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Rightwing Groups Pour $$$$$ into Tennessee

By dianeravitch
November 5, 2012 //
2

StudentsFirst and another far-right group called Tennessee Federation for Children are pumping huge amounts of money into state legislative races for candidates who support vouchers and charters.

Tennessee Federation for Children is affiliated with the pro-voucher organization called American Federation for Children, run by billionaire Betsy DeVos of Michigan. AFS honored Michelle Rhee and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin for their efforts on behalf of vouchers in 2010.

This report in the Tessessean says:

The Tennessee PAC affiliated with StudentsFirst, a Sacramento, Calif.-based organization led by former Washington, D.C., Chancellor of Schools Michelle Rhee, has pumped $376,266 into Tennessee this year. That sum includes contributions to a handful of local school board contenders in Nashville and Memphis but far more to candidates seeking state legislative seats. Most of the recipients are Republicans.

StudentsFirst’s Tennessee PAC, formed last year, spent $66,150 in the Volunteer State over the past month alone, according to financial disclosures submitted last week.

During the same four-week time frame, a PAC called Tennessee Federation for Children, a branch of a Washington organization that expanded to Tennessee this spring, accounted for $145,302 in contributions and other expenditures. The group spent $248,539 in Tennessee altogether this year, with money going to direct mail efforts and to pro-voucher candidates.

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When I was in Chattanooga in September this year, a Democratic candidate told me that a campaign gift of $1,000 was considered huge, so you can imagine the power of this kind of money for conservative Republicans and a few rightwing Democrats.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Rhee, Michelle, StudentsFirst, Tennessee, Vouchers, Walker, Scott

An Urgent Message for Voters Who Support Public Education

By dianeravitch
November 4, 2012 //
22

There are critical elections taking place on Tuesday throughout the country that parents, education advocates, and others who care about preserving and strengthening our public schools need to take notice of and cast their ballot appropriately. Out-of-state money from billionaires and astroturf groups like Students First are flowing into state races, like this one in Tennessee and local school board elections, like these in New Orleans and New Jersey, to push damaging policies to privatize and digitize our public schools.

There are also referendums and initiatives on the ballot in many states and cities that will affect the future of our public schools for years to come. In each case, there is tremendous private money being used to facilitate the expansion of charters and vouchers, promote budget cuts, and impose mayoral control, and against allowing elected school boards to protect and support their local public schools. The hedge funders, billionaires, for-profit charter operators, and right-wingers are using their vast resources to impose their political will, and in most cases are dramatically outspending the good government organizations, education advocates, teachers, and other concerned citizens, who would rather save and strengthen our public schools rather than dismantle them.

For example, there are two statewide referendums on charter schools that people need to vote AGAINST. The individuals and groups who are pushing them are outspending the opposition in Georgia twenty to one and in the state of Washington, more than twelve to one. If the privateers win out, it will show how the influence of big money can buy elections in the face of local sentiment and good public policy.

1. In Washington State, parents should vote NO on Initiative 1240, which would authorize charter schools to be established in the state for the first time. Charter schools have already been voted down by the State Legislature six times, including as recently as 2012, and three times by Washington voters. Yet Bill Gates and his cronies remain determined to overturn the popular will, and have contributed nearly $11 MILLION to achieve this end. Gates himself has given more than $3 million to the campaign, Alice Walton of Walmart fame has kicked in another $1.7 million, and Gates’ buddies Paul Allen of Microsoft and the Bezos family at Amazon.com have donated millions more. 91 percent of the funding for the massive campaign of this initiative has come from just ten people, all of them billionaires.

Meanwhile, those opposing the initiative include the Washington State PTA, the State Democratic Party, the League of Women Voters, the state Association of School Administrators, the state’s principals, the state teachers union, the Seattle NAACP, El Centro do la Raza, the Seattle Public Schools superintendent and countless school boards. They point out how this initiative would further drain resources from the public schools, which have already been found to be constitutionally underfunded by the courts, and would take accountability out of public hands. The measure would also allow the privatization of any public school as long as 51 percent of parents voted for it, in an even more radical permutation of the so-called Parent Trigger. In the latest poll, the pro-charter supporters are ahead by nearly 20 points because of the “very lopsided advertising campaign” financed by these ten billionaires; don’t let this Initiative pass! For more on 1240, visit the No on 1240 website.

2. In Georgia, parents should vote NO on Amendment 1, which would create an appointed commission with the power to authorize charter schools over the opposition of democratically-elected local school boards and the state Board of Education. This constitutional amendment is opposed by the state PTA, the state School Superintendent, the Georgia School Boards Association, and many civil rights groups, who explain how this measure would divert hundreds of millions of dollars annually from the public schools, and into the hands of for-profit corporations, many of them with a lousy record of the schools they currently run, like K12 Inc. According to one report, these new charter schools would also be eligible to receive more state money per pupil than regular public schools. The vast majority of the contributions financing the amendment are coming from outside the state, mainly from charter operators, Michelle Rhee’s Students First, Alice Walton, the Koch brothers, and other individuals intent on weakening and privatizing public schools. Don’t be fooled: here is an explanation of how the amendment has been misleadingly phrased to trick voters, which has already triggered a lawsuit. For more on why you should vote no on this damaging amendment, see Vote Smart Georgia.

3. In Idaho, parents should vote NO on Propositions 1, 2, and 3: Proposition One would limit the rights of teachers to collectively bargain over working conditions like class size, would effectively eliminate their job security and base their evaluation largely on test scores. Proposition Two would implement damaging and wasteful merit pay. Proposition Three would spend yet more funding on requiring online learning for students, which was passed into law after substantial contributions from for-profit virtual learning companies to the state’s Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna. Many of the same companies, including K12 Inc., have given funds to push this proposition, along with NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who contributed $200,000. Their involvement was only disclosed after a court order demanding that the shadowy group pushing these propositions reveal its donors.

4. In California, parents should vote YES on both Propositions 30 and 38, to enable the state to raise revenue to prevent hugely damaging budget cuts to public schools, which are already critically underfunded. More on this from the group Educate the State. Parents and other concerned citizens should also vote NO on Proposition 32, which would prohibit unions from spending money for political purposes, while exempting Super PACs, hedge-funders, billionaires and thousands of big businesses. The League of Women Voters, among many other good government groups, urges a No vote, as do we.

5. In Arizona, parents should vote YES on Proposition 204, which would make permanent a temporary one percent sales tax, with most of the proceeds going to public schools. Arizona already has seen the most drastic budget cuts to schools in the nation in recent years, resulting in some of the highest class sizes, and its children cannot afford any more cuts to school funding. Supporters of Proposition 204 include the Arizona State PTA, Voices for Education and the Southern Arizona Leadership Council; opponents include the state Chamber of Commerce. For more on this Proposition, see the Quality Education and Jobs website.

6. Finally, voters in Bridgeport CT should Vote NO on changing the city charter to eliminate their elected school board, which would allow their mayor to wield unilateral control through an appointed school board. Earlier last year, the hedge-fund backed, pro-charter lobby group ConnCAN conspired with Teach for America and the mayor of Bridgeport, along with the state’s Governor, to oust Bridgeport’s elected school board in what was essentially an illegal coup. Their actions were later overturned by the courts. So now, the pro-privatization lobby is spending a record amount to impose mayoral control through a referendum, with Michelle Rhee’s Student First contributing $97,000 and Mayor Bloomberg another $20,000.

As Diane Ravitch has pointed out, mayoral control has a lousy record; our analysis shows that two cities under mayoral control, Cleveland and NYC, have made the least progress in raising student achievement since 2003 of any the large urban districts on the national assessments called the NAEPs. Here in NYC, after ten years, mayoral control is hugely unpopular, for we have seen how Bloomberg has ignored the priorities of parents in cutting school budgets, increasing class size, closing neighborhood schools, expanding charters and putting them in existing school buildings where they have squeezed out our public school children. In a poll conducted earlier this year, only 13 percent of New Yorkers said the mayor should retain sole control of the public schools. In Chicago, where mayoral control has existed for 17 years, polls show that the system is equally unpopular: 77 percent of Chicago voters oppose continued mayoral control. In fact, on Tuesday in Chicago, there is an advisory referendum on the ballot, urging the state legislature to allow the city to return to an elected school board.

Kevin Johnson, a former NBA basketball player, who used to run charter schools and who is now mayor of Sacramento and is married to Michelle Rhee, came to Connecticut to campaign for the mayoral control referendum. John Bagley, also a former professional basketball player who is now an elected member of Bridgeport’s school board wrote a great letter to Johnson a week ago, which concluded this way:

“Maybe “KJ” and his `reformers’ can explain why the city of New Haven, which has an appointed board, has more failing schools than Bridgeport. This is true, despite the presence on their appointed Board of Education of the former director of CONNCAN, the Connecticut leader of takeover policies. I have only one final piece of advice for `KJ’, don’t come into my house and mess with my right to vote!”

This is a message we should all take to heart.

Use your vote, Bridgeport residents and all others throughout the nation who care about public education, while you still have it! Do not give up your democratic rights and allow the billionaires who send their own children to private schools to buy these elections so they can dismantle, plunder and privatize your public schools.

Leonie Haimson
Executive Director
Class Size Matters
124 Waverly Pl.
New York, NY 10011
212-674-7320
leonie@classsizematters.org
http://www.classsizematters.org
http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leonie-haimson

Follow me on twitter @leoniehaimson

Make a tax-deductible contribution to Class Size Matters now!

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Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Parents, Privatization, Stand for Children, StudentsFirst, US Education

Michelle Rhee Shows Her True Colors

By dianeravitch
October 31, 2012 //
38

Michelle Rhee is endorsing and funding rightwing candidates across the nation, showering cash on those who are opposed to teachers’ rights and unions and support privatization of public education.

In Ohio, she is using her StudentsFirst millions–collected from anonymous billionaires, millionaires and corporations–to support opponents of public education.

An Ohio blogger writes:

Now, here in Ohio, Michelle Rhee’s true colors simply cannot be ignored.  Rhee has chosen to fund multiple candidates in Ohio who are running for the Ohio House this year, citing their individual votes to support the Kasich budget that cut public education funding by $1.8 billion as a reason for StudentsFirst’s support.  Let me restate that: StudentsFirst supports these candidates because they supported Kasich’s budget that cut $1.8 billion from school funding.
PlunderBund (http://s.tt/1rpCF)

Of all her endorsements in Ohio, the most disgusting is that Rhee is supporting a candidate with no education experience running against Maureen Reedy, an experienced and admired teacher. The two are candidates for an open seat in the 29th district.

Maureen Reedy was a teacher for 29 years. Rhee claims to “love” effective teachers. Maureen Reedy was Ohio’s Teacher of the Year in 2002. But Michelle Rhee is supporting her Republican opponent.

Maureen Reedy has pledged to expose the frauds that allow profiteers to waste millions of taxpayers’ dollars in Ohio. She has pledged to support public education in the state legislature. And that is why Rhee opposes Maureen Reedy.

This election tells us who Michelle Rhee is. She supports far-right Republicans, not Democrats. She supports those who voted to defund public education. She supports those who advocate for privatization of public education and who benefit from ineffective, for-profit schools. She does not support effective teachers. She opposes effective teachers.

Forget what she calls herself.

Judge her by her actions.

She is a rightwing Republican who hates public education and those who support it.

Want to know why Rhee opposes Maureen Reedy? Here is an excerpt from an article Reedy wrote for the Columbus Dispatch:

Charter schools are a poor investment of Ohio’s education dollars and have a worse track record than public schools in our state; there are twice as many failing charter schools as successful ones, and one in two charter schools is either in academic emergency or academic watch, compared with only one in 11 traditional public-school buildings. Five of seven of Ohio’s largest electronic-charter-school districts’ graduation rates are lower than the state’s worst public-school system’s graduation rate, and six of seven of the electronic charter schools districts are rated less than effective.

And finally, the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow has failed in every identified state category for eight years, a worse track record than the Cleveland City School system, which is under threat of being shut down by the state. The Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow is run by unlicensed administrators. Lager, in addition to his $3 million salary, earned an additional $12 million funneled through his software company, which sells products to his charter-school corporation. Just how much does the average teacher in the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow earn you may ask? Approximately $34,000 per year.

Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Ohio, Privatization, Rhee, Michelle, StudentsFirst, Vouchers

How Rhee Demonstrates Her Love for Teachers: UPDATE

By dianeravitch
October 29, 2012 //
9

Michelle Rhee, through her organization StudentsFirst, dropped $500,000 into a ballot initiative in Michigan, where there is an effort to establish the right to collective bargaining in the state constitution. Rhee thinks this is a terrible idea, because she loves teachers, but only “effective” teachers, the kind that get high test scores very year. If teachers join unions, the teachers won’t be effective any more or they might protect teachers who don’t get high scores every year.

Turns out that the right to join a union is contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Canadian Constitution. But corporations don’t like that idea. It restrains them from cutting costs. In a globalized and competitive world, the winners produce the most at the lowest cost. That means teachers must be low-wage and cheaper, or as Jeb Bush recommends, replaced by computers.

Thus the battle in Michigan.

Categories Michigan, Rhee, Michelle, StudentsFirst

Change.Org Sells Out

By dianeravitch
October 24, 2012 //
16

Many people with liberal causes have used change.org to launch petition drives.

In its founding, change.org declared its dedication to progressive values.

Many people were upset when change.org allowed Michelle Rhee to surreptitiously gather signatures on its site. You might sign a petition saying you want great teachers or you think teachers should be paid more, and without your knowledge or consent, you were a member of StudentsFirst. You would never get a notice informing that you had unknowingly “joined.” But you would be counted as a member.

Many were also upset that change.org hosted Stand for Children, which is anti-union, anti-teacher, anti-public education, and pro-corporate.

We thought those lapses were aberrations. But now we find that change.org is opening its doors to anti-union, anti-abortion, pro-corporate advertising. Its progressive veneer has simply disappeared. On October 24, the new policy will take effect. The news was leaked to Jeff Bryant, who wrote about it here.

Of course, that is their right. But beware. Don’t sign any petitions on that site. You never will find out what cause or group has just added your name to its membership rolls.

Just be aware that when they ask you if you support puppies and kittens, you might be signing a petition to give away public lands or to outsource American jobs or to bust a union or to support ALEC.

Categories ALEC, Corporate Reformers, For-Profit, Privatization, Stand for Children, StudentsFirst, Unions

Michelle Rhee’s Plan to Destroy Public Education

By dianeravitch
October 2, 2012 //
33

Michelle Rhee is is a one-person PAC. She is raising hundreds of millions of dollars from rightwing billionaires and foundations and corporations to subsidize her program.

What is her program? Destroy teachers’ unions; eliminate tenure and seniority; privatize public education. Having failed to transform the public schools of the District of Columbia, she now wants to privatize public education everywhere.

When I was in Chattanooga, Tennessee, I learned from a Democratic state senator that Rhee had poured $105,000 into a race between a liberal Democrat and a conservative Democrat. The difference between them? The conservative Democrat supports vouchers. My informant said, “Candidates here will jump through hoops for a contribution of $1,000. Getting $105,000 is unimaginable.” Rhee bought the election. The voucher-loving Democrat won. He added: Most of Rhee’s money goes to conservative Republicans.

She is trying to buy a seat in Connecticut now. A reader writes:

Rhee’s fraud of an organization has nothing to do with students, teaching or learning. It is a political lobbyist group that secretly slithers around the nation passing our billionaire donated cash to influence and bribe politicians. Her dirty donations push the privatization, anti-union, anti-public school, collective bargaining busting, teacher trashing dogma down their throats. Here she is a pariah and getting her money is the kiss of death here in CT:

http://jonathanpelto.com/2012/10/01/michelle-buy-yourself-an-election-rhee-returns-to-undermine-democracy-in-connecticut/

http://www.ctnewsjunkie.com/ctnj.php/archives/entry/is_michelle_rhee_trying_to_buy_a_seat_in_the_5th/#comments-31483

Categories Connecticut, Corporate Reformers, Democrats, For-Profit, Privatization, Rhee, Michelle, StudentsFirst, Tennessee, Unions, US Education, Vouchers

Fox News’ Conflict of Interest?

By dianeravitch
September 21, 2012 //
12

Some of the tests that Chicago teachers complained about, the tests on which their evaluations would depend, the tests at the heart of the strike—are administered by a subsidiary of Fox News.

Media Matters, a public-interest watchdog, pointed out that Fox News aired 89 segments about the strike in a one-week period without disclosing the financial ties between Fox News and Wireless Generation, both of which are part of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation empire.

Full disclosure might also imply the need to disclose that Murdoch donates significant sums of money to charter schools and to Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst.

Then there is the fact that Joel Klein heads the education division of News Corporation. Klein is a member of Jeb Bush’s board and chairman of the Broad Center Board, and Rhee is on the Broad board, and so is Wendy Kopp, and so is her husband, and so is Margaret Spellings …

Such a tangled web of relationships, and all devoted to the same purposes: privatizing the nation’s public schools, selling technology to replace teachers, weakening unions and eliminating any rights that teachers have or had.

Categories Broad Foundation, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, StudentsFirst, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure, Testing

Worst News of the Day

By dianeravitch
September 17, 2012 //
27

A friend just informed me that Bill Cosby has joined the board of Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst. This is a coup for her in her efforts to demean our nation’s teachers and promote the privatization of American public education.

He is clearly uninformed about what she is doing. If you know how to contact him, do so. This is not in character for him.

Categories Rhee, Michelle, StudentsFirst

Do You Happen to Know a Billionaire?

By dianeravitch
September 9, 2012 //
15

Do you happen to know a billionaire? Or maybe someone with lots of millions?

Not just any old billionaire, but one who cares about supporting public education. One who thinks it is wrong to hand out children over to entrepreneurs. One who knows the difference between the free market and the commons.

I ask because of this comment that I received from a teacher in a northeastern state. I have edited it to obscure the identities of all involved, which was the condition for using it:

As part of research for my master’s degree, I interviewed [XX], whom I had gotten to “know” over Facebook. XX leads a local branch of StudentsFirst, funded by David Tepper and Allen Fournier, the billionaire hedge fund boys. By his own admission, XX fell into ed reform when he was unemployed. 
He’s not in this because of any deep abiding conviction to make schools better (though he may have developed an interest). He’s in this because he needed a job, is a private-school educated African American who speaks well and now controls a SuperPAC. It’s a chess game for him, and is quite addictive. He hangs out with Rhee and has addressed ALEC on several occasions.
He said two interesting things to me in our meeting. “I’m here because you’re not.” Translation – if the education establishment had taken on the issues, or at least been less complacent about messaging (the REAL problem in my opinion) there’d be no market for the “reforms.”  The second thing he said was, and I’m paraphrasing here, “Reform 1.0 was school choice. Reform 2.0 was tenure (for NJ). Reform 3.0 is we have a SuperPAC – we can elect candidates.

As I said, he’s developed an interest in education but he’s hanging with the wrong guys, and i told him as much. His real interest is in the chess game of politics, which is fascinating, especially when you have the resources to play for real.

Between the AFT and NEA we have millions of people on street level. Save Our Schools has thousands more folks. Where do we find super rich folks who can help us pay for someone like James Carville to craft our multi-level consistent message and actually get it out there? I’m asking you because I’m hoping you’ve run across them in your travels.

Categories ALEC, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Rhee, Michelle, StudentsFirst, Teacher Tenure

Two Moms Terrify DFER and StudentsFirst

By dianeravitch
September 4, 2012 //
23

What are DFER and Students First afraid of?

Activist moms denied admission to events at the Democratic National Convention

 

Contacts:  Pam Grundy, 704-806-0410, shamrockparent@earthlink.net

Carol Sawyer, 704-641-2009, carolsawyer1@gmail.com

 

For the second day in a row, at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., a handful of moms bearing flyers and large yellow pencils made out of pool noodles were denied admission to an event sponsored and/or featuring the corporate-focused education “reform” groups Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) and Students First, headed by Michelle Rhee.

On Tuesday, Carol Sawyer and Pam Grundy, co-chairs of the locally based MecklenburgACTS.org, had signed up in advance for what was billed as a DFER “Town Hall,” and received confirmation of their registration. An hour before the program was scheduled to begin, they stationed themselves outside the entrance and distributed flyers to other attendees which questioned the effectiveness of DFER’s strategies for improving education.

Shortly before the event was to begin, Carol went to take her seat. But she was told at the door that she would not be allowed in, even though she had a confirmed registration. The reason she was given was that the MecklenbugACTS representatives were discouraging people from attending. This was patently untrue, as Carol and others were in fact directing attendees towards the entrance, which was somewhat complicated to locate.

The denial at the Students First event the previous day more closely resembled a comedy of errors, as Pam described in a Parents Across America blog post following the events.

“We find it somewhat amusing that these well-funded groups seem to regard us as such a threat,” Carol observed. “But more important, we are troubled by the way that these forums on education – a subject which is so essential to our children’s and our nation’s future – seem to be so thoroughly orchestrated that they leave no room for real debate or discussion. Many, many Democrats agree with us on issues of high-stakes testing, treatment of teachers and rampant privatization. We call on President Obama to use his influence to open up the debate to other voices and other points of view.”

 

Categories Democrats for Education Reform, Parents, StudentsFirst
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