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On September 10, 2018, the Network for Public Education (NPE) released a valuable report years in the making, Hijacked by Billionaires: How the Super Rich Buy Elections to Undermine Public Schools.

The full report is 103 pages long and includes 9 case studies that are accompanied by 10 interactive maps (two for Louisiana):

• Newark, New Jersey: New York Billionaires Flood a New Jersey Mayoral Election with Cash (map)
• Washington State: Charter Advocates Refuse to Take “No” for an Answer (map)
• Los Angeles, California: Charter Advocates Buy Majority Board Control (map)
• Perth Amboy, New Jersey: Big Money Floods a Small School Board Race (map)
• Louisiana: Jeb Bush Calls and Billionaire Dollars Follow (map1 and map2)
• Rhode Island: Anti-Pension Texas Billionaire a Major Player in Rhode Island Governor’s Race (map)
• Minneapolis, Minnesota:…

The destroy public education (DPE) movement is the fruit of a relatively small group of billionaires. The movement is financed by several large non-profit organizations. Nearly all of the money spent is free of taxation. Without this spending, there would be no wide-spread public school privatization.

It is generally recognized that the big three foundations driving DPE activities are The Bill and Melinda Gate Foundation (Assets in 2016 = $41 billion), The Walton Family Foundation (Assets in 2016 = $3.8 billion), and The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation (Assets in 2016 = $1.8 billion).

Yesterday, the Network for Public Education published “Hijacked by Billionaires: How the Super Rich Buy Elections to Undermine Public Schools.” This interactive report lists the top ten billionaires spending to drive their DPE agenda with links to case studies for their spending.

These Images Come from the New NPE Report

Short…

Earlier this summer, the rightwing rag Breitbart posted a very positive article about Marshall Tuck, who is running to become California’s Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Breitbart, long associated with Steve Bannon and white-nationalist policies, identifies Tuck as pro-charter school and anti-union.

The article correctly notes that Tuck received only 5% of the votes at the state Democratic convention.

The overwhelming majority of Democratic delegates to the convention endorsed Tuck’s opponent, Tony Thurmond.

There are many reasons to vote for Tony Thurmond, including his experience as a social worker and his demonstrated concern for students, not corporate interests.

If you want Eli Broad and the other billionaires to control public education and privatize it, then Tuck’s your man.

If you want public schools to remain public and accountable to democratically elected school boards, vote for Tony Thurmond.

Where there is a charter school, there is a need to drum up some enrollment.

“It is not enough for parents to choose any seats,” saith the charter school; “we need for those parents to choose our seats.”

That’s where some nifty marketing assistance is helpful.

In 2015, the Colorado League of Charter Schools (CLCS) produced a publication entitled, Stand Out: A Guide to School Marketing, created by Lisa Relou Consulting:

Stand Out: A Guide to School Marketing was created in collaboration with Lisa Relou Consulting. Lisa Relou is the former Director of Internal Communications and Marketing for Denver Public Schools and has 15 years of experience marketing
schools in Colorado. She is currently a strategic consultant in the field of education reform and philanthropy and specializes in collaborating with leaders and organizations to tell their story. For information contact lisa.relou@gmail.com.

Some thoughts on how parents need help making…

Bill Phillis, retired for many years as deputy state superintendent of education in Ohio and now the state’s most outspoken critic of charter fraud, writes on his blog about the Thomas B. Fordham Institute’s lame defense of for-profit charters:

“The myth of Ohio’s ‘for-profit’ charter school system”: A Fordham Institute’s damage control effort

An August 20 Fordham article suggests the charter industry is getting a bad rap because of the cronyism of a few charter operators. The article also attempts to justify the use of for-profit management companies by charter schools.

The notion proffered is that ECOT and the White Hat Management Company are the only bad actors in the charter industry. What about the 250 or so charter schools that took state and federal money and closed or never opened leaving kids in an education lurch? What about the other charter operations that have been reported as fostering gross…

This is a great article, written in 2015. How could I have missed it!

It was written by Salvator Babones, a professor of sociology at the University of Sydney and the Institute for Policy Studies.

He begins:

When did reform become a dirty word? Thirty years of education reform have brought a barren, test-bound curriculum that stigmatizes students, vilifies teachers, and encourages administrators to commit wholesale fraud in order to hit the testing goals that have been set for them. Strangely, reform has gone from being a progressive cause to being a conservative curse. It used to be that good people pursued reform to make the world a better place, usually by bringing public services under transparent, meritocratic, democratically governed public control. Today, reform more often involves firing people and dismantling public services in the pursuit of private gain. Where did it all go so wrong? Who stole our ever-progressing…