"A child's learning is the function more of the characteristics of his classmates than those of the teacher." James Coleman, 1972

Saturday, October 03, 2015

Eli Broad and the Clintons: Update of the Update





By Ken Derstine @ Defend Public Education!

October 3, 2015

On October 1st, the LA Times printed an article by journalist Evan Halper that went into the opposition in teachers unions to union leaders endorsement of Hillary Clinton for president. "Some teachers resisting union endorsement of Hillary Rodham Clinton for president

At its end, this LA Times article cites the website Defend Public Education! as one of the sources of the discontent with Hillary Clinton, but it distorts what is stated in the Update to a previous LA Times article on the website. In that article, previously posted on Schools Matter, Bill Clinton is quoted as saying Eli Broad visited the Clintons in 1983, but this new LA Times article does not include that Bill Clinton also said in the first LA Times article that Hillary Clinton was Eli Broad’s lawyer at the time.

Is this obfuscation of the deeper relationship between the Clintons and Eli Broad than previously disclosed?

The nature of the Clintons relationship with Eli Broad should be investigated further. When and under what circumstances did Hillary Clinton become Eli Broad's lawyer (assuming Bill Clinton was telling the truth in the interview)? What role did the relationship between Eli Broad and the Clintons play in the development of the neoliberal attack on public education?

Also see:
Broad's support of Clinton raising concerns within teacher unions
LA School Report - October 1, 2015

1 comment:

  1. This seems related, tangentially perhaps--but some of you might remember an episode of The West Wing where the President decides to support vouchers because the DC Mayor does as well as Charlie, the president's "body man" or personal assistant (who is the token Black character of the show who represents the "unique" Black child give the appropriate boost from the Paternalistic White Establishment). The West Wing is the Clinton Admin (as re-imagined, or as re-administered) with many episodes penned by Lawrence O'Donnell, including this one, ironically called, "Full Disclosure." O'Donnell's career in politics, from wikipedia:

    From 1989 to 1995, he was a key legislative aide to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan.[4] From 1989 to 1991, he served as senior advisor to Moynihan. From 1992 to 1993, he was staff director of the United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, then chaired by Senator Moynihan. And then from 1993 to 1995, he was staff director of the United States Senate Committee on Finance, once again under Senator Moynihan’s chairmanship. He thus led the staff of the Senate's tax-writing committee during the consideration of President Bill Clinton's first budget, which Congress enacted in the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993.

    As I'm sure many of you know, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a man with zero experience with or education about the Black family in America wrote the famous and still controversial, "Report on the Negro Family." This was attacked almost immediately as a "blaming the victim" report in which the absence of the father in "ghetto culture" was a cultural norm and not a consequence of structural (intentional) impoverishment of Black Americans.

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