Goliath’s data-driven, reward and punish corporate reforms. But one of the first people I saw in Indianapolis was Tom Ultican, and he gave me information on the $200,000 Schusterman donated to California privatizers such as Antonio Villaraigosa and Marshall Tuck. If nothing else, I would like to explain to the philanthropists why educators can’t lower our guard and stop defending ourselves against their scorched earth tactics. I’d appreciate any help the NPE can provide in explaining why we will fight Goliath to the end.

Imagine that. Chalkbeat has an outpost in Indianapolis, but did not think it was worth its time to send a reporter to cover a conference of 500 educators from across the country that took place in Indianapolis! Is that media bias? Would their funders (Walton, Gates, etc.) have objected if they sent a reporter to write about a major event in their city?

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Failure, Indianapolis, Lies, Privatization

Kentucky: Beware Voucher Fraud!

By dianeravitch
November 17, 2018 //
9

EdChoice (formerly the Milton and Rose Friedman Foundation) conducted a telephone poll of 600 people in Kentucky and found support for “scholarships,” also known as “vouchers.”

Proponents of vouchers avoid using the V word, because the public understands that it means sending public money to religious and private schools. The public is okay with scholarships but opposes vouchers.

When proposals for vouchers (or scholarships that allow public money to be spent for religious or private schools) is on the ballot, the voters say no. They said NO last week in Arizona by a vote of 65-35%.

EdChoice and the Goldwater Institute are based in Arizona. The Koch brothers and DeVos’ American Federation for Children supported the voucher referendum (called Empowerment Scholarship Accounts), and despite the money and the euphemism, it was defeated overwhelmingly.

Watch out, Kentucky. The voucher zombies are coming for you.

Categories Kentucky, Lies, Vouchers

José Espinosa: The Truth About Charter Schools That Boast About a 100% College Acceptance Rate

By dianeravitch
November 13, 2018 //
12

José Espinosa is the Superintendent of the Socorro Independent School District In Texas. This article appeared in the El Paso Times.

Superintendent Espinosa thinks the public should know the truth about charter schoools that claim to have a 100% college acceptance rate. They are lying. Rightwingers in Texas and charter promoters are planning on a big expansion of charters in the state, peddling their wares with unverified claims about their “success.”

He writes:

When something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Dating back to 1954, the Better Business Bureau used this catchphrase to alert the public of shady business practices.

In the new era of school choice, this catchphrase can be used to alert the public of misleading business practices by charter schools in order to protect our most prized possessions — our children.

Every year, certain charters tout a 100 percent college acceptance rate as their major marketing pitch to lure parents away from traditional public schools.

The reality is the public isn’t told acceptance to a four-year university is actually a graduation requirement at some charter schools.

It specifically states in certain charters’ student/family handbooks that a student may graduate and receive a diploma ONLY if the student is accepted into a four-year university and has completed 125 hours of community service.

Reading lengthy student/family handbooks carefully before considering charters is just as important as reading the fine print before signing contracts.

We must also ask, “Why is Corporate America bashing our traditional public schools, yet it doesn’t demand transparency or accountability from charter schools?”

While 100 percent of charter seniors get accepted to college as required, the public has a right to know the percentage of charter students who didn’t make it to their senior year.

Ed Fuller, Pennsylvania State University professor, found in one of his studies of a particular charter network that when considering the number of students starting in the ninth grade as a cohort, the percentage of charter cohort students who graduated and went on to college was at best 65 percent.

In other words, 35 percent of ninth-graders at a charter network didn’t make it to their graduation….

Just like the BBB, it is our duty to alert the public.

If charters insist on boasting about 100 percent college acceptance rates, then traditional public schools must insist that our communities be fully informed.

Charters’ news release could read: “Since we require students to get accepted to a four-year university in order to graduate, our seniors have a 100 percent college acceptance rate. However, more than 30 percent of our cohort students in the ninth grade didn’t graduate from our charters. Therefore, we had less than 70 percent of our cohort students graduate and get accepted to college…”

Lauding charters who lack transparency and discount students while bashing El Paso’s public schools disparages the hard work, relentless dedication and success of Team SISD.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Graduation rates, Hoax, Lies, Privatization, Testing

Max Boot: Vote Against Republicans. Every Single One.

By dianeravitch
November 5, 2018 //
19

Max Boot, who recently renounced his ties to the Republican Party, urges you to vote for Democrats. He begins by quoting Joe Biden. He is sickened by the Trump dominance of his former party.

“


I am sick and tired of this administration.

“I’m sick and tired of what’s going on.

“I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired, and I hope you are, too.” 
— Joe Biden 


[Boot writes ]

I’m sick and tired, too.


I’m sick and tired of a president who pretends that a caravan of impoverished refugees is an “invasion” by “unknown Middle Easterners” and “bad thugs” — and whose followers on Fox News pretend the refugees are bringing leprosy and smallpox to the United States. (Smallpox was eliminated about 40 years ago.)




Donald Trump has irreversibly changed the Republican Party. The upheaval might seem unusual, but as Opinion writer Robert Gebelhoff explains, political transformations crop up throughout U.S. history.

I’m sick and tired of a president who misuses his office to demagogue on immigration — by unnecessarily sending 5,200 troops [editor’s note: now upped to 15,000] to the border and by threatening to rescind by executive order the 14th Amendment guarantee of citizenship to anyone born in the United States.


I’m sick and tired of a president who is so self-absorbed that he thinks he is the real victim of mail-bomb attacks on his political opponents — and who, after visiting Pittsburgh despite being asked by local leaders to stay away, tweeted about how he was treated, not about the victims of the synagogue massacre.


I’m sick and tired of a president who cheers a congressman for his physical assault of a reporter, calls the press the “enemy of the people ” and won’t stop or apologize even after bombs were sent to CNN in the mail.


I’m sick and tired of a president who employs the language of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about Jewish financier George Soros and “globalists,” and won’t apologize or retract even after what is believed to be the worst attack on Jews in U.S. history.




I’m sick and tired of a president who won’t stop engaging in crazed partisanship, denouncing Democrats as “evil,” “un-American” and “treasonous” subversives who are in league with criminals.


I’m sick and tired of a president who cares so little about right-wing terrorism that, on the very day of the synagogue shooting, he proceeded with a campaign rally, telling his supporters, “Let’s have a good time.”


I’m sick and tired of a president who presides over one of the most unethical administrations in U.S. history — with three Cabinet members resigning for reported ethical infractions and the secretary of the interior the subject of at least 18 federal investigations.


I’m sick and tired of a president who flouts norms of accountability by refusing to release his tax returns or place his business holdings in a blind trust.


I’m sick and tired of a president who lies outrageously and incessantly — an average of eight times a day — claiming recently that there are riots in California and that a bill that passed the Senate 98 to 1 had “very little Democrat support.”


I’m sick and tired of a president who can’t be bothered to work hard and instead prefers to spend his time watching Fox News and acting like a Twitter troll.


And I’m sick and tired of Republicans who go along with Trump — defending, abetting and imitating his egregious excesses.
I’m sick and tired of Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) acting like a caddie for the man he once denounced as a “kook” — just this week, Graham endorsed Trump’s call for rescinding “birthright citizenship,” a kooky idea if ever there was one.




I’m sick and tired of House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), who got his start in politics as a protege of the “bleeding-heart conservative” Jack Kemp, refusing to call out Trump’s race-baiting.


I’m sick and tired of Republicans who once complained about the federal debt adding $113 billion to the debt just in fiscal year 2018.


I’m sick and tired of Republicans who once championed free trade refusing to stop Trump as he launches trade wars with all of our major trade partners.


I’m sick and tired of Republicans who not only refuse to investigate Trump’s alleged ethical violations but who also help him to obstruct justice by maligning the FBI, the special counsel and the Justice Department.


Most of all, I’m sick and tired of Republicans who feel that Trump’s blatant bigotry gives them license to do the same — with Rep. Pete Olson (R-Tex.) denouncing his opponent as an “Indo-American carpetbagger,” Florida gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis warning voters not to “monkey this up” by electing his African American opponent, Rep. Duncan D. Hunter (R-Calif.) labeling his “Palestinian Mexican” opponent a “security risk” who is “working to infiltrate Congress,” and Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio) accusing his opponent, who is of Indian Tibetan heritage, of “selling out Americans” because he once worked at a law firm that settled terrorism-related cases against Libya.


If you’re sick and tired, too, here is what you can do.

Vote for Democrats on Tuesday. For every office. Regardless of who they are. And I say that as a former Republican. Some Republicans in suburban districts may claim they aren’t for Trump. Don’t believe them. Whatever their private qualms, no Republicans have consistently held Trump to account. They are too scared that doing so will hurt their chances of reelection.

If you’re as sick and tired as I am of being sick and tired about what’s going on, vote against all Republicans. Every single one.

Categories Bigotry, Citizenship, Lies, Racism, Republicans

California: Tuck Refuses to Withdraw or Apologize for Vicious Campaign Ad Smearing Thurmond

By dianeravitch
November 2, 2018 //
0

Will big money buy the position of State Superintendent of Public Instruction in California? Will false ads carry Marshall Tuck to victory?

The ACLU OF Northern California condemned the Marshall Tuck campaign for mailers falsely asserting that it had “sued Tony Thurmond.” It had not, and the ACLU demanded that the campaign withdraw the ad and offer an apology to Thurmond. Tuck refused.

Tuck is running a campaign based on lies. His character has been revealed. Will the public catch on in time to stop him? Or will the public believe Tuck’s scurrilous attack ads? It is possible. Tuck has an astonishing amount of money to spend. But should California’s schools be overseen by a person of such low ethics and character.

A thought for Marshall Tuck (written by sportswriter Grantland Rice):

“For when the One Great Scorer comes to write against your name,
He writes—not that you won or lost,
But how you played the game.”

Is Marshall Tuck and his billionaire backers so desperate to win that they will say or do anything? Apparently so.


See letter from ACLU to EdVoice here:

Here is a report on the ads, with links to the ads.

The dispute over negative ads has escalated, with the Thurmond campaign seeking to have an independent committee take off the air an ad that falsely claims Thurmond was reprimanded by the Obama administration.

The campaign for schools chief has attracted at least $43 million worth of contributions, most of which have gone to independent expenditure committees supporting Tuck and Thurmond.

Tuck’s backers are far outpacing Thurmond’s in fundraising: Two committees supporting Tuck have taken in $24.1 million as of Monday, while a committee supporting Thurmond has received $11.5 million. Independent expenditure committees can take donations of unlimited size but are barred from coordinating with campaigns.

The Tuck campaign had raised $4.2 million in direct contributions, compared to $2.8 million for Thurmond, as of Sept. 22, the most recent filing deadline.

The contributions have come largely from advocates of charter school expansion who back Tuck and labor groups who support Thurmond.

With two weeks to go in the race, and as some Californians are submitting early ballots for the Nov. 6 election, Tuck and Thurmond backers are spending millions of dollars on television, radio and mail advertisements. Campaign finance records show the committees supporting Tuck spent $8.1 million on television advertising alone as of the most recent campaign finance filing deadline on Sept. 22, while a committee backing Thurmond spent $4.4 million. Those totals are likely to increase substantially before Election Day.

Some of that spending has gone toward negative ads, leading Tuck and Thurmond to spar over new television commercials that criticize their records.

One recent ad from an independent expenditure committee supporting Tuck blamed Thurmond for problems in West Contra Costa Unified, the East Bay school district where Thurmond was a school board member from 2008 to 2012.

Another ad, produced by the Thurmond campaign, sought to tie Tuck to the education agenda of President Donald Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

Is it inaccurate to tie Tuck’s pro-charter history to Betsy DeVos. She supports charter schools. Tuck supports charter schools. No smear there. It’s a fact: Marshall Tuck supports school choice, like Betsy DeVos.

The anti-Thurmond ad was funded by an independent expenditure committee supporting Tuck established by EdVoice. EdVoice officials did not return multiple messages seeking comment on their ad.

“Before he was running for state superintendent, politician Tony Thurmond was responsible for a school district with widespread budget problems,” the ad states, referring to West Contra Costa Unified.

Text on the screen directly ties district problems to Thurmond. “Tony Thurmond: School Board Member”; “Tony Thurmond: Sued by the ACLU”; “Tony Thurmond: Reprimanded by the Obama Administration”; “Tony Thurmond: Failed Kids”; “Tony Thurmond: Wrong for State Superintendent.”

The voice over adds details about the district: “Ranked last in the state for failing to serve students of color. Sued for leaving at-risk students in rotting trailers with mushrooms growing in the floors. Reprimanded by the Obama Administration for failing to address widespread sexual harassment and assault in district schools. Tony Thurmond failed the students he was supposed to help. California deserves better.”

The ad does not mention that Thurmond was one of five West Contra Costa Unified board members.

The claim that Thurmond was reprimanded by the Obama administration is false. The letter from the Obama-era Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights criticizing West Contra Costa Unified’s handling of sexual harassment never mentions Thurmond or the district’s board. The letter was issued in 2013, after Thurmond left the board, though it does state the department’s investigation began during his term in 2010.

“I was never reprimanded by Obama, and I wasn’t even on the board when the letter was sent by the Department of Education,” Thurmond said. He added that the claim prompted his campaign to send a cease and desist order to the committee that produced the ad.

The ad’s statement that Thurmond was sued over school facilities is technically accurate, in that he was named as a defendant board member in an American Civil Liberties Union’s lawsuit against West Contra Costa Unified. However, the lawsuit named every member of the school board, along with the district, its superintendent and its associate superintendent. The district’s daily management falls to its administration, not the elected board members.

The ad mirrors criticism of Thurmond’s time in West Contra Costa in an opinion column published in the San Francisco Chronicle last month by Bill Evers, a hardcore Republican and a Tuck supporter. Evers is a research fellow at Stanford University’s conservative Hoover Institution. Evers was also a member of Trump’s education transition team. Evers is not a neutral observer. He is a rock-ribbed Republican who worked in George W. Bush’s Education Department as Assistant Secretary of Education. He was a senior advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, after the Iraq War. His endorsement serves to reinforce the fact that Tuck has a conservative agenda that is aligned with the Republican Party.

Basic fact: Tony Thurmond was endorsed by the Democratic Party. Marshall Tuck was booed at the Democratic State Convention. Tony Thurmond has run an honorable campaign. Marshall Tuck has not.

The state chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, as well as Christine Pelosi, the chairwoman of the California Democratic Party’s Women’s Caucus, have also denounced the ad. While the Tuck campaign is prohibited by law from coordinating with the independent expenditure committee that produced the ad, Thurmond’s campaign has called for Tuck to disavow it.

Tuck told EdSource he would not disavow the ad. It accurately described problems in West Contra Costa Unified during Thurmond’s term, Tuck said, and “the board should be held accountable for that.” But, he also stressed that the ad was outside of his control.

Andrew Blumenfeld, Tuck’s campaign manager, also defended the ad.

“Assembly member Thurmond uses his time on the school board as evidence of his ability to serve as state superintendent,” Blumenfeld said. “I think it’s well within bounds to question what was the quality of his leadership when he was on the school board.”

The California publication EdSource predicts that the race is on track to cost $50 million, with Tuck having a 2-1 advantage over Thurmond.

“The largest donors to EdVoice for the Kids PAC, which managed independent campaign committees for Tuck and other activities, are real estate developer Bill Bloomfield, $5.3 million; Doris Fisher, co-founder of the Gap clothing company, $3.1 million and venture capitalist Arthur Rock, $3 million.”

Tuck has been endorsed by Meg Whitman, chair of the board of Teach for America, by billionaire Michael Bloomberg of New York, by Christopher Cerf, who was appointed to be state commissioner in New Jersey by Republican Governor Chris Christie.

See info here:

http://cal-access.sos.ca.gov/Campaign/Committees/Detail.aspx?id=1243091&session=2017
Edvoice for the Kids PAC

Contributors here: http://cal-access.sos.ca.gov/Campaign/Committees/Detail.aspx?id=1243091&session=2017&view=received

Contributions made (mostly to Tuck campaign) http://cal-access.sos.ca.gov/Campaign/Committees/Detail.aspx?id=1243091&session=2017&view=contributions

See attached; expenditures of $4.9M since 09/17/2018 to two separate subcommittees

http://cal-access.sos.ca.gov/Campaign/Committees/Detail.aspx?id=1243091&session=2017&view=expenditures

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, California, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Ethics, Fraud, Lies, 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.”

###

Categories Accountability, California, Cheating, Education Reform, Lies

“There’s Something Wrong with This Man”

By dianeravitch
October 14, 2018 //
100

Kevin McDermott, editorial writer for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, asked this question. And he wondered what kind of people cheer for him and believe his steady stream of boasts, cruel taunts, and lies.

Open it for the many links.

He writes:

It was always just a matter of time before Donald Trump stood in front of an audience of his bellowing fans and mocked an alleged sexual assault survivor.

It’s always been the kind of man he is.

“ ‘I don’t know. I don’t know.’ ‘Upstairs? Downstairs? Where was it?’ ” Trump said to a Mississippi crowd last week, mimicking Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony that Judge Brett Kavanaugh, Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, sexually assaulted her while they were in high school.

“ ‘I don’t know. But I had one beer,’ ” said Trump, to howls. “ ‘That’s the only thing I remember.’ ”

In fact, sexual assault allegations are often full of holes, the details driven out by trauma. We’ll probably never know exactly what happened 36 years ago.

What’s certain is that a private citizen telling her story shouldn’t have to endure being called a liar by the president of the United States. Even Kavanaugh’s more serious defenders understood that baseline of decency.

But Trump didn’t. Because there is something wrong with this man.

Not that it was surprising. This is a man who has denigrated the service of a tortured prisoner of war; whose grotesque, flailing impersonation of a disabled reporter would have been shocking coming from a sixth-grader; who trashed the parents of a dead young soldier; mocked the physical appearance of a female primary opponent; and put Nazis and anti-Nazis on the same moral plane after Charlottesville.

Normal adults don’t act like this. Not even politicians.

Especially not politicians, in fact. Not because they’re more conscience-driven than the rest of us (please) but because they usually know enough to tamp down whatever antisocial impulses they might have.

But not Trump. It’s striking how often, how predictably, his outbursts of cruelty hurt him politically. You could almost hear foreheads banging on West Wing desks when Trump launched his attack on Ford, complicating the 11th-hour push to confirm Kavanaugh.

Some believe Trump’s cruelty is a tool he wields for political ends. I don’t. It’s been too counterproductive for him. I think the truth is worse: Once he’s in front of some hooting red-hatted crowd, he just can’t help himself. His cruelty isn’t calculated; it’s a genuine, uncontrollable impulse that he’ll embrace even to his own detriment. Because there’s something wrong with the man.

Trump likes to compare himself to Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln’s mantra was, “With malice toward none, with charity toward all.” Trump is malice personified, a man who cheats his own charities. Lincoln annoyed his generals with frequent clemency for condemned deserters. Trump has proposed killing drug dealers not accused of murder, teenagers falsely accused of rape and the children of terrorists.

This man isn’t in the same ethical galaxy as Lincoln. There is something wrong with this man.

It’s not just that Trump is less empathetic than a normal president. He’s less empathetic than a normal person. Think about the people in your life: How many of them delight in deliberate cruelty toward those less powerful? How many of them love punching down?

Is our president a clinical sociopath? That legitimate question has prompted serious debate among psychiatrists. But early on, many assumed the presidency would normalize him. No one imagined the extent to which he would abnormalize the presidency.

Trump’s psychosis has become policy. His administration has admitted (between denials) that the large-scale separation of migrant families at the Texas border was meant as a deterrent — that they psychologically tortured children, including babies, as a warning to other migrants to stay away. Trump himself has said (in contradiction to administration legal arguments) that the travel ban on certain Middle Eastern countries was about cracking down on an entire religion. Ponder the last century’s global precedent for that.

The State Department last week announced it is yanking the visas of unmarried same-sex partners of foreign diplomats, based on the Supreme Court’s 2015 legalization of same-sex marriage. Get married if you want to stay here together, says the administration — knowing full well that’s illegal in some of their home countries. There are reasonable legal arguments for the new State Department policy, but given the demonstrated impulses of this administration, would anyone really discount the possibility that the primary motivation here is cruelty?

Trump is just one man, but what’s wrong with him isn’t confined to him. He has unleashed and empowered others like himself. His mockery of Ford in Mississippi last week drew shouts of “Lock her up!” — the phrase Trump’s fans usually reserve for the woman who beat him by 2.8 million votes in 2016.

So now they’re moving on to alleged sexual assault victims. Who’s next, I wonder?

That’s the scariest part. After Trump is gone from the scene, the loyalists he has energized will still be here. And there’s something wrong with these people.

Kevin McDermott is a member of the Post-Dispatch Editorial Board.

Kmcdermott@post-dispatch.com

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Categories Cruelty, Education Reform, Lies
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