The Monica Garcia - Betsy DeVos connection

“Monica Garcia believes in… choice… She expanded charter schools” — Michael R. Bloomberg and A. Jerrold Perenchio’s Coalition for School Reform

Extremist Betsy DeVos was a long time favorite of neoliberal corporate education reform oriented Liberals and reactionary organizations like Democrats for Education Reform, so it's surprising that there's a little bit of consternation coming from some Democrats over Trump's ED pick. On the other hand, right-wing extremists like Campbell Brown seemingly can't contain their joy over the arch-reactionary appointment. Ultimately DeVos's school privatization policies won't differ substantively from those of the doltish Arne Duncan or John King. She'll just get to our rulers' end goal of eliminating public education quicker than the Bush and Obama Administrations were able to.

Los Angeles has had its own Betsy DeVos for many years in the form of anti-public school politician Monica Garcia. Garcia is running for a third term, and her long record of expanding revenue streams and market share for the lucrative charter school industry is legendary. Here are some of DeVos and Garcia's connections and shared values:

• Betsy DeVos financially supports, and was on the board of publisher (The 74) of the dubious "LA School Report", a high-profile blog that has provided non-stop favorable publicity and propaganda for Moníca García since its inception.

• DeVos has made sizable contributions to organizations that in turn made campaign contributions to SuperPAC Independent Expenditures supporting García's elections. Follow the money to organization like the now defunct Coalition for School Reform, and Great Public Schools Los Angeles, and also the current CCSA run Parent Teacher Alliance dark money SuperPAC.

• DeVos funds the organizations espousing racist "school choice" policies from which García derives many of her policy positions and talking points.

• DeVos and García openly support religious, and religious affiliated organizations running charter chains. DeVos with the various Christian Identity and white supremacist organizations she's associated with, and García, whose long time relationship with The Pacifica Institute and the shadowy Gülen network are well documented.

Pence Funded by Oregon’s Charter School Libertarian

By Doug Martin, Author of Hoosier School Heist

(Doug Martin is up for the Best Local Political Activist of the Year Award.  Please go to NUVO and vote for him today and every day until August 21.) 

The school privatizers are tossing money at Mike Pence right and left.  The governor cashed in on a $25,000 contribution on June 4 from John D. Bryan in Lake Oswego, OR.

As I reveal in my book Hoosier School Heist, Bryan is the millionaire charter school/voucher champion who helped finance Walmart-Amway’s American Federation for Children in 2010 and 2011, a front-group which has funneled millions of dollars into Indiana and other states to buy Republicans to pass anti-public school laws.  Last year, Bryan gave $50,000 to the Walmart-Amway backed Hoosiers for Quality Education. 

Not only is Bryan pro-charter school, as former director of the Georgia Gulf Corporation, a plastics and petrochemical maker now operating under the name Axiall, he is also an anti-climate change promoter.  

A past leadership board member of the Koch Brothers-affiliated Club for Growth and a Scott Walker donor, Bryan has handed at least $201,000 to the Indiana Republican Campaign Committee since 2006.  Over the years, Bryan has gifted Pence $145,000.  

The Challenge Foundation has given money to at least 182 charter schools nationwide, as of my book’s writing. I have a whole section in Hoosier School Heist on Bryan’s Challenge Foundation and the Avondale Meadows School in Indianapolis, when it went by the name Challenge Foundation Academy.  Charter schools headed by the Challenge Foundation are rampant across the country, at least one with serious religious Right leanings.  

Bryan has brilliantly combined the Religious Right with the Corporate Right.  He has funded the the Black Alliance for Educational Options and is fond of the national anthem.  He likes former Indianapolis’ Democratic mayor Bart Peterson, too, who first allowed him into Indiana in the first place.  

(Doug Martin is up for the Best Local Political Activist of the Year Award.  Please go to NUVO and vote for him today and every day until August 21.) 

UPDATE ON THE MICHIGAN FAMILY BUYING INDIANA, FLORIDA, AND OKLAHOMA EDUCATION

By Doug Martin,  the author of Hoosier School Heist (find it on Facebook)

cross-posted at the Hoosier School Heist Blog

Without a doubt, Betsy DeVos and her family members are some of the biggest players behind school privatization in Indiana (and several other states, so see the end of this piece).

Betsy DeVos is the wife of Richard (Dick) DeVos, Jr., the Christian Right leader of Amway and Right-to-Work  supporter who ran for governor of Michigan in 2006 and almost won.   As I explain in my book  Hoosier School Heist, Richard, in a video a few years back, detailed the family plan for Indiana public education and school privatization across the country.

Betsy DeVos’ brother Erik Prince founded the Christian military force Blackwater, known for its massacre, threats to a U.S. investigator, and big government payouts in the War on Terror.

Along with Walmart’s Walton family, Betsy DeVos heads the American Federation for Children, a front-group operating in several states, which funneled money into the Hoosiers for Economic Growth PAC which in turn handed tons of campaign donations to Indiana Republicans to pass anti-public education bills to benefit for-profit charter operators and rightwing Christian schools.

Besides giving Tony Bennet $10,000 directly, the DeVos family has handed $940,000 to the American Federation for Children.

Mike Pence has received just $20,000 in campaign donations from the DeVos family.

In 2014, the group gave the Hoosiers for Economic Growth PAC (now the Hoosiers for Quality Education PAC) $175,000.

The American Federation for Children is still very actively raising money in Indiana through Citizens United lawyer James Bopp, Jr.’s Terre Haute office, with Jim Walton giving close to $40,000 this year alone.  So far, the school privatization money is flowing into Florida and Oklahoma, but it’s a sure bet it  will find its way to the Indiana statehouse doorsteps soon, too.

Indy Corporate School Complex Gearing Up for IPS School Board Buyout

by Doug Martin

Even though the filing deadline is not until the end of the month, the Indy Chamber has already handpicked candidates to elect to the IPS school board to completely turn the city’s schools over to the greedy.

Readers who have read Hoosier School Heist know exactly what this means and are well aware of the group of billionaires and lapdogs who desire to turn Indianapolis into New Orleans, where no true public schools exist now. Indianapolis didn’t have a hurricane to take advantage of, but it did have Bush Family friend Al Hubbard, NJ hedge funder Alan Fournier, and others who bought the candidates last election to help privatize IPS.

The Indy Corporate School Complex includes the Indy Chamber, the Mind Trust, the DFER hedge funders, Amway/DeVos, and others, and in Indianapolis, the Chamber has officially announced it is gearing up for the heist starting with its September 4th "Politics Never Looked So Good" Hobnob event, where it will roll out its red carpet for its IPS corporate board candidates at a VIP reception.

The first Chamber candidate is Kelly Bentley, who sat on the IPS board for years before she went to work for the hedge fund group DFER in Indianapolis.  

LaNier Echols, a veteran corporate school member in the city, is the second candidate the wealthy are supporting.  A transplant from Jeb Bush’s Florida and a Marian University/Teach for America alumnus, Echols is famous for appearing in Mitch Daniel’s Aiming Higher PAC’s anti-teacher seniority ad.  She went on to work for the Indiana Public Charter Schools Association and has even testified at the statehouse for merit-pay based on student testing. She now is the dean at Indy's Carpe Diem school, ran by a national outfit supported by Jeb Bush, Tony Bennett, Mike Pence, Pence's CECI, and the Friedman Foundation.

Even though Mary Ann Sullivan hasn’t even filed the paperwork to run for the IPS school board or the officials at the clerk’s office haven’t posted the filing yet, she is a shoo-in, the corporate school leaders believe.  Sullivan’s husband Brian is on the board at the Indy Chamber, as is Hoosier School Heist legend Charles Garcia.  Sullivan has been a longtime operative for the DFER hedge fund managers in NYC and was loaded with money from mayor Michael Bloomberg for one of her campaigns (see page 143 in Hoosier School Heist), as was Stand for Children, DFER, and Tim Delaney.

Sullivan is a serious threat to public schools now.  In May she joined the national board of DFER, along with Indiana-born Kevin Chavous, the founding father of the Black Alliance for Educational Options front group and DFER whose appearance in my book is one of its most despicable sections.

In 2013, Sullivan climbed aboard DFER's Speakers Bureau, a fancy term meaning former legislators willing to spread hedge fund propaganda to the media and anyone else duped into listening. 

Unfortunately, no campaign finance records have been recorded yet on these candidates, but look for them here when they do.  I can almost tell you now who will be mentioned. 

Word on the street is the Chamber didn’t endorse any IPS board candidates last election until October and even interviewed some.  But there’s no need to interview candidates you have handpicked to carry on the school privatizing agenda.  The Chamber knows they will be good little lapdogs and do what the billionaires say.

 

Matt Ubelhor, the Walmart/Amway Family Greeder

by Doug Martin

With $106,000 of in-kind contributions from Mitch Daniels’ school privatizing Aiming Higher PAC (page 7), $13,000 of in-kind contributions (page 11) from Brian Bosma,  a $1,500 direct deposit from Mike Pence’s committee (page 10),  and $53,000 (page 8) in hard cash from the anti-critical thinking Indiana Chamber’s Indiana Business for Responsible Government PAC, Matt Ubelhor, Indiana's state rep. from district 62, in 2010 fed his pockets and his ego with $61,000 of the Walton/DeVos/hedge fund Hoosiers for Economic Growth PAC money (page 7) and officially became a Walmart/Amway politician.

It was a good year for the Hoosiers for Economic Growth PAC, with mega-bucks pouring in from Overstock.com's Patrick Byrne, defrauder Jerry Slusser (both mentioned in Hoosier School Heist), and others.

And Ubelhor's cozy relationship with the chief funders of the corporate school movement in Indiana has not ended.  In December 2013, the Hoosiers for Economic Growth PAC handed Ubelhor $500 (page 9) more.

Mitch, Mike, Brian, the Chamber, and others adore the handsome Republican from Bristow, Indiana, but Ubelhor is a true Walmart/Amway Republican, first and foremost. 

Look for more dough coming to Ubelhor from this group soon.  But beware.  They have changed the PAC’s name to the Hoosiers for Quality Education Political Action Committee in an attempt to throw muckslingers like me off track, but it won’t work. 
 

I know whose bed Matt Ubelhor sleeps in every single night and what corporate privatizers he welcomes at his door.  

Member of FBI-Raided School Funds Todd Rokita AFTER the Raid

by Doug Martin

I mention Todd Rokita, the Indiana US congressman from the 4th district, in my book Hoosier School Heist because of his role with the Muslim Gulen charter schools recently raided by the FBI (see more on this at the end of this article).

Since Rokita is up for election this year, I decided to peek into his campaign funding ("peek" because I merely touch the surface with what is below). 

Unsurprisingly, Rokita and Tony Bennett have a lot in common.  Rokita is tight with the main players who have turned our schools over to privatizers in Indiana.

First off, in 2010, Fred Klipsch, Walmart and Amway’s main school privatizing operative in Indiana, rolled $1,000 into Rokita’s campaign.  

Simon Property Group’s Herbert Simon gave $1,000 to Rokita in 2011.  Simon Property Group, as I note in Hoosier School Heist, helps run dozens of public schools in its shopping malls across the US so students can incorporate consuming into their course loads.  

George Bush partner and Tony Bennett donor Al Hubbard, who works for Simon Property Group, funded with millionaires IPS board member Caitlin Hannon, and orchestrated many parts of the public school takeover in Indiana with Jeb Bush and Amway’s Betsy DeVos, gave Rokita $2,000 (see here and here for his funding in 2010 and in April of this year).

Then there’s scandal-ridden Mitch Daniels’ buddy Jerry Slusser, who is also in my book.  Slusser loaded Rokita’s campaign chest with $6,600 in 2010 (see here, here, and here). 

When online K12, INC’s founder Bill Bennett wanted to hang out in Indiana to promote his various corporate school projects, Tony Bennett attempted to use Slusser to fly him to a Jeffersonville fundraiser. 

Slusser, besides being very rich, is best known for being fined “$600,000 by federal regulators for defrauding German investors in the late ‘90s.”

Tony Bennett donor and popcorn prince Michael Weaver, also mentioned in Hoosier School Heist, gave Rokita $2,000 (here and here) a few years ago.

Another Tony Bennett mega-donor, Dean White, gave Rokita $5,200 in 2013.
   
And let us not forget the Muslim Gulenists from Turkey who wine, dine, and buy lawmakers across the country and get millions of our tax dollars.  They operate several charter schools in the Midwest (Indy, too) that have recently been raided by the FBI. 

Hasan Yerdelen, who once ran the Gulenist American Turkish Association of Indiana, handed Rokita $1,000 in 2010. 

In 2010, the Indiana Math and Science Academy’s Aynur Aytekin’s slid Rokita $1,000.

Unbelievably, this year on June 30, Gulen’s main man in Indiana, Bilal Eksili, who has or still sits on several Indiana Math and Science Academy charter school boards in Indianapolis (including its North campus,*) slipped Rokita $2,500.  The FBI raided Gulen's Indiana Math and Science Academy North campus school in Indy on June 4^th. 

Indy RTV's Derrik Thomas wanted to interview me about the FBI raid but backed out. We wouldn't want the public to know too much, now would we?

NOTE: 

* The Indiana Math and Science Academy North board of directors, according to the group's website, also lists Brenda Shaheed as a member.  Brenda is the mother-in-law of another Indiana Gulen-lawmaker, Andre Carson.

The Dirt on Bob Behning’s Reelection Money

by Doug Martin

In my book Hoosier School Heist, I detail the corporate/theocratic billionaires who are out to destroy Indiana public education, and the same people in my book are behind Bob Behning’s reelection campaign. 

In fact, the Hoosiers for Economic Growth PAC, founded by an Amway/Besty Devos/Walmart/Overstock.com/hedge fund front group,  just gave Behning $45,000, two days ago.  Hoosiers for Economic Growth slid him $25,000 at the beginning of this month, too (page 4).  Back in 2013, the super PAC handed Behning $2,000 (page 5). This PAC is where Walmart and DeVos' American Federation for Children unloads its money.

Bush family friend Al Hubbard, emails show, was working with DeVos and Jeb Bush operatives even before Bennett knew the game, and Hubbard also has thrown $5,000 (page to 2) to Behning’s reelection campaign. Hubbard also gave the Hoosiers for Economic Growth PAC $75,000 recently.

The resort mega-millionaire Christel DeHaan, notorious for being the Tony Bennett campaign funder Tony Bennett rigged the charter school grade for, gave $10,000 on April 19, 2014.

Theresa  Rooney, whose father was the father of the Indiana voucher movement, has also tossed Behning $5,000 (page 2).  

David Shane, whose wife Anne was a Lilly and Mind Trust water-carrier, gifted Behning $500 (page 3).  Eli Lilly (known for funding the Mind Trust’s temporary teacher workforce) gave money to Republican Behning in 2013, as well (page 7).

Hedge fund and Bill Gates’ supported Stand for Children (highlighted in Hoosier School Heist) dished out $1,000 to Behning recently (page 4).

In November of last year, the Students First PAC, run by fake liberal darling Michelle Rhee, handed Behning $1,000 (page 9).

Red Apple Development, which is Jeb Bush buddy Jon Hage’s real estate branch of Charter Schools USA, has slid Behning at least $2,000.

I am sure I could trace even more corporate school money to Behning, but I am busy, busy, busy, folks, and don’t have much time to dig. Read my book, please, for the rest of the story.

Doug Martin on Workers' Voice Radio Show, March 14, Today

by Doug Martin

I will be joining labor studies professor Patrick Hill and unionist and blogger Randy Obenchain for a discussion on the Workers' Voice Show at Indiana University Kokomo's Radio Free Kokomo tonight, Friday March 14th, from 5-6 pm. 

I am a big fan of this show, since I learn something new every time I listen in.  I, too, hope to cover some new ground that I haven't mentioned on air yet, specifically the Walmart/Amway attack on Indiana public schools, workers' rights, GM's math for killing off people in vehicles, $857 popcorn, and Jim Horn on eugenics and school testing.

You can listen to the show live at this link:
.
http://www.indiana.edu/~iukradio/

Be sure to check out the show's website and facebook page, too.

Please tune in!!!  And look for my book, Hoosier School Heist, due out next Friday.