Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue

“In the long run, charter schools are being strategically used to pave the way for vouchers. The voucher advocates, who are very powerful and funded by right-wing foundations and families, recognize that the word voucher has been successfully discredited by enlightened Americans who believe in the public sector. So they’ve resorted to two strategies. First, they no longer use the word “vouchers.” They’ve adopted the seemingly benign phrase “school choice,” but they are still voucher advocates.” — Jonathan Kozol

The end goal of school privatization projects like charter schools has always been vouchers. While both charters and vouchers prevent the public from being able to control the curriculum taught with public dollars, vouchers are far worse in that regard. Vouchers represent an attack on democratic institutions and they represent an attack on rationality in general. Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, a case about to be heard in front of the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), could open the flood gates to scare community tax dollars being squandered on dominionist curricula and schools that can openly discriminate.

Vouchers mean Jeanne Allen's dream of teaching children that Jesus rode dinosaurs will finally come true
image by Monty Propps https://b3ta.com/board/7293522

With a SCOTUS populated by arch-reactionaries like Kavanaugh and Gorsuch, it's highly likely that the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment will either be ignored or explained away in order to justify funding extremist religious organizations. You know Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue represents a major threat to public education when charter-voucher promoting organizations like the Center for Education Reform file an amicus brief in favor of the right-wing plaintiff. Reactionaries Jeanne Allen and Paul Clement also got a piece published in Time in favor of using public funds to teach religious extremism.

How fringe-right are business banker Marshall Tuck’s education views?

How reactionary is Marshall Tuck on education issues? One measure is to compare his views to those of the notoriously right-wing JBS and GOP stalwarts. Here we look at some critical issues facing students, families, and our public schools.

Sources: ontheissues.org, marshalltuck.com, jbs.org

Remember that Marshall Tuck, like his white supremacist counterparts Tom Horne and John Huppenthal, shuttered Ethnic Studies, killed Dual Language Immersion Programs, and eliminated Heritage Language Programs.

Resources on Marshall Tuck

• Marshall Tuck’s Legacy of Bigotry and Failure
• The Charter School Money-Machine for Antonio Villaraigosa and Marshall Tuck Is Terrible To Behold
• Smoking Gun! Wall Street Banker Marshall Tuck violated student and parent civil rights!
• The Right Wing, Anti-Gay Crusade Behind Marshall Tuck’s Campaign to Take Over California Schools
• Shedding Light on Marshall Tuck’s Shady Money Trail
• California School Privatizers’ Ideal Superintendent Is Tied to Anti-Gay Crusaders
• A Great Divide: The Election Fight for California’s Schools
• Failing the Test: Charter School Powerbrokers
• Banker Marshall Tuck put student lives at risk by terminating Health Education
• Tuck’s Ethnocentrism Contradicts Californian Values
• Marshall Tuck’s racist dog whistle

[list to be continued]

Jeanne Allen: Reactionary Right-Wing Extremist

Allen: On board with ALEC

It’s general knowledge that Center for Education Reform (CER), and its CEO Jeanne Allen, are extremely right-wing. Sourcewatch documents their connection with American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

Allen: Funded by the fringe

Jeanne Allen’s CER is funded by reactionary extremist billionaires, here’s a a sampling of their fringe-right supporters:

• The Anschutz Foundation
• The Laura and John Arnold Foundation
• The Honorable and Mrs. Frank Baxter
• The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
• The Broad Foundation
• The Doris and Donald Fisher Fund
• The L & S Milken Family Foundation
• Mr. Whitney Tilson
• The Walton Family Foundation

Allen: Writing for the Fringe-Right

Jeanne Allen is a frequent contributor for reactionary publications like National Review. Additionally, she expressed enthusiastic support, in writing, for the policies of Donald J. Trump and his arch-reactionary Secretary of Education, religious extremist Betsy DeVos. Moreover, Allen was called out on Crooks and Liars for her full-throated support of DeVos’ segregationist policies.

Allen: Reactionary Republican

Jeanne Allen ran as the GOP candidate in 2010 for Maryland’s District 16 race for House of Delegates. She received funding from right-wing republicans like Jeb Bush, dark-money investors, and charter school profiteers. Jeanne Allen was Executive Director of the extreme-right Heritage Foundation’s “Town Hall.”

---

Brief history on how this meme came about. I recently tweeted about Allen in connection to an article I saw another activist post about her.

Right-wing extremist @JeanneAllen worried she comes off as an extremist in #EdReform exposé film https://t.co/2yaEb4ywSf h/t @DianeRavitch

— Robert D. Skeels 🎃 (@rdsathene) October 5, 2017

My tone not comporting, to steal from Professor Dylan Rodriguez, with the norms of "white civil society" caused some consternation with the reactionaries inhabiting #EdReform Twitter. Here are a few of the more notable responses:

Remember, it is always the *other* side that is "extremist." https://t.co/KLvBwGZNrN

— Neal McCluskey (@NealMcCluskey) October 5, 2017

K-12 #SchoolChoice w/money following the student is exactly as "extreme" as college choice with gov't Pell Grants following the student. https://t.co/QHxZzzaQY1

— Bob Bowdon (@BobBowdon) October 5, 2017

Definition of right wing=putting ed opportunity 4 kids ahead of adults? @HowardLFuller @citizenstewart did you know you were right-wing? https://t.co/imBkRAfcuj

— Jeanne Allen (@JeanneAllen) October 5, 2017

I'm a life long Dem. @JeanneAllen is a "right-wing"extremist because she stands up for low income children of color? Now I'm confused...

— Jeff Klaus (@JeffKlaus28) October 6, 2017

I can't think of anyone as profoundly ignorant, or as uniquely unqualified to be appointed Secretary of Education as Betsy…

I can't think of anyone as profoundly ignorant, or as uniquely unqualified to be appointed Secretary of Education as Betsy…

…oh, wait, never-mind.

Let's not forget that neoliberal school privatization is a bipartisan project. Both parties fail education.

A natural progression of neoliberalism

• Rod Paige
• Margaret Spellings
• Arne Duncan
• John King
• Betsy DeVos

Not opposing the neoliberal corporate education reform agenda when Democrats were in charge is what led to the DeVos disaster. Not unlike how the Hillary Rodham Clinton camp's "Elevating Pied Piper Candidates" led to the Trump fiasco.

DeVos: a product of bipartisan embrace of failed, racist “school choice” policies

“I stand behind the charter school… movement, because parents do deserve greater choice” — Hillary Rodham Clinton

With both mainstream presidential candidates publicly stating they believed in the white supremacist notion of school choice, it wasn’t hard to see the Trump nomination of someone as extreme as Betsy DeVos as being possible. How these abject, failed policies play out in reality is instructive.

Vice on Detroit: School choice gutted Detroit’s public schools. The rest of the country is next.

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.

Grit-meister Angela Duckworth headlines Jeb Bush's reactionary ExcelinEd summit

“As a close protege of Dr. Martin Seligman, Angela Duckworth serves as Seligman’s point person in moving his brand of paternalistic corporate psychology and character control into schools that teach the children of the poor.” — Professor James Horn

When modern day eugenicist Angela Duckworth isn't transforming Martin Seligman's torture techniques into "character development" policies for children of the poor, she's headlining events held by the nation's most reactionary, right-wing extremists.

What will the perseverance paramour be preaching to her DeVos, Bradley, Broad, Walton, Fisher, Gates, and Bloomberg partisans? Well, GRIT of course! What else do folks that otherwise engage in victim blaming talk about? You're poor because you don't try hard enough and give up too easily!

Nothing says hard work and perseverance like a handsome inheritance—just ask the Walton fortune heirs, who are both key sponsors of the summit and top ExcelinEd Donors. They're gritty, and so is Duckworth.

Does your candidate hold left wing or right wing views on education?

“Hillary Clinton, who, for me, is a neoliberal disaster…” — Professor Cornel West

Is your candidate progressive or reactionary on education issues? One measure is to compare their views to those of the notoriously right-wing JBS. Here we look at some critical issues facing students, families, and our public schools.

Hillary Rodham Clinton's Core CAP Charter Cabal

“That’s why, you know, I was a senator and voted for Leave No Child Behind [sic] because I thought every child should matter” — Hillary Rodham Clinton

Hillary Rodham Clinton's supporters have been less than honest about her education record. Worse still, those same Liberals will ask everyone on the left to vote for her as the ostensible "lesser evil" to GOP troglodyte Donald John Trump in November. There are myriad good reasons to oppose both Clinton and Trump in November, but Liberals will cite Clinton's endorsements by executives of the largest teachers' unions as evidence of her being better on education issues. However, these same unions endorsed President Barack Hussein Obama, who has been the worst education President in history. Rather than an extensive survey of Clinton's abject policy support for neoliberal corporate education reforms including: George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind (NCLB); the racist and classist Common Core State Standards (CCSS); so-called school choice through privately managed charter schools; punitive, but ineffective school closures; and a host of other wrongheaded policies, it might serve well to look at her relationships with members of the right-of-center think-tank Center for American Progress.

Center for American Progress (CAP)

CAP was allegedly founded for neoliberal Democrats to have a think-tank of their own, akin to the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), or the Manhattan Institute. Essentially indistinguishable from that of those and other such organizations, CAP's education advocacy reads like it was crafted by John Birch Society and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Peter Greene lists some of the anti-public education policies CAP advocates, and that list could be easily increased. CAP has been the most vocal apologists for the Obama Administration's disastrous education policies.

Funded by a host of ideologically charged billionaires, CAP's education agenda looks like that of the Center for Education Reform. One teacher belonging to the Badass Teachers Association (BATs) used both a The Nation article and CAP's own website to compile this list that is more comprehensive than the SourceWatch list linked above:

Ford Foundation	$1,000,000+
The Hutchins Family Foundation	$1,000,000+
Sandler Foundation	$1,000,000+
TomKat Charitable Trust	$1,000,000+
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation	$500,000 to $999,999
Joyce Foundation	$500,000 to $999,999
Not On Our Watch	$500,000 to $999,999
Open Square Charitable Gift Fund	$500,000 to $999,999
Embassy of United Arab Emirates	$500,000 to $999,999
Walton Family Foundation	$500,000 to $999,999
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation	$500,000 to $999,999

Like that teacher states, "It's a who's who of corporate reformers."

Comparisons of CAP to the AEI should not be taken lightly, they frequently co-host education events together. The image used above here is from one of their many event pages. Aside from working hand-in-hand with extremist organizations like the AEI, CAP has a well-earned reputation of playing fast and loose with the truth.

Three key CAP figures loom large in the Hillary Clinton universe: John Podesta, Neera Tanden, and David Domenici.

John Podesta

Podesta, founder of CAP, is perhaps one of the most vehement opponents to public education this side of Betsy DeVos and the Brothers Koch. He is Clinton's 2016 campaign chairman. When not palling around with reactionaries Jeb Bush and Chester Finn, Podesta is hatching more ideas like NCLB, RttT, and CCSS. Many sources state that it was Podesta that encouraged Obama to select the doltish, non-educator Arne Duncan over Professor Linda Darling-Hammond for Secretary of Education. Given Obama's subsequent selection of John King to replace Duncan, it would seem Obama didn't need much encouragement choosing a corporatist over an educator. It's hard to imagine a Clinton administration being any better than Obama's on education issues, and given her abject history with the Walton family, and her reliance on Podesta, it could feasibly be worse.

Neera Tanden

Tanden is another longtime CAP fixture. On her first stint with the organization she was Vice President of Academic Affairs, and played a major role in shaping their neoliberal corporate education reform messaging. Another high-profile member of BATs posted the following, saying they preferred it be cited without attribution:

Hillary Clinton names Neera Tanden of the Center for American Progress to the Dem[ocratic] Platform Committee. CAP is a funder and promoter of the privatization of our schools, VAM, and Pearson testing. This is what AFT and NEA endorsement has earned us. if you are still supporting HRC nomination, understand she stands with your enemies.

David Domenici

Domenici is a Senior Fellow at CAP, and Clinton's go-to guy on finding ways to leverage disaster capitalism to push trough CAP and Clinton's anti-public education agenda. Clinton and Domenici hatched a racist, neo-colonial plan to inflict a nationwide privately managed charter school school network with a Teach for America style model in Haiti. This plot was exposed in the WikiLeak archive of Clinton's emails. These thoughts on the Haitian fiasco sum up Clinton's views on education for poor children, and children of color:

It's no surprise that the woman who refers to children of color as "super-predators", insisting that "we have to bring them to heel", would search out such a racist education plan to inflict on a Haitian population decimated as much by the Clintons' free-trade deals as by natural disasters. Like the distinguished Professor Michelle Alexander says, Hillary Clinton uses "racially coded rhetoric to cast black children as animals." While Haiti was spared this horrific, colonial charter school plan hatched by Clinton and her corporate advisors, we can expect more of the same if she somehow comes to power again. We need to organize and prepare to fight against her racist penchant for neoliberal corporate education reform.

With Clinton we'll be getting more of Podesta, Tanden, and Domenici's toxic policy advocacy. Much like we've seen with Obama, CAP's virulent brand of neoliberal corporate education reform will be a centerpiece of a Clinton administration.

Anyone supporting public education should reject both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

There is a candidate running for president — who will be on most November ballots — whose education platform is worthy of support from the left. Indeed, she has consistently articulated the best public education platform of all the candidates. That candidate is Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party.

FIRE fascists save campus kooks' Howard Roark devotional cult

“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.” — John Rogers

Any wonder why Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) staffers consistently conflate hate speech with free speech? Note the glaring lack of diversity—may be a melanin deficiency issue, no?

Write about education and other public policy issues long enough and you'll end up on everyone's press release (PR) list. To be sure I receive PR from right-of-center organizations like Center for American Progress (CAP) and National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), all the way to fringe-right outfits like the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice. Unlike "reporters" employed by the corporate media, I occasionally call the contact persons on the PR and ask fairly innocuous questions like "is the study you mention in your PR actually juried research, or is this just a policy paper?" The response is inevitably the latter, and I've documented such encounters with CAP and NCTQ in previous Schools Matter installments. Too bad "journalists" from organs like the Broad Foundation Newslett… uh, I mean the Los Angeles Times don't question these groups' PR before publishing their misinformation uncritically to the public.

One of the more lamentable groups sending me PR is the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). Somewhere on the political scale between Randian libertarians and unapologetic fascists, FIRE champions the "rights" of bigots, racists, nativists, misogynists, and other assorted reactionaries to spew various forms of hate speech unabated on college campuses across the nation. Their press releases typically celebrate victories over policies that would prevent exercising of oppressions over those whose educational experience is stifled by said oppressions. FIRE sends press releases celebrating calls to eliminate co-ed mandates, gushing defenses of rape culture, and apologetics for arch-reactionaries Karl Rove and war criminal Condoleezza Rice.

Late August FIRE sent me a PR that simultaneously caused me to retch and laugh — they were able to rescue the Ayn Rand Cult, I mean Club, at The University of California, Davis (UC Davis). The near vomiting experience is natural for any educated person having to hear Rand's name or of her associated "works." The laughing reaction came from the notion that any college student (especially at UC, where I graduated, albeit from the far more prestigious Los Angeles campus) would admit to having read Rand. FIRE, in their accustomed self-congratulatory style, waxed about how they forced the UC to do an "about-face" in order to accomodate kooks revering an "author" whose inspiration was a sociopathic murderer.

FIRE claims they are composed of individuals "from across the political and ideological spectrum", but even a cursory glance at their funders, advisors, and choice of causes reveals they are little more than a satellite of the John Birch Society. Let's start with the extreme right-wing reactionaries funding the FIRE Foundation. A selection from their own annual report:

Laura and John Arnold, Bradley Impact Fund, Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, Dick and Betsy DeVos Family Foundation, Milken Family Foundation, The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Sarah Scaife Foundation, and Searle Freedom Trust.

Given that the Kochs and Bradleys are both founding families of the John Birch Society (both families are choice and charter supporters too), I want it noted that my allusions to that extremist organization are in no way hyperbole. FIRE's funders are some of the most powerful and extremist elements composing the right wing of our plutocracy. Moreover, noted misogynist Lawrence H. Summers sits on FIRE's Board of Advisors, as do several other reactionaries.

I've yet to see anything from FIRE about their defending the rights of LGBT groups, or Students for Justice in Palestine, or any other group that is oppressed under our, to borrow from the esteemed Professor bell hooks, "white supremacist capitalist patriarchy." Indeed, FIRE exists specifically to perpetuate the "rights" of the oppressors, not the oppressed. I, for one, do not conflate hate speech with free speech. I once said as much to FIRE's Greg Lukianoff in a Twitter exchange, during which he Klansplained me about how my stance would be different if I had a law background like him. I'm a second year law student now (2L), and I still don't find racist, sexist, and other spoken slurs acceptable on campus. Perhaps once I have my Juris Doctor in hand, I'll understand why Lukianoff and his fellow right-wing reactionaries despise what they call "groupthink" (sounds hauntingly like that trashy novelist FIRE was so proud to defend). Probably not.

2015 Week 21 Education Odds and Ends

“We believe that this recognition has come about because of the “blatant” move by corporations to take over public education and the creation of these charter schools who are limiting the rights of teachers and the type of education that our children are receiving.” — Juan Orozco

Professor Antonia Darder this weekend in Los Angeles

Dr. John Fernandez writes:

Roosevelt High School and the Boyle Heights community have a long and proud history of fighting for social justice, from the election of Ed Roybal to the Los Angeles City Council in 1949, to the fight against Prop.187, and to the current struggle against the scheduled layoffs of 23 RHS teachers and the struggle to dump PLAS. This video was taken when the Great Recession began and when PLAS came in. In June of 2008, when this video was produced, there were about 240 RHS teachers, now there are only 110 and dozens of classes have been cut. This Saturday, May 23, 2015 at 8:30 a.m., RHS will be having a youth conference. Dr. Antonia Darder will be presenting. Antonia is a world renowned writer on critical education theory, Latino education, and Paulo Freire. I am sure that Antonia will connect theory and practice to the situation at RHS. Please attend this important event. La Lucha Sigue

Charter billionaires buy L.A. school board election

Professor Mike Klonsky's post Charter billionaires buy L.A. school board election is worth the read. I left the following comments:

Thank you for this Professor Klonsky. Poverty pimp Refugio "Ref" Rodriguez has spent his entire career viewing and utilizing school children as ATM cards. Now that the billionaires have installed him at #LAUSD, he has the combination to the entire bank vault.

Karen Wolfe on LAUSD election fallout

Public school parent and member of the Venice Neighborhood Council Education Committee Karen Wolfe wrote an excellent piece looking at the May 19, 2015 Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Board elections entitled LA Election Lessons: Anatomy of a Shakeup … in the LAUSD Board Races. I made the following comments:

Thank you for this excellent analysis Ms. Wolfe. Charter profiteer and poverty pimp Refugio "Ref" Rodriguez has spent his entire career viewing and utilizing school children as ATM cards. California Charter Schools Association (CCSA) boasted that they "generated 30% profit margins in subsequent years–with 20-30% lead generation and 20-50% close ratios" when Rodriguez was a CCSA board member. Meanwhile he ran Lakeview Charter in the red for the better part of decade, and oversaw Jacqueline Duvivier Castillo's self-dealing with the now breaking Better 4 You Meals scandal. Now that these right-wing billionaires have installed him at #LAUSD, he has the combination to the entire bank vault. We can only hope that the LAUSD OIG and LA District Attorney's office will indict Rodriguez, but a cover-up is more than likely since José Cole Gutiérrez was one of Rodriguez's employees when Rodriguez sat on the CCSA board.

Professor Julian Vasquez Heilig testifies on Parent Trigger

Professor Julian Vasquez Heilig traveled to Texas to speak truth to Walton Family Foundation funded Parent Revolution's attempts to place a loaded "Parent Trigger" gun in corporate charter hands. Best quote from his testimony: "SB14 is parent empowerment without the empowerment. Parental involvement without the involvement."

Keeping up with Ref Rodriguez's possible crimes

Charter industry mogul Refugio "Ref" Rodriguez is under investigation by a number of authorities including the LAUSD Office of Inspector General and the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office. Keeping up with all of the financial scandals and possible felonies by this Rodriguez charter is difficult, the following articles should help.

• LAUSD CHARTER GROUP GAVE FOOD CONTRACT TO AN EMPLOYEE’S FIRM: School Board candidate Ref Rodriguez’ PUC Schools partnered with Better 4 You Meals, a company partially owned by one of its employees
• L.A. UNIFIED WILL INVESTIGATE FOOD-SERVICE CONTRACTS AT PUC CHARTERS

Whitney Tilson does rape culture!

Right-wing hedge fund manager and school privatization pusher Whitney Tilson was quick to jump on the blame-the-victim bandwagon. An email to his cult of fellow neoliberals said "I question her story" of Emma Sulkowicz.

Scott M. Folsom on student mental healthcare

Suing a school district for failing to provide mental healthcare may seem, at first blush, to be a stretch. What part of the 3Rs is mental healthcare? But this is a stretch that is needed – like those stretches people who exercise do before they exercise.

Education is about stretching our little grey cells. It’s about being safe and well and healthy. Maslows’s Hierarchy of Needs: Food, Comfort, Safety.

• You can’t learn if you are hungry.
• You don’t learn if you don’t have a place to live.
• You won’t learn if you don’t feel safe.

Then and only then can we get down to the Rs.

In Compton and in most of the brink o’ th’ apocalypse they inhabit the school nurse is most students’ primary-and maybe-only healthcare professional and medical provider. The school nurses’ office has become the Health Office has become the School Wellness Center – even as the School Nurse has become a vanishing species, repurposed to paperwork shuffling and IEP Compliance Officer – often traveling from school-to-school on a one-day-a-week rotation.

This has all worked out because school health crises: The flu outbreak, the second grader who falls out of a tree, the incident of diabetic or anaphylactic shock – these only occur on the days the nurse is at the school and is otherwise available. I have spent some of the last month reading essays by middle-schoolers about the impact of violence and trauma on their lives. Most need additional instruction on narrative storytelling  (and grammar+punctuation) …but the far more pressing need is for mental health professionals to begin to have the conversation with them about their lives.

LAUSD in planning to eliminate some psychiatric social workers in next year’s budget. The bad-news masquerading otherwise is that the District is not going to eliminate as many as first proposed. Nobody in their right mind is proposing to rehire mental health workers previously laid off.  But I am.

Post Traumatic Shock Disorder is not just for returning warriors anymore. This is not John Boy’s America. This is not the Bobsey Twins’ America. Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm graduated decades ago and doesn’t come back for the alumni meetings ‘cause she’s scared of the neighborhood. Today’s narrative was written back in 1969: “Oh, a storm is threat'ning / My very life today / If I don't get some shelter / Oh yeah, I'm gonna fade away.”

By ‘75 Bob was feeling better about it than Mick+Keith in ‘69:

“Come in,” she said, “I’ll give you shelter from the storm”

It’s an apt metaphor to duck in under.

Alliance Charter's Judy Burton still union busting

Right-wing extremists Antony Ressler, Richard "Dick" Riordan, and Judy Ivie Burton are still turning children into profit centers, and union busting at the Alliance Corporate Charter Chain. The ongoing struggle for their beleaguered educators to organize themselves continues. Community activists are taking the struggle to the streets, and posted this and other photos on facebook with the following caption:

Attending the Lincoln Heights Neighborhood council asking them to adopt our resolution calling on Alliance to let teachers form their union without harassment ([i]t passed unanimously!)

I left the following thoughts on the photo:

I document Judy Burton's mind-boggling salary in this piece about her fellow charter school profiteer Refugio "Ref" Rodriguez. https://www.laprogressive.com/charter-school-profits/ That obscene $330,400.00 doesn't include the additional six-figure income she gets from CalSTRS+CalPERS. She will go to any length to prevent educators from exercising their lawful right to organize. Any movement to put students and educators ahead of executive salaries and board member sweetheart deals at Alliance Charter Corporation will be resisted with extreme prejudice, as you are already experiencing.

Refugio just dumped gallons of toxins on Santa Barbara for profit. Another Refugio (Rodriguez) is about to do the same to #LAUSD

— Robert D. Skeels (@rdsathene) May 22, 2015

Manhattan Institute extremists credit anti-racist activists with Marshall Tuck's defeat

"Robert D. Skeels, writing in L.A. Progressive, rips Marshall Tuck for closing down ethnic studies programs and heritage language studies programs while running the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools. He reviews Tuck’s record at Green Dot charter schools and the Mayor’s Partnership and renders a scathing judgment." — Professor Diane Ravitch

Right-wing reactionary Ben Boychuk's profound disdain for public education is somewhat legendary, and his tenures at the fringe-right think-tanks Heartland Institute, and now Manhattan Institute are testament to that. When he's not cheerleading for book banning, hosting privatization forums with the Walton Foundation funded Parent Revolution and its former Executive Director Ben Austin, or solidifying the vile Parent Trigger as ALEC template legislation, he's writing political analysis for his fellow baggers, birchers, and neoliberal corporate education reformers.

Last month Boychuk penned a postmortem on Wall Street banker Marshall Tuck's failed bid in California to join Arizona's Tom Horne and John Huppenthal as an ideologically charged non-educator holding a Superintendent of Public Instruction seat. Amidst his anti-union screed Boychuk admits, somewhat surprisingly, that Tuck's wrongheaded championing of plutocrat David F. Welch's Vergara lawsuit was a major misstep. Boychuk then makes a statement that is breathtaking inasmuch as he places the blame for Tuck's loss squarely on the anti-racist crowd. My commentary to follow, but let's look at his statement and my November comment in response.

The teachers’ unions and their surrogates, such as Diane Ravitch, used Tuck’s charter school ties to paint him as a racist, a bigot, and a tool of “the power elite.” Their attacks bordered on defamation, but they worked.

Addressing his misinformed and churlish assertions regarding defamation, I responded thusly:

Robert D. Skeels November 13, 2014 at 2:47 PM
There was no need to 'paint [Marshall Tuck] as a racist, a bigot, and a tool of “the power elite”', since an honest account of his actual record did just that by itself. No one was more forthcoming about Tuck's record than I was, because as a law student I am well aware that truth always serves as an affirmative defense to defamation, and every statement I made about Tuck was a well documented truth.

I, for one, think it's wonderful that the fringe-right wants to credit anti-racists with Marshall Tuck's defeat. Even more so because corporatist Tuck would have defended, in Boychuck's words, "charter schools and public [sic] school choice." While Boychuck uses Professor Ravitch's name, it's irresponsible and inaccurate to say that she made all the comments that he credits her with. What is true, and the link he provides is a good example of it, is that Professor Ravitch was sure to disseminate all of the wonderful essays and articles about Tuck that weren't going to be published in the corporate media. The RedQueeninLA, Ellen Lubic, Cheryl Ortega, Dr. John Fernandez, Jose del Barrio, and many other social justice activists wrote about Tuck's abject record, bigotry, and veritable crimes against students.

I too wrote a bit about Tuck. In exposing his bigotry and myriad failures, I had to put up with abuse from his obtuse Hollywood supporters, some profoundly ignorant rich white guys, and even had to block some abusive Tuck supporters on twitter. One of the more intriguing critics of my work was Conor P. Williams of the right-of-center think-tank New America Foundation. My friends at PESJA forwarded me this tweet by Williams, in which he took issue with an excerpt from one of my polemics against Tuck.

I support dual language programs, but this anti-reform ad hominem is unnecessary and unhelpful: https://t.co/poCfVK6bwg

— Conor P. Williams (@ConorPWilliams) September 18, 2014

Neoliberal corporate eduction reform apologist Williams rarely has anything substantive to say when confronted by facts, and here when the PESJA folks grilled him he went into derailment mode. I'd challenge him to an honest debate in which he could try to make the case that shuttering Ethnic Studies, Heritage Language Programs, and Dual Language Immersion Programs isn't racist, but he isn't the type to engage in actual debate. For example, his laughable straw man arguments against Corey Robin's brilliant 2012 essay. I would hope that Williams would be astute enough to know that Robin's point speaks to the attitudes of the type of well-heeled folks that fund Williams' employer. Williams' big paychecks (despite his persistent whining about still paying student loans), are, of course, derived in large part from the anti-public education plutocracy. By making everything about himself, he effectively deflects the conversation about the neoliberal corporate elite he works for.

Many of us worked tirelessly to keep Marshall Tuck from being elected. My first semester of law school suffered mightily until, ostensibly, after the election. With money flowing in from the wealthiest white men in the world, Tuck had every advantage except the truth. We told the truth about Tuck, and if Tuck's fringe-right supporters like the Manhattan Institute want to say that "worked", then it makes it all worth it.

2014 was a wonderful year in which bigots Marshall Tuck, Tom Horne, and John Huppenthal all lost their elections.

SPLC says don't read tacit support for Common Core into their condemnation of reactionary hate groups

"In short, the real literacy crisis occurs whenever we deploy a pedagogy that asks our students only to consume texts and not to produce them as well." — Richard E. Miller

Profiteering members of the testing industrial complex, and right-of-center Democrats were quick to embrace the release of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) report that correctly takes issue with right wing extremism fueling a small portion of the criticisms of Common Core State Standards (CCSS). SPLC's Teaching Tolerance Director Maureen Costello made a mild statement about authentic issues with CCSS in their announcement: "There are legitimate concerns about the Common Core, but those very real issues are being obscured and distorted by the claims of extremists." However, I still felt the tenor and tone of the SPLC's report allowed CCSS supporters to claim that all opponents of the corporate curricula are right wingers. I wrote SPLC and received a response.

While I'm familiar with the hackneyed critique by CCSS defenders that some of the left has made a mistake in considering forming a united front with the right on this issue, I'm not guilty of that. I don't do united fronts with fascists. Even when citing works by right-wing sources I've written disclaimers about the sources and their ideologies. In fact, one such disclaimer led to me being vociferously attacked by teabaggers and other reactionaries. I defended my disclaimer then and still do. My critiques of CCSS are for the reasons stated in my email to the SPLC. While I appreciate their response, I think they could do more. It's one thing to acknowledge that some of the rhetoric on CCSS is right-wing tripe. It's another to acknowledge publicly that academia and the left have legitimate reasons to oppose the imposition of this corporate curricula. Here in Los Angeles they are shuttering Ethnic Studies and so many other programs so that students can learn David Coleman's corporatized, sanitized, and very white idea of what comprises "core knowledge."

Ironically, Ms. Costello's correct assessment of the fringe-right's motivations and goals: "school vouchers" and "the end of teacher tenure", are the identical agenda as the Obama Administration, and epitomized by Michelle Rhee's advocacy of those goals on behalf of Duncan's reign. There is no social justice case for CCSS; appeals to "competition," and "A Nation at Risk" are not progressive. Fortunately progressive, working class organizations like the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) are rejecting CCSS, and showing us the way forward. The always eloquent CTU President Karen Lewis speaks truth to CCSS' racist and classist nature:

"Common Core eliminates creativity in the classroom and impedes collaboration. We also know that high-stakes standardized testing is designed to rank and sort our children and it contributes significantly to racial discrimination and the achievement gap among students in America's schools."

---

From: "Robert D. Skeels" <rdsathene@sbcglobal.net>

Subject: re: SPLC to Release Report Examining Extremism Behind Propaganda Campaign to Kill the Common Core State Standards

Date: May 7, 2014 at 07:05:48 AM PDT

To: rebecca.sturtevant@splcenter.org

I am a long time supporter of the SPLC's work. As a student of Freire, and a long time social justice activist, I find myself saddened that the SPLC would support Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Aside from CCSS being the epitome of neoliberal corporate education reforms, it has a history tied to the very right wing ideas that the SPLC says its report will expose.

Had SPLC looked into David Coleman's sources for CCSS they would have seen that E. D. Hirsch, a noted white supremacist, was the central basis for the curricula. Hirsch's "core knowledge" notion, and the items it encompasses, are devoid of works authored by persons of color, women, LGBT, etc.

At the end of the day SPLC is doing us all a great disservice by standing up for CCSS. While I certainly have no affinity for the right wing groups opposing CCSS, to focus on them instead of CCSS itself puts the SPLC in the position of defending a curricula that the tea party, if their members were educated enough to realize it, actually wants. CCSS essentially enshrines what the celebrated bell hooks calls "white supremacist capitalist patriarchy" as both our national curricula and testing regime. I know in my heart that those things run counter to SPLC's values and mission.

Advocating Public Education and Social Justice

Robert D. Skeels

"Problem posing education does not and cannot serve the interests of the oppressor" — Paulo Freire

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From: Maureen Costello <maureen.costello@splcenter.org>

Subject: Your comments about our report

Date: May 7, 2014 at 10:26:51 AM PDT

To: "rdsathene@sbcglobal.net" <rdsathene@sbcglobal.net>

Cc: Rebecca Sturtevant <rebecca.sturtevant@splcenter.org>

Dear Robert, 

Thank you for your note, and for your concerns about our recent report.  We too are students of Freire, and very familiar with the inherent conservatism of the Common Core State Standards.  In fact, we make the argument in our report that they are, in fact, very conservative in their "back to basics" approach, reliance on testing, and the canonical nature of the exemplar texts in Appendix B. 

We welcome a healthy and legitimate debate about the Common Core.  Our report isn't a defense of the standards — it's showing that the standards are a battering ram being used by far-right groups to weaken public education, especially as it increasingly serves children of color and low-income families.  Freedom Works, a Koch-affliated organization, has identified rallying people against the Common Core as the first item on a multipart agenda that goes on to include school vouchers, elimination of the U.S. Department of Education and finally the end of teacher tenure.  We think that's a worrisome agenda, and that's what we're warning about. 

We do value your support and your thoughts. 

Best, 

Maureen Costello 

--

Maureen Costello

Director, Teaching Tolerance

Southern Poverty Law Center

400 Washington Ave. 

Montgomery, AL 36104

334-956-8327

www.tolerance.org

maureen.costello@splcenter.org

The new issue of Teaching Tolerance magazine is out! Subscribe now to get it on your iPad.

I met reactionary Fernando Espuelas' challenge, now will he demand the same of Gates, Zuckerberg, and Dell?

"Another issue involves concerns that charter schools may be screening students by requiring parents to provide information related to special education eligibility and services on the lottery application. Over the past two years, a review of applications has found a considerable number of schools requiring such information despite efforts by the District to eradicate this through oversight of the application process." — LAUSD Office of the Independent Monitor (OIM) Modified Consent Decree

Roughly eighteen months ago I tweeted a passage from the above quoted OIM document. The lucrative Los Angeles charter industry systematically discriminates against special needs children in favor of bloated executive salaries, as evidenced most recently by Aspire Charter Corporation's dodging of its obligation to the most vulnerable students.

Not more than two minutes later I was attacked by one of Los Angeles' bullhorns for neoliberalism, reactionary Fernando Espuelas. I'll get to the exchange between Espuelas and myself momentarily, but think it's important to provide a little background on this privatization pusher. Espuelas is a venture-capitalist-turned-broadcaster who is currently a Henry Crown Fellow at the right-of-center Aspen Institute. Aspen's leadership includes genocide defender Madeleine Albright, billionaire Pete Peterson's "Fix the Debt" cheerleader Sam Nunn, NSA surveillance zealot Dianne Feinstein, neoliberal columnist Nicholas Kristof, and host of other unsavory folk who would feel comfortable at a Hoover Institution luncheon.

Aspen is certainly the correct venue for Espuelas' brand of politics, who has no qualms retweeting the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), supports the apartheid regime in the Near East, and consistently called for the overthrow of the democratically elected Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez when the courageous anti-imperialist leader still lived. Espuelas served on the board of the reactionary Walton Family Foundation funded school privatization outfit "Parent Revolution" — which has close ties to both the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and the fringe-right Heartland Institute.

Espuelas is best summed up by Bloomberg's Business Week which said of him: "he's all Wall Street."

Getting back to our narrative that started with my tweet condemning the greedy corporate charter sector. Espuelas, who apparently isn't much of a reader, launched into a fact-free diatribe against me. It was the usual slanderous tripe: I'm on some chimerical union payroll, I'm a "UTLA sock puppet", and so on. Ben Austin, Gloria Romero, Jed Wallace, Steve Barr, Marco Petruzzi, and all the other profiteers in the charter industry have made these same claims, I suppose someday proof will be forthcoming? I kept trying to get Espuelas to commit to a stance on special education, but anti-labor tirades were all he seemed capable of. At one point I called him a dullard after calling out his slander saying I was paid to advocate public education. That's when he started mocking me for being forced to drop out of my last quarter at UCLA in the early Nineteen-Nineties because of dire economic circumstances. [1]

There is no requirement for members of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Board of Education to hold college degrees. While it is certainly desirable that board members be educated, Espuelas was using my situation as a red herring to avoid discussing substantive policy issues because even he, reactionary as they come, couldn't defend the indefensible special education policies of the infamous charter school industry. After a long exchange in which he continuously condescended to me, he said:

@rdsathene blah, blah, blah. maybe finish getting a diploma as an example to the students you aspire to lead-then you'd be a bit credible

— Fernando Espuelas (@EspuelasVox) October 29, 2012

Despite Espuelas' offensive pleas I ran for the LAUSD School Board in 2013 against the billionaire funded corporate reform candidate, and finished second in a field of five with over 5,200 votes. A promise to my wife to return to UCLA if I lost the race was accompanied by finally being in a position with both the time and the money to return to school. Not only did I finish my three remaining required classes, I did so with some distinction, raising my GPA by two full points.

Effectively, I was able to take on Espuelas' challenge. The Official Verification Transcript pictured above states I was awarded a Bachelor of Arts on March 21, 2014 in Classical Civilization by the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). Am I "a bit credible" now? Oddly enough, for all his bluster, Espuelas' BA is from from a school that's not nearly as prestigious as the one I just graduated from. More importantly, why does Espuelas selectively demand university degrees from public school advocates, while not holding school privatization advocates to the same standard? If this statement is genuinely true:

@rdsathene yes I'm a total "elitist" - I think that people that aspire to run school systems should have a university diploma - crazy!

— Fernando Espuelas (@EspuelasVox) October 29, 2012

then Espuelas should make the same demand of billionaire college drop outs Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Michael Dell. After all, all three aspire to run not only local school systems, but use their ill gotten gains to control national education policy. Gates' [2] noxious meddling with our remaining public education system is unprecedented, as Professor Mark D. Naison recently wrote. Perhaps if these capricious billionaires followed Espuelas's advice, just like I did, they would become educated enough to halt both their viciously destructive funding agendas, and their neoliberal policy advocacy.

My challenge to Fernando Espuelas

Mr. Espuelas I met your challenge to obtain a degree, now will you take up my challenge to you? First, you should demand Gates, Zuckerberg, Dell, and all their fellow privatizers obtain degrees before aspiring to run education. Anything else is a double standard that exposes you as a fraud, phony, and fake — someone unworthy to discuss education policy. Second, I repeatedly asked you this very important question on October 28, 2012, and I believe the world should know your answer to it:

@EspuelasVox Getting back to your original attack. Do you agree that schools taking public funds should be obligated to educate every child.

— Robert D. Skeels (@rdsathene) October 29, 2012

Naturally my own answer to that simple question is yes.

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[1] That story deserves full treatment in the future, but would distract from our discussion here.
[2] Susan DuFresne and I had fun responding to Professor Ravitch's #ThingsInCommonWithBillGates tweet by addressing the degree issue.

In memory of Harvey Milk: teacher witch-hunts are nothing new

First published on Robert D. Skeels for School Board on November 27, 2012.

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"Gay people have been slandered nationwide. We've been tarred and we've been brushed with the picture of pornography." — Harvey Milk

The current crop of teacher-bashing political opportunists including Michelle Rhee, Ben Austin, Peter C. Cook, Gloria Romero, and Andy Smarick, are nothing new. While it's always been in vogue to attack the female dominated profession, teachers have really been in the crosshairs of reactionaries ever since they won the modicum of protections that unions provide.

San Francisco's Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated 34 years ago today. Milk, who had been a teacher early in his career, was a man who always spoke truth to power. When right-wing extremist John Briggs coined Proposition 6, he relied on the same bigoted thinking that we've seen in recent times with Proposition 32, and other anti-teacher, anti-student, anti-worker initiatives. While the defeat of the Briggs Initiative was clearly a watershed victory for the Gay Rights Movement, it was also victory for labor and public employees, especially school employees.

Milk was no stranger to supporting and partnering with organized labor. His successful partnership with the Teamsters was an excellent example of what today's activists need to be emulating. Milk was savvy to realize that oppressed groups need to work together in order to overcome their oppressions. The fight for gay rights, women's rights, workers' rights, immigrant rights, and all our struggles are one in the same. The other side counts on us being divided.

The corporate and neoliberal forces pushing education reform rely on divide and conquer strategies. They pit parents against educators, students against other students via standardized tests, "lucky" lottery winners against families with special needs children, and we can increase this list ad infinitum. Using deceptive language about "choice," they've begun to destroy one of the great things in our country—universal public education. We need to call out the reformers' false dichotomies for what they are. We need to strengthen the natural alliances between students, educators, parents, and community. We need to tell the privatizers that the only "choices" we want are those that assure equity for all students!

We get there by emulating Harvey Milk's coalition building. We get there by exposing billionaire funded astroturf 501c3s for having the narrow interests of their funders, not our communities. We get there by pushing all unions—especially those in our schools—into social justice unionism. We get there by electing school board members who will be activists and advocates on behalf of their communities.

The struggle continues.

Chicago Teachers Union Versus Astroturf Billionaires

Billionaires like the Koch Brothers, Betsy DeVos, and Bill Gates fund astroturf tools like Jonah Edelman, Rebecca Nieves Huffman, and Kyle Olson. Working with anti-working class politicians like Rahm Emanuel, these groups and individuals strive to privatize public education, union bust, and profit off the sufferings of the poor. Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) is on the front lines of the battle to save public education, but they are fighting right-wing forces with limitless resources. Their bold actions in the face of overwhelming odds may well be the turning point in the battle to prevent the neoliberal project from eliminating public education nationwide. They need our support, please contribute to the CTU Solidarity Fund.

Here's CTU's introduction to the film:

The Chicago Teachers Union is currently on the front lines of a fight to defend public education. On one side the 30,000 members of the CTU have called for a contract that includes fair compensation, meaningful job security for qualified teachers, smaller class sizes and a better school day with Art, Music, World Language and appropriate staffing levels to help our neediest students.

On the other side, the Chicago Board of Education—which is managed by out of town reformers and Broad Foundation hires with little or no Chicago public school experience—has pushed to add two weeks to the school year and 85 minutes to the school day, eliminate pay increases for seniority, evaluate teachers based on student test scores, and slash many other rights.

Teachers, parents and community supporters in Chicago have fought valiantly—marching, filling auditoriums at hearings and parent meetings, even occupying a school and taking over a school board meeting. Most recently, 98 percent of our members voted to authorize a strike. But now we find ourselves facing new opponents—national education privatizers, backed by some of the nation's wealthiest people. They are running radio ads, increasing press attacks, and mounting a PR campaign to discredit the CTU and the benefits of public education.

Tami Abdollah and John Deasy gush that 'Size Matters'

"Just continue to follow the money. This Race to the Trough will make the Reading First crooks under Bush look like dopey Boy Scouts." — Professor Jim Horn

The neoliberal cabal at Southern California's KPCC can't cheerlead for school privatization loud or frequently enough. Not content with Pat Morrison lobbing softballs to Broad Superintendent Academy graduate and former Gates Foundation employee John Deasy once a week, KPCC's intrepid education beat reporters are always looking for the latest anti-public-school story angle.

Tami Abdollah's latest piece, Size matters in new district-level 'Race to the Top' competition, is a fluffy homage to Deasy and fellow poverty pimp Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. The light-on-facts article enthusiastically reports the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) "has worked to institute a lot of the" corporate reforms and privatization requirements that Duncan, Gates, Broad and Coleman want to see for Race to the Top.

I chimed in with the following commentary:

There's a fundamental misunderstanding of Race to the Top (RTTT) in this article. RTTT funds, if granted, are not for things that actually improve education like smaller class sizes or researched backed academic programs including project based learning and the like.

Instead RTTT funds are earmarked for The Gates Foundation and Education Department's pet projects that don't help educational outcomes at all. If anything, they exacerbate problems. RTTT funds are for more profligate data tracking systems. More mind-numbing standardized tests and test preparation for students already averse to school because of a glut of standardized tests. Moreover, RTTT is to be used for highly discredited pseudo-sciences including VAM/AGT.

The district would be better off finding legitimate sources of funding that they can put into classrooms and school libraries. RTTT represents a windfall for testing companies, publishers, and technology firms, but offers nothing for actual improvement to pedagogy. Pearson, Microsoft, and McGraw Hill stand to gain from LAUSD garnering RTTT.

Schoolchildren, educators, and our communities all stand to lose if LAUSD does somehow get tangled up in Duncan's RTTT bribe scheme.

Democrats for Neoliberal Education Reform's Gloria J. Romero's Parent Tricker days are numbered

I think about former Senator Gloria Romero comparing Compton educators to "batterers" and wondered whether the writers of those words ever stop to think about the consequences of their prose. — Martha Infante

Photo by Mark Warner (CC BY-SA 2.0)

As the DFER veneer for right-wing "parent trigger" laws wears off, and more and more people see the privatization agenda for what it is, charlatans like Gloria Romero and Ben Austin have been scrambling to hide or minimize their ties to right wing extremists. The good news is that it isn't working, and that aside from shills like Andi Rotherham and Alex Russo even mainstream media journalists are starting to see through what the distinguished Professor Diane Ravitch refers to as the "Parent Tricker." Josh Eidelson's "Parent trigger": The latest tactic for fighting teachers' unions is a good example.

Professor Ravitch has brought the duplicity of parent trigger laws to the fore nationally. Her Mayors Support "Parent Tricker" Law was so powerful, that it elicited a response from none other than Gloria J. Romero herself. We'll get back to that in a moment.

Django's comments under Professor Ravitch's Education Week piece are better than anything I've seen in terms of exposing Romero's lies. They bear reproduction here:

I watched the original parent trigger unfold. Not that it was easy, given that all proceedings were carefully orchestrated to take place during obscure sessions between the Thanksgiving and New Years holidays (to minimize input from school advocates). The trigger was part of California's failed Race to the Top application. It was not written outright by ALEC to the best of my knowledge. But it was drafted largely by Bill Lucia of Ed Voice with a great deal of input from Ben Austin of Parent Revolution. Nearly all of the key testimony in support came from Lucia. I was surprised to learn that Romero claimed authorship as she was unable to respond to many of her colleagues questions, deferring to Lucia.

There may be links between ALEC and EDVoice, they do certainly share the privatization agenda, desire to eliminate local school boards, and strip teachers unions of their rights. The trigger is now model ALEC legislation, but it may not have originated there.

Romero claims to represent parents. I am a California public school parent and I can assure all that she does not speak for me. I would ask her if she is so supportive of parents, why is there no on going role for parent voice leadership in her bill post-trigger?

Activists present at the hearings for charter trigger laws all bear witness to Django's assertion that Romero couldn't answer questions about the law that she now claims she wrote single-handedly with little or no input from any one else. Django's intutions about EdVoice are spot-on, both in terms of their links to ALEC, but also to their role in privatization in general. EdVoice is another astroturf group that works with Eli Broad's EdTrust, the California Charter Schools Association, and their proxy group Families That Can.

Back to Romero's poorly crafted response to Professor Ravitch. It's telling that the piece doesn't appear in a forum considered remotely progressive or even liberal for that matter. Indeed, the American Center for School Choice is a fringe-right organization headed up by John Birch Society types like the infamous John E. Coons. No surprise that Romero has been relegated to such venues, she and her right-wing DFER have lost all credibility with her own political party as evidenced by the fact that Los Angeles Democrats want her to stop pretending. I had some choice words for Romero's Eastside Latina posturing:

Now that her ties to fringe right-wing groups are being exposed, the reactionary former State Senator is trying to revise history. Fact is that the corporate charter trigger is an ALEC template law. Quibbling over whether Ms. Romero penned her version first or not is not unlike saying that George Wallace didn't create Jim Crow. The chronology of the vile trigger laws is unimportant, what is important is how they undermine democratic processes and serve only to grow market share for the lucrative charter-voucher industries.

For all her mendacious blustering about segregationist ideas like 'choice' coming from women of color, the truth is that Ms. Romero's true inspiration comes from her employer and allies, all of whom are wealthy white males, like Whitney Tilson of DFER and Terry Moe of The Hoover Institution.

Much of this is documented in the essay: Peas in a pod: Koret Foundation, The Hoover Institution, and Democrats for Education Reform.

I'll give you credit Ms. Romero, your packaging of the corporate agenda under the guise of "civil rights" seemingly goes over well with the John Birch Society crowd you pander to. Those of us that selflessly volunteer for social justice in those very same communities you claim, see right though your lies and obfuscations.

In the same venue parent activist and journalist Caroline Grannan sums up DFER like only she can:

I know Democrats for Education Reform has "Democrat" in the name. Founder Whitney Tilson has said publicly that this was a ploy to obscure the right-wing goals of the organization.

The fact that DFER and their supporters are scrambling to save face speaks volumes to the hard work activists and social justice writers have done in terms of exposing their agenda, funders, and associations. That said, there's much more work to do. Privatization is far too profitable a project for the privatizers to give up on just because they've sustained a little public relations damage. We need to continue to expose these charlatans and their designs to light. We must defeat the "parent tricker," and all other attacks on the public commons.