Pots, Kettles, and Ben Austin's Unconscionable Hypocrisy

There's nothing the matter with teachers that a little less unionization and more COMPETITION couldn't cure. — Ann Coulter (racist reactionary right wing pundit)

It would force the district to learn how to run great schools by forcing them to COMPETE. — Ben Austin (Executive Director LAPU/Parent Revolution)

Few people are more despicable than Ben Austin, Executive Director of the so-called Parent Revolution (née Los Angeles Parents Union - LAPU) school privatization junta. After all, anyone mendacious enough to claim they're a parent with children enrolled in school when they have no school age children is lacking of any scruples. [1] Moreover, a man who can walk into impoverished neighborhoods like Boyle Heights or Compton and tell parents "I'm just like you" when he has chosen to live in a community that's "87.5% white and has a median household income is $169,282" goes beyond being amoral, he's downright immoral.

Of course Austin's ongoing campaign of dishonesty and pressing scorched earth policies for public education have made him more than just a pariah in Los Angeles. He and profiteering organization recently joined the ranks of fellow reactionaries like Donald Rumsfeld, George W. Bush, Glen Beck, Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, and Ann Coulter on the world famous "Crooks and Liars" website.

Public education advocates like myself have been following the Green Dot Public [sic] Schools' LAPU/Parent Revolution spinoff since its inception, and have beem following the vile Ben Austin since he first took [2] the helm of the privatization pushing organization. We've seen them do cynical things like having their well to do white male Deputy Director Gabe Rose pose as a Compton parent in order to deceive real Compton parents. We've heard parents from Garfield High School tell us paid organizer Mary Najera used to go monolingual Spanish church services with English only petitions and tell unwitting parents to sign the petition if they wanted their children to go to college — those petitions were actually to turn Garfield over to the Green Dot corporate charter chain. The list of Austin and his organization's lies, deceit, and duplicity goes on and on, and one would think that there's no lower depths that they could plumb.

They've found a way to sink lower.

A couple weeks ago, in preparation for last week, when the California State Board of Education (SBE) was about to vote on revisions to the deceptively named "Parent Empowerment Act," right wing reactionary "parents" Lydia Grant, Bruce Wasson, Monica Jones, and Carolynn Martin, with pro-bono legal support from the "Parent Revolution's" deep pocketed plutocrat backers, filed an ethics complaint against SBE member Patricia Rucker. Their claim? They stated that Rucker's employment with the California Teachers Association constituted a conflict of interest and that they would only drop their charges if Rucker would recuse herself on voting on the privatization regulations.

One wonders where these parents were when Parent Revolution's foppish millionaire leader was sitting on the selfsame board, voting on the very same regulations, but the hypocrisy of these "parents" and their "revolution" goes much deeper than that.

Kettles and Caldrons

Let's look at the first "parent" on the list of privatization plaintiffs against Ms. Rucker, the loathsome and imposing [3] Lydia Grant. The one thing all the mainstream (read corporate) media left out regarding Grant is that she is a long time board member of the so-called Parent Revolution. Yet she can speak about conflicts of interest. Aside from being nearly as detestable, Grant shares another quality with Ben Austin — she too has no children currently enrolled in the school she is attacking. Libertarian Grant is also a follower of right wing libertarian Ron Kaye and is a member of his "SLAP" project.

Grant's claim to fame is that she turned a personal beef with Los Angeles Unified School District's (LAUSD) Mount Gleason Middle School's principal into a festering vindictive campaign to oust them. She began signature gathering with Austin's blessings to have the principal removed. Of all the Sunland/Tujunga area parents I spoke with that knew of Grant, only one sympathized with her, and the rest described her as a pariah that browbeat many parents into signing petitions with her overbearing and abrasive personality.

My one encounter with the snarling, mean spirited Grant was outside the Beaudry Building at a LAUSD meeting where she was accosting and haranguing hardworking teachers. The woman's seemingly sociopathic resentments run deep, and I was somewhat taken aback listening to her bark at anyone not wearing the blue t-shirts identifying themselves as members of the reactionary school privatization groups Families That Can and Parent Revolution. I took these photos of her at that event, and even at that proximity I couldn't believe the vitriol spilling out of her mouth. Grant will be the subject of an upcoming article when time permits.

Parent activist Scott M. Folsom, whose popular 4LAKids blogs chronicle all things LAUSD, had the following to say about Grant being on the list of plaintiffs at the behest of her puppet-master Austin:

smf: One of the "four California parents", Lydia Grant, was the Parent Revolution Community Organizer of the Month for Oct 2010.

Parent Revolutionary-in-chief, PR Executive Director, Parent Trigger author, former Green Dot and Mayor Riordan staffer Ben Austin (whose 'day job' is Assistant LA City Attorney @ $119K per year) was removed from the State Board of Ed (Can you say 'Conflict of Interest?') in Brown's ascendency. Austin lobbied for the Parent Trigger Law in the State Board of Ed and also in the legislature.

But, hey - it's not personal!

Pots, Kettles, and Brewing Free Market Fantasies

Next, let's consider that when the reactionary Milton Friedman worshiping former Governor of California wanted a way to help his good friend and fellow charlatan Jed Wallace, of the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA), increase market share with as little resistance as possible, he brought in two well known neoliberal opponents of public education: former State Senator and current Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) California Director Gloria Romero, and Ben Austin of Green Dot's LAPU/Parent Revolution. In what was a perfect storm of Rand/Friedman ideologies, neoliberal principles, naked opportunism, greed, Heartland Institute and Hoover Institution fantasies, and lucrative charter market share grabs, Schwarzenegger, Austin, and Romero crafted a vile piece of legislation that became colloquially known as the "parent trigger." The law allows for well financed charter-voucher advocacy groups, like say, Parent Revolution, to drop into impoverished neighborhoods to bamboozle, browbeat, and bribe a bare majority (ie. fifty percent, plus one) of parents from the school in question, and/or the feeder schools [5] into "triggering" one of the four punitive provisions from Rod Paige and arch-reactionary George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law. Of course the only provision Schwarzenegger, Austin, and Romero were ever interested in is the charter conversion clause, in which publicly financed schools are handed over to privately run corporations. The law could be most appropriately referred to as the corporate charter trigger, as it has nothing to do with empowering parents.

For his enthusiastic participation in co-authoring the charter market share growing law, Austin was granted a seat on Schwarzenegger's hand picked SBE, which was already stacked with charter school executives, vendors, and other profiteers. Austin, as a highly paid spokesperson for the charter-voucher industry, was a perfect fit, and his job was to insure that the so-called Parent Empower Act be implemented without a hitch, and that both market share and profitable side enterprises of the lucrative charter sector grew to satisfy their investors. Austin was all at once, the bill's author, biggest advocate on the SBE, and the sole stewart of how the regulations were being written, and rest assured he was making them as friendly to charter advocacy groups like his own as he could. There were no cries of conflict of interest then. No astroturf "parents" lodging complaints. No accusations in the mainstream press of ethics violations. No cacophony calling for Austin to recuse himself from the proceedings.

Austin knows a quite a bit about conflicts of interest and ethics violations, he was under investigation by the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission (Case # 2010-36) when he was collecting a check at the City Attorney Office while being a full time charter school advocate (and part time Green Dot Employee) at Los Angeles Parents Union (aka Parent Revolution). He was also using his connections to host closed meetings with his political connections garnered from his City job, like with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

But Austin's own myriad conflicts of interest and ethics violations while on the SBE pale in comparison to his recent transgression. His hypocritical and self serving attacks on Patrica Rucker will look at the more reprehensible in the following section.

Pots Calling the Kettle Black, Austin Illegally Lobbied the SBE

In early March of 2011 an activist showed me footage of Ben Austin speaking at the SBE on behalf of the charter trigger legislation. Bear in mind that by March, Austin and several other of Schwarzenegger's fringe right wing appointees had been swept from the Board by the incoming Governor, and while many charter-voucher industry profiteers remain — like the reprehensible Yvonne Chan — a few of the most egregious members are gone. I knew that former Board members were barred from lobbying at the Board for a period of time, although I thought the span was twenty four months. Astonished that Austin would be so brazen to flout the law and regulations in such a high profile forum, I immediately contacted the State Board of Education and spoke with then employee Regina Wilson.

Wilson confirmed that Austin had indeed spoken and lobbied at the SBE after he had been officially removed from the board. She also informed me that the period they weren't allowed to appear at the Board to lobby was twelve months, rather than what I thought, and that Austin had certainly violated the rules. I told Ms. Wilson I was working on a story, and asked her to get back to me on a few other questions I had, including: "were the other Board members aware of the regulations regarding former Board members lobbying?"

I waited a week for Wilson and called her again, she said she gathering information and would get back to me. I then went on holiday with my wife to visit her family in Korea. When I returned from Daegu, I called Wilson, but was greeted with an answering machine informing me that she was no longer with the SBE [6] and to contact a Ms. Carol Gorman. I called Gorman, discussed the situation with her and was told to expect a call back. There was no call back. After leaving several voicemails, I grew wary of carrying out my investigation verbally and sent Gorman an email on June 10, 2011. Following is her response that contains my original email:

Dear Mr. Skeels:

I am in receipt of your email of this date, and have forwarded it to the attention of our Deputy Executive Director, Patricia de Cos, for her review. Thank you for your patience in this matter.

Sincerely,

Carol K. Gorman
Executive Assistant
California State Board of Education
1430 N Street, Suite 5111
Sacramento, CA 95814
916-319-0705 Direct
916-319-0175 Fax
cgorman@cde.ca.gov
http://www.cde.ca.gov/be

-----Original Message-----
From: Robert D. Skeels [mailto:rdsathene@sbcglobal.net]
Sent: Friday, June 10, 2011 3:54 PM
To: Carol Gorman
Cc: Superintendent ; Rebecca MacLaren
Subject: Ben Austin at SBE meetings before 12 months completed
Importance: High

Ms. Gorman:

I've spoken with you on the phone and left multiple voice mails about this issue. I was in contact with former SBE employee Regina Wilson prior to that.

I am a freelance education writer in Los Angeles. I have seen video footage of former SBE member Ben Austin speaking at the board in February or March of this year. I am aware of the rule prohibiting former SBE members from lobbying at the SBE for 12 months.

My questions still remain. Are the SBE members aware that Mr. Austin has broken these rules. Will there be disciplinary measure brought against Mr. Austin.

I am about to publish my article about the incident and have expended due diligence trying to obtain answers from the State board of Education. At this point, and I hate to say this, it seem like a cover up. I was hoping a Governor Brown appointed board with be less opaque than that of our reactionary former Governor. Sadly, this doesn't seem to be the case.

Mr. Austin has violated ethics, and perhaps even the law in what he did. He should be held accountable for his vile actions.

Advocating public education and social justice

Robert D. Skeels

Note she uses the phrase "email of this date," as if that was our first communication, despite having spoken on the phone with me. There's still been no word from Ms. Gorman although I wrote her again on July 8, 2011 requesting a status on the above email.

Ms. Gorman:

Now that Mr. Austin and company have attacked SBE Board Member Rucker, it's imperative that his and his own organization's clear conflicts of interest and violation of SBE rules be brought to light.

It's unfortunate that the SBE is seemingly stonewalling my efforts to expose Austin's malfeasance, and I am somewhat taken aback by the intransigence of the board regarding this matter. Does Mr. Austin still have this much influence that this entire affair is being swept under the rug? I'm of of the mind to publish all of our correspondence publicly if there is no response on this.

Robert D. Skeels

Clearly a cover up is taking place. The Board is not only well aware that Ben Austin has violated the rules, but seem oblivious that his connections to the well financed charter voucher industry and their plutocrat backers provide him with immunity to consequences for his actions. Meanwhile he sicks his dogs on current SBE members like Patrica Rucker with impunity. Moreover the SBE members are still clearly pawns of the deep pocket charter school sector as evidenced by SBE President Michael Kirst's disgusting pro-privatization comments during last week's vote to ratify the clean up of the corporate charter trigger law deceptively named Parent Empowerment Act.

The hypocrisy of Ben Austin and his school privation organization claiming Rucker has a conflict of interest is staggering. I like to fancy myself an aspiring wordsmith, but lack the vocabulary to describe the scope of this reprehensible, repugnant, and revolting incident in the light of Austin's ongoing unconscionable behavior. The charter industry has a real gem in Austin, since no lie is unspeakable and no scruples are necessary in his orbit. Like I said in my email above "Mr. Austin has violated ethics, and perhaps even the law in what he did. He should be held accountable for his vile actions."

The only way we can stop these crooks and charlatans is to continue real, grass roots parent and community organizing. They have dozens of paid charter drive "organizers" in the field preying on parents looking for answers to systemic problems. We need to expose the Ben Austins, Gabe Roses, and Pat DeTemples for the reactionary agents of privatization they are. We need to point out that the narrative of parents versus teachers has been forced on us by the same Wall Street hucksters who just swindled us all, and are now tricking us into blaming each other. The real battle is communities versus corporations, but as long as charlatans like Ben Austin and Scott Walker push working people into blaming other working people, the longer the corporations will continue to win.



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NOTES
[1] Austin's eldest child, already a preschooler, will probably be starting Kindergarden this fall. Listening to Austin's perfidious rhetoric would lead one to think that she's been enrolled for over decade.

[2] By all accounts Austin first took a consulting position (paying $94,475) with LAPU quite unwillingly, and only after persistent persuasion by his close friend the businessman Marco Petruzzi. Once Austin recognized how lucrative and politically expedient it was to be working for the Broad/Gates/Walton Triumvirate did he, ever the opportunist, agree to take the Executive Director position. Petruzzi is still on the Parent Revolution Board, having ousted Steve Barr from both the organizations Barr founded.

[3] One Tujunga/Sunland area parent I spoke with called Grant "girthsome" and made several other rotund references, but I felt it more appropriate to use the word imposing despite the chance to use my favorite literary devices to follow loathsome.

[4] Green Dot Charter Corporation and Parent Revolution didn't break ties until the Summer of 2010. Until then Green Dot paid LAPU/Parent Revolution's rent and many other expenses. They were still receiving money from the Broad/Gates/Walton Triumvirate, but not nearly as much as they do now. To wit, the bigots comprising the Walton Family Foundation dumped a half a million into Austin's school privatization efforts last year.

[5] "Feeder" schools comprise the school from which the next classes of students at a school will potentially come from. In the example of a middle school, all the attendance boundary elementary schools would be considered its feeder schools. Never mind the fact that those families may move, choose to send their kids to parochial, charter or other private schools, their signatures are as good as gold under the so-called Parent Empowerment Act. Inequitable and unfair that a community's public school could be turned over to a private corporation with only a tiny minority of the community making the decisions? Sure, but the law was to build charter school market share, not empower parents or communities in any way.

[6] So that the rest of the press can reluctantly (given their aversion to public schools and love affair with the profiteers in the charter sector) verify my story, the number I was using to contact Regina Wilson (916) 319-0693. Now that number has a message that says "I'm no longer with the State Board of Education, if you need assistance please call Carol Gorman at (916) 319-0705.

"Parent" Trigger co-author Austin knew he was breaking laws while he lobbied the California State Board of Education

'[Skeels] believes that Austin is only pretending to show concern for students at underperforming schools, and that his primary concern is promoting the "privatization" of public schools.' I would restate that: Austin's primary concern is promoting whatever he's paid to promote, and pretending to show concern for whatever he's paid to pretend to show concern for. — Caroline Grannan (Journalist, Editor, Educator)

Our recent expose of Ben Austin's criminal involvement in passage of the charter market share growing gambit cynically named the Parent Empowerment Act pointed out the possibility of a cover up by the California State Board of Education (SBE) itself. Surprisingly, just a few days after publication of Pots, Kettles, and Ben Austin's Unconscionable Hypocrisy, did the SBE send documentation that I had been requesting for months.

Here's the letter, chances are Austin never read it himself since he has never felt the law applies to foppish elites like him.

Letter notifying Parent Trigger Author Ben Austin of violating laws from California State Board of Education

In the letter, the SBE admonishes the avaricious Austin and tells him:

...please immediately discontinue any paid advocacy to the State Board of Education including advocacy on the Parent Empowerment regulations.

Of course, a stern letter — which knowing charter industry lackey Michael Kirst, was probably more of a nudge and a wink than anything else — did little to prevent the lawless Austin and his Walton Family Foundation funded minions from paid advocacy before, during, and after the entire process. No laws, regulations, rules, or ethics stood in the way of the entirely astroturf Parent Revolution ensuring their continued existence, since enabling school privatization is in fact their raison d'être. In a fair and just society, or even something resembling democracy, the law would be thrown out after such Machiavellian corporate manipulations.

The trigger law is pretty much universally despised by parents that have actually taken the time to look into who funded it, drew it up, and who it serves — those profiting from privatizing schools. However, some parents are liable to be bamboozled, browbeat, and bribed into supporting the measure, since they've been tricked by the corporate media and Arne Duncan into trusting deep pocketed corporations instead of their own agency. The only folks that like the law are extreme right wing groups like The Heartland Institute which has held forums with Parent Revolution extolling the trigger law and other free market fantasies.

I want to repost my initial description of the SBE letter here since it succinctly describes the letter and the circumstances:

Criminal mastermind Ben Austin, of the Walton, Broad, and Gates Foundation funded astroturf charter school proxy group Parent Revolution, illegally and unethically influenced the passage of the so-called Parent Empowerment Act (aka parent trigger) law. Although the State Board warned Austin that his actions were in violation, he and his group were able to circumvent democracy and get their charter school market share legislation pushed through the SBE. This letter vindicates my accusations of Austin's malfeasance in Pots, Kettles, and Ben Austin's Unconscionable Hypocrisy

Tomorrow morning I meet with a group of parents who requested that I help them combat Parent Revolution's paid right wing staffer Yuritzy Anaya, who is apparently already trying to privatize several schools in the San Gabriel Valley area with the tacit help of a neoliberal minded School District Board Member. Social justice activists and public education advocates must begin organizing struggle and grassroots resistance to the corporately sponsored Parent Revolution's onslaught before the entire pubic commons is turned over the rapacious charter school industry. ¡La lucha sigue y sigue!

Parent Trigger charlatan Ben Austin booted off The State Bar of California

"Making students accountable for test scores works well on a bumper sticker and it allows many politicians to look good by saying that they will not tolerate failure. But it represents a hollow promise. Far from improving education, high-stakes testing marks a major retreat from fairness, from accuracy, from quality, and from equity." — Sen. Paul Wellstone (1944-2002) quoted on Alfie Kohn's site

Apparently the right wingers at Parent Revolution are immune to cognitive dissonance. How else could we explain an organization that frequently co-hosts meetings with The Heartland Institute calling the National Educators Association (NEA) teabaggers? In a desperate attempt to preserve George W. Bush's fringe right-wing No Child Left Behind legislation (NCLB), the Parent Revolution reactionaries claim that anyone opposed to Rod Paige's vicious anti-public school project are teabaggers, and somehow opposed civil (read corporate) rights.

The basis for these wild and specious claims? Parent Revolution doesn't want to see what they term "accountability" removed from ESEA/NCLB. Never mind that NCLB's false forms of accountability were never intended to do anything other than make it easy for the neoliberal consensus in Washington to push the corporate agenda. That agenda includes forced school closures, reconstitutions, and ultimately the privatization of the whole system for the benefit and profits of Wall Street hucksters like Whitney Tilson, real estate moguls like Eli Broad, and convicted predatory technology monopolists like Bill Gates. Indeed, in defending NCLB, Parent Revolution wants to maintain the standardized testing status quo.

All their astroturf blather about "accountability" got me thinking. When I think of paragons of accountability, Ben Austin and Parent Revolution are poles apart from those thoughts in every sense. Let's look at the facts. California Parent Trigger author Austin was under investigation by the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission (Case # 2010-36) because he was collecting a check at the City Attorney's Office while at the same time he was a full time charter school advocate (and part time Green Dot consultant) at Los Angeles Parents Union (aka LAPU or Parent Revolution). Besides double dipping, he used his city employee connections to host closed meetings with his political connections garnered from his City job, like with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Those connections also brought lucrative business to his wife, Tracy Austin, who makes a fortune as a fundraising consultant for the very same politicians that gave Austin a pass on his ethics violations. Where was the accountability in all of that?

Of course, Austin's conflicts of interest while working at the City of Los Angeles pale in comparison to when arch-reactionary Milton Freidman acolyte Schwarzenegger appointed the Parent Revolution chief to the California State Board of Education (SBE) to join the rest of the charter-voucher profiteers the SBE was stacked with. Austin used his SBE seat to push through the California Charter Schools Association agenda. He also used the seat to lobby for and manipulate the implementation of his and Gloria Romero's hideous charter takeover law entitled the Parent Empowerment Act, but most often referred to by culturally loaded name Parent Trigger. Austin's unethical and illegal behaviors on the SBE earned him a letter of censorship from the SBE demanding he stop breaking the law. Where was the accountability in all of that?

Ben Austin's latest foray into the realm of accountability?

Parent Trigger charlatan Ben Austin booted off State Bar of California

I'll reproduce my original take on this situation:

Parent Trigger author, Benjamin Benchley Lain Austin, aka the Beverly Hills Barrister, aka the Foppish Millionaire of Benedict Canyon is not eligible to practice law in California because of his failure to take a LEGAL ETHICS course as part of Minimum Continuing Legal Education. It's no small irony that a charlatan that claims to know so much about education doesn't keep up with his own, and more importantly, avoids taking classes on ethics!

I suppose we can't blame Austin for avoiding classes on ethics, since ethics are anathema to him. So next time the slick charter school spokesman and his band of pernicious privatizers prattle about accountability, we can remember that they have no understanding of the word whatsoever.

Special thanks to Lisa for bringing Austin's current State Bar of California status to our attention.

---

Addendum: A reader chastised me for not noting another form of accountability Parent Revolution astroturfers are guilty of shirking, and that's keeping their paperwork for tax exempt status in order. I'm a little embarrassed that I neglected to mention this, but in Trigger Happy Parent Revolution Refuses Form 990 Request, we explored how the Parent Revolution scoundrels weren't accountable to the tax paying public. The IRS sent me a letter explaining that they are investigating these poverty pimps.

While we're at it, let's not forget wealthy white Gabe Rose, deputy director of Parent Revolution, has the dubious distinction of being caught posing as a Compton parent when he has never lived in Compton, nor been a parent.

Shirlee Smith: Parent Revolution? Not really

"The idea of the Parent Revolution is to say fuck you." — Ben Austin (Executive Director, Parent Revolution) [1]


Shirlee Smith's brilliant essay on the so-called Parent Revolution (née Los Angeles Parents Union) is factual, cogent, and strikes at the heart of the astroturf phonies' real agenda. She exposes Ben Austin, Pat DeTemple, Gabe Rose and their little band of privatization profiteers, and also lists some of their plutocratic funders.

Parent Revolution? Not really

Originally published at http://www.pasadenasun.com/news/opinion/tn-pas-0916-commentsmith,0,7623274.story yet now somehow mysteriously gone.

_____
NOTES
[1] http://blogs.uscannenberg.org/neontommy/2010/03/trigger-law-gives-parent-revol.html this one sided pro-privatization article quotes Austin as saying "The idea of the parent revolution is to say fuck you." While we already knew that was how Austin felt about our communities, poor people, and people of color, to hear it coming from the wealthy white charter profiteer's mouth was quite startling. This footnote was first published in Ben Austin's Biography.

Can Ben Austin Speak for Parent Revolution without Speaking for Green Dot?

There are legitimate concerns these days that education outfits have sometimes hidden or unclear relationships with other groups, many of them in the nonprofit sector. This brings up questions of governance, transparency, and other issues of public policy. For instance, should people employed by a charter school have to openly and publicly disclose their financial ties when advising/advocating/consulting on behalf of a different non-profit?

From the Daily News (Los Angeles):

After five years of getting nowhere with Los Angeles Unified officials, fed-up parents in Sunland-Tujunga are using a new state law to force change at a long-troubled middle school.

Parents and community members say problems at Mount Gleason Middle School, which has been on a federal list of under-performing campuses for a dozen years, go beyond failing test scores.

"There is an unsafe atmosphere at this school that is spilling over into the community...," said Lydia Grant, a resident and parent of a former Mount Gleason student. "People are tired of it and we want to see change."

Thanks to new legislation, known as the "parent trigger" law, they're able to do something about it.

A few things should be clear: parents absolutely should be involved in education. Also, questioning turnarounds or resisting charterization doesn't mean you think everything is great and dandy. Everyone wants change, but the means and ends (undetermined, I might add) that capitalize on quick-win scenarios in hopes of getting something bigger started may have consequences that would not occur if we could make a long-term commitments, generate genuine community input, and provide adequate resources for public schools. Our culture of quick-fix solutions makes the parent trigger an appealing option, but this solution to saving public schools (which some hope will sweep the nation) is as likely so succeed as the latest diet craze. If these so-called turnarounds are anything like their corporate counterparts in the private sector, most will fail and very few will succeed. I have a hard time believe that should qualify as sound public policy.

Parent involvement is great, but simply voting to turn your school over to a private operator seems like a risky venture. There are other reasons people are raising concerns. Also from theDaily News article:

Some administrators questioned whether the motivation to have the school taken over was spurred by genuine parent concern, or outward pressure from community groups.

"One thing is for residents of Mount Gleason to initiate this trigger," said Jose Rodriguez, an LAUSD director for the school.

"But it's another thing for an outside group to come in and encourage parents to use this trigger law."

Perhaps Rodriguez was referring to the Parent Revolution, the Los Angeles group that created the idea of a parent trigger, initially to be used in LAUSD.

Ben Austin, executive director of the Parent Revolution, said after the district passed a watered-down version of the trigger, he decided to take the fight to Sacramento.

"The whole purpose of this law is to give parents power," Austin said.

"Parents are in the best position to make decisions about what's good for their kids and their future... Why shouldn't they get more control?"

The Parent Revolution, which has close ties to Green Dot public schools, a large charter management organization in Los Angeles, is working with parents around Mount Gleason and believes that the school could be among the first to be reformed with the new law.

However Austin denied playing anything but an advisory role in the parents' decision to organize.

"We're not orchestrating.... It's very patronizing to think that we would be making these kinds of decisions."

Shouldn't Austin also mention that he pulled in $94,475 in 2008 as a private "consultant" for Green Dot? It all makes me wonder: is Green Dot a candidate for running the school in the near future? [Austin, at least to my knowledge, isn't breaking any laws by doing this, but it might be something that should be regulated or monitored]

It's not only Austin that deserves to be looked at with a skeptical eye: the Daily News should inform their readers that Austin also receives compensation from Green Dot. It's only fair that Austin shows all the hats he wears instead of hiding one behind his back when questioned by a reporter.

Los Angeles privatization pushers take second biggest slice of reactionary Walton pie

"[T]here should be no education marketplace." — Dr. Diane Ravitch (celebrated education professor and author)


The indefatigable Valerie Strauss posted an excellent piece yesterday discussing where and how funds from the arch-reactionaries of the Walton Family Foundation were divvied out to various entities engaged in the privatization of public education. Second in funding only to the voucher dystopia and Michelle Rhee wasteland of Washington D.C. is Los Angeles, which saw the Ayn Rand worshiping Walton fortune heirs dump $11,981,508 into any organization proffering poverty pimping.

Time doesn't permit covering all of Los Angeles based privatization outfits on the list, but a cursory glance at some of our more notorious and egregious local offenders was worth compiling.

Camino Nuevo Charter Academy

It's no small irony that Los Angeles based corporate charter chain Camino Nuevo Charter Academy (CNCA), which claims that it wants its students to become "agents of social justice with sensitivity toward the world around them" is on this list. Camino Nuevo Elementary School #3 got $250,000 from the right wing extremists at the Walton Family Foundation who also fund anti-gay, anti-female, anti-union, and a host of other reactionary causes and organizations. Seems to me that you can't teach the principles of social justice if you're taking money from organizations whose entire purpose is to perpetuate and exacerbate injustice. Perhaps that's why CNCA doesn't mention the Walton Family Foundation on their donors page, they don't like being exposed for the charlatans that they are. Like all corporate charters, CNCA is slick in that they ape the language of social justice, while conveniently pouring money into their executives' pockets. Just one look at the composition of their board should remind people who CNCA really serves.

Sure enough, in practice CNCA's principles and actions reflect that of their funders. Remember this tidbit from the Broad Residency FAQ:

[P]rivate sector experience is important because there are business best practices which can improve the way the education organizations are operated.

I'm always wondering which of the three core business practices (lying, cheating, and stealing) Broadytes [1] are referring to. Well in this case it's lying. Camino Nuevo has been claiming that their newly selected principal chosen to run what was formerly a public school site recently handed over to CNCA was nothing less than a Professor at LMU's School of Education. Turns out he was nothing of the sort, but playing fast and loose with the truth is a hallmark of corporate charter chains.

Parent Revolution (née Los Angeles Parents Union)

Also prominent on the list is The Heartland Institute's sister organization, Parent Revolution (née Los Angeles Parents Union). The foppish millionaire from Benedict Canyon, Ben Austin, and his market minions stacked a cool half a million dollars in Wal-Mart blood money. Much of this was probably used for promoting Austin, Schwarzenegger, and Romero's corporate charter hostile takeover enabling law, the so-called Parent Empowerment Act. Many people know the law by the moniker Austin coined — the Parent Trigger — a vile name as I've discussed before:

[S]ince the wealthy Ben Austin, who lives in an affluent area that is "87.5% white and the median household income is $169,282," is blissfully unaware of how culturally loaded, and frankly racist, the word trigger is to use in conjunction with low income areas like Compton. Most importantly, [Caroline] Grannan, who is one of several experts on Parent Revolution, points out the organization is "not a parent group but was founded by charter school operators, backed financially by billionaires and corporate interests."

Parent Revolution are certainly no strangers to the kind of values and society the Arkansas Robber Barons envision, being experts in stoking "the subtle, insidious racism that fuels the charter/voucher movement."

I was puzzled recently seeing a gushing article discussing a seemingly self colonized former Teach For America and current Parent Revolution employee Christina Sánchez who described herself as an Ivy League Revolutionary. Apparently Ivy League graduates consider it "revolutionary" to take funds from the Broad/Gates/Walton Triumvirate to carry out a reactionary agenda of privatization. I suppose hosting forums with The Heartland Institute, quoting The Hoover Institutions' Andy Smarick, and pandering the wealthy westside racism are all part of the revolutionary's toolkit — if you're a teabagger.

The Parent [Counter]Revolutionaries recently attacked the distinguished Dr. Diane Ravitch, citing an another amateurish article by Matthew Yglesias — their third favorite writer after Ben Boychuck, and Andy Smarick. It's amazing what you can do with Walton Family Foundation money!

Green Dot Public [sic] Schools

The list clearly states: Green Dot Public Schools $500,000. This is remarkable, since Green Dot's well heeled CEO Marco Petruzzi stood in front of an auditorium full of students, parents, teachers, and other members of the Ánimo Justice community, a school he just closed by fiat, and said:

"We have no money. We're a non-profit. We don't have a rich guy that even [sic] gives us extra."

Seems that there is some cognitive dissonance to work out here. Since Petruzzi's salary eats up almost half of the that half a million, perhaps he really can't tell that the Walton fortune heirs are "rich guys" (and a gal) that give Green Dot money all the time, and they're not the only ones. This reliance on plutocrat funders certainly goes a long way towards explaining why the original Alain Leroy Locke Charter High School petition contained language requiring students "demonstrate a belief in the value of capitalism."

California Charter Schools Association (CCSA)

$3,940,652 of the Walton money went to the notorious California Charter Schools Association (CCSA), which was founded by right wing bigot and nativist Steve Poizner. It is currently led by serial liar Jed Wallace.

An activist from the grassroots organization Echo Park Moms for Education recently asked me for a brief description of the CCSA, so let me reproduce part of the email here:

CCSA is a trade association for charter-voucher schools, essentially a Chamber of Commerce for charters. Their primary purpose is to grow charter school market share.

CCSA is funded by both the membership dues their member schools pay, and the same plutocrat foundations that fund school privatization in general. For example The Walton Family Foundation, Broad Foundation, Gates Foundation, and others.

In addition to marketing and growing market share, the CCSA sells "products" and "services" to their constituent charter members. Insurance, consulting, loans, and the like. Even though they are all supposedly "non-profits" they sure sound like regular businesses at this point no? Of course all the businesses they deal with to provide services are for profit enterprises, so you can kind of figure out what's really going on there, given that they have a steady steam of taxpayer money pouring in. Consider this charter executive's scheme to make money, and you'll see what I mean.

Their motives are to continue to privatize as many schools as possible. Not only because the end goal of the people and foundations that fund them is to privatize (and profitize) the entire system, but because Charter Management Organizations have to continually grow market share in order to keep up with the costs associated with running schools while paying astronomical salaries to their executive staff.

Public education represents an annual 500 billion expenditure. Corporate vultures don't miss those kind of things. The celebrated author Jonathan Kozol discussed this: "The education industry represents, in our opinion, the final frontier of a number of sectors once under public control... represents the largest market opportunity... the K-12 market is the Big Enchilada." — Montgomery Securities prospectus quoted in Jonathan Kozol's "The Big Enchilada."

CCSA is the neutron star that Mayor Villaraigosa and the Coalition for School Reform funded Los Angeles Unified School District Board members orbit.

Special Mention for ICEF

Two ICEF schools are on the list for a quarter million each. ICEF, which was going to be swallowed up by a competitor, but the corporate merger fell through, has seen millions of plutocrat funds thrown at it in an attempt to save it. Moreover, neoliberal darling Caprice Young was brought in and now charter crook Parker Hudnut, a long time Broad/Gates plant in LAUSD, is going to be given a chance to navigate the sinking ship to the ocean floor. Given that millions of taxpayer dollars have vanished in addition to millions of dollars from the ideologically charged plutocrats willing to float ICEF at any price, two things come to mind:

First, with all that money missing with no explanation and former ICEF chief Mike Piscal having fled the state to a cushy charter post in Nevada, why aren't more people asking "where's the money Mike?"

Second, isn't it funny how the corporate lackeys in the reactionary Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) crowd who constantly parrot their Cato, AEI, Hoover, and Fordham mentors in saying you cannot save public education by throwing money at it, suddenly change their tune as soon as one of their privatized charter voucher schools are in trouble? If it's run by a private corporation, they're happy to throw money at it, and lots of it! Coincidence?

Mitigating Damage

In the end the damage done by years of privatization funding of this magnitude will be difficult if not impossible to ameliorate. While providing information about these nefarious foundations and their motives is helpful, it doesn't replace the dire need for grassroots organization and struggle on the ground. Los Angeles, like every other city that's targeted by the plutocrats that want to end public education, must begin to create community and parent organizations big enough to demand that the school districts remove every administrator (starting with Superintendent John Deasy) that's been planted by billionaires engaging in right wing social engineering. It means activists being able to explain to entire communities who funds astoturf groups like Parent Revolution and what their real goals are. It means community, parents, students, and teachers forming meaningful coalitions to take direct action against standardized testing and begin implementing worthwhile curriculum like project based learning, bilingual and ethic studies programs, and problem posing pedagogy. Those things would represent a true turning away from the status quo.

We have a lot of work cut out for us, but many people are beginning to see through the corporate smoke screens and the slick DFER opportunism. If you believe in public education and social justice, now is the time to fight. You can start by supporting the Save Our Schools March & National Call to Action. ¡El pueblo unido, jamas sera vencido!

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NOTES
[1] I know most people are inclined to call the graduates of the Broad Residency in Urban Education and Broad Superintendents Academy Broadies. However I prefer to call them Broadytes, since it sounds appropriately like troglodytes. Broad's vile institutions are essentially a School of the Americas for poverty pimps and privatization pushers.

Trigger Happy Parent Revolution Refuses Form 990 Request

"Soviet style elections" — Ben Austin in response to parents and communities voting for community school plans over corporate charters.

The scoundrels, scandal-mongers, and assorted criminals at the so-called Parent Revolution have been very active lately. Meeting with other astroturf groups on a statewide privatization bus tour. Hosting meetings with their ideological counterparts of the extreme right-wing The Heartland Institute. Lying to Mother Jones. Covering up the fact that their Executive Director, that foppish millionaire from Benedict Canyon — Ben Austin, was illegally lobbying the California State Board of Education. They've even taken to smearing actual grass-roots parent organizations like Parents Across America in high profile venues like NBC's Miseducation Nation.

With all the poverty pimping and privatization pushing they've been up to, I wondered if they were following tax laws and keeping their paper work current. As I mentioned recently, 501C3s are required by law to have their Forms 990 on-site and available for inspection by the public during regular business hours. Here's the requirements straight from the Internal Revenue Service:

Public Disclosure and Availability of Exempt Organizations Returns and Applications: Public Disclosure Requirements in General

In general, exempt organizations must make available for public inspection certain annual returns and applications for exemption, and must provide copies of such returns and applications to individuals who request them. Copies usually must be provided immediately in the case of in-person requests, and within 30 days in the case of written requests. The tax-exempt organization may charge a reasonable copying fee plus actual postage, if any. The IRS must also make this same information publicly available.

I've been waiting for the Walton Family Foundation's darlings' 2010 Form 990 to come out now for some time. In addition to seeing if avaricious Austin got a raise from his already exorbitant base salary of $15,000 a month to sell our public schools to the highest charter bidders, there was some other information I wanted to check out on their new filing. The so-called Parent Revolution filed for an extension this year, so this information is being kept from the public. In case anyone wants to research them further, Parent Revolutions Employer Identification Number or EIN is 20-2207418.

Gabe Rose, Deputy Director Parent Revolution aka McKinley Parents for Change.

Today I paid a visit to the Gates funded poverty pimps at their lavish tenth floor office on 9th Street in Downtown Los Angeles. I announced to the young woman sitting at the front desk that I was there to inspect their Forms 990 when Parent Revolution's churlish Deputy Director Gabriel Rose approached me. I reiterated my purpose for being there.

As a refresher, well-to-do white male Rose is a Coro Fellow, meaning he is specially trained in astroturf operations on behalf of the lucrative charter-voucher school industry. He is so devoid of both ethics and morals that he posed as a Compton parent in order to deceive real Compton parents. Rose is Squealer to Austin's Napoleon, and his assigned task is to manipulate frustrated, but uniformed parents, teaching them to bleat "Charter Schools Good, Public Schools Bad."

The surly privatizer Rose stated that his Broad funded organization didn't have copies of their Forms 990 at their office. He then asked me to step out into the hallway to continue our conversation. He told me that I could find them online. I informed him that by law they were supposed to have them on-site and he acted somewhat surprised (one would think a Deputy Director of a 501C3 would have a grasp of a modicum of non-profit laws, but again he's paid to lie to parents, not to actually know anything). He then said he could email them to me, which was agreeable, so I told him that I wanted 2008, 2009, and 2010. He said they hadn't filed their 2010 yet. This despite the fact that it was the last day of September 2011.

I told Rose that I would continue to stop by to check the status of their 2010 filing, which elicited some dismay. He said something about it being a private office, oblivious to the fact that the public has a right to inspect several of their documents in exchange for their tax exempt status. He is seemingly blissfully unaware of what non-profits were originally (or ostensibly) for. Not to mention that their well heeled plutocratic funders are claiming donations to these astroturf organizations are charitable deductions. I strongly suggest anyone in the Los Angeles area do the same as I did: Parent Revolution is at 315 W. 9th St. Ste. 1000, 90015. Before I departed, I asked Rose if he would keep his word and email me the Forms 990. His snide reply was "you can just download them from GuideStar." He, like the vile plutocrats that pay his bloated salary to scamboozle [1] people in impoverished communities, just doesn't get it.

As soon as I got to a computer, I immediately filed a 13909 Tax-Exempt Organization Complaint (Referral) Form with IRS against them. Failure to disclose a Form 990 can result in a fine for every day that they refuse to disclose the information to the public. This is a method of resistance to neoliberalism and privatization that all activists can participate in. Pick any Broad/Gates/Walton funded 501C3 to visit and demand inspection of their Forms 990. At the very least, they'll know communities are paying attention. If they aren't forthcoming fines and possible revocation of their exempt status are very attractive prospects.

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[1] I'm lifting this word from Cartoon Network, scamboozle is apparently an elision of scam and bamboozle. It's the perfect word for what Parent Revolution does.

On Huffington Post censorship and Parent Revolution puff pieces

These myths falsely portrayed desegregation's failures as the product of autonomous individual choice. Meanwhile, these myths obscured inequalities in desegregation. A new, but parallel, kind of mythmaking about choice is underway in today's charter school efforts. — Ansley T. Erickson

If there ever was an online bastion for right-of-center Democrats, it's Huffington Post. Their education reporting is abysmal in terms of both editorial content and policy advocacy. Their choice of bloggers heavily favors privatization minded charter-voucher swindlers. With a few notable exceptions, including Dr. John Thompson and Larry Ferlazzo, Huffington Post functions as shills for charters, vouchers, and other Freidman fantasies for converting the commons to commerce.

To wit deplorable reactionaries like Michelle Rhee, Whitney Tilson, and fringe right organizations like Teach Plus all have Huffington Post columns. Even slight disagreement in the comments on Huffington Post under one of these corporate education reform celebrities is subject to outright censorship in that they won't publish them. My success rate for comments being published on Huffington Post is a paltry thirty five percent. This is remarkable given that I never use profanity, engage in ad hominem, or do anything other than use facts and cogent arguments to discredit privatization propaganda. Speaking truth to power is a very big no-no on Huffington Post, and any deviation from the privatization narrative is inevitably censored.

Today I noticed charter charlatan Ben Austin had snuck in a years' end privatization piece reminding everyone about his John Birch Society inspired trigger law. In this latest school privatization infomercial he has the unconscionable gall to compare educators to billionaire bankers and Near East dictators, while casting his charter school public relations outfit as one of the occupy movements. My response to his highly offensive analogies, which were rejected by Huffington Post moderators even after several revisions, were as follows:

Interesting seeing a highly paid advocate of school privatization try to rhetorically co-opt the occupy movements in order to prop up their astroturf agenda. To be sure, none of the the right wing foundations funding Parent Revolution have a "revolutionary" agenda in mind. They are, to a funder, members of the one percent.

The real magic trick here is how Austin tries to couch his neoliberal agenda in the guise of supporting parents. Parent Revolution's sister organization, the racist reactionaries at The Heartland Institute, hail Austin's "trigger" thusly: "This might just be the most powerful education reform policy since Milton Friedman advocated the school voucher. Begun in California, the Parent Trigger allows a majority of parents to petition to have their local school reorganized or transformed into a charter, or even to receive vouchers to choose private schools."

When organizations ideologically right of the teabaggers cheerlead your policies and compare your agenda to that of arch-reactionary Milton Friedman, you can be sure it has nothing to do with putting "kids-first."

Why would this be censored? Perhaps Huffington Post is frightened that once people know that ideas like the trigger originated in fringe-right-wing think-tanks like Cato Institute, Hoover Institution, and The Heartland Institute that they might lose credence with their ostensibly liberal audience.

Parent Revolution has hosted conferences with The Heartland Institute. Heartland, which are essentially Birchers with a budget, unabashedly claims "Its mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems." Heartland and other far right thank tanks are such big fans of Parent Revolution and the Trigger Law that they write gushing policy papers and have even created a website entirely dedicated to pushing this latest privatization trend.

Rather than spending more time discussing why media outlets like the Huffington Post and the press in general serve as unquestioning outlets for the school privatization sector, please see Caroline Grannan's latest essay: Why the press promotes the powerful, marginalizes dissent. Of note is the use of the phrase "sphere of consensus" which sounds hauntingly like the Washington Consensus.

---

UPDATE: Minutes before I finished writing this, and many hours after I initially commented on the Huffington Post piece in question, they published my comments. That doesn't change the censorship rate I mentioned, nor does it invalidate anything contained above.

Eli Broad pays Parent Revolution to champion charters not to empower parents!

"The private sector experience is important because there are business best practices which can improve the way the education organizations are operated." — The Broad Residency

"Parent Revolution, using the trigger law as leverage, mobilizes parents, school-by-school, to vote for one of four reform efforts—firing staff, replacing the principal, closing the school or converting to a charter. Once such a change is made, there is no mechanism for parents to be organized for sustained, long-term action to improve their local schools and communities. Organizing, in this sense, is an ongoing process that develops the capacity of its own members and uses the power of their experiences and numbers to effect change." — UCLA IDEA

Recently a community based activist (as opposed to Bill Gates funded astroturf activism), asked me about where the foppish millionaire from Benedict Canyon, Ben Austin, and his posse of privatizers piloting the so-called Parent Revolution (née Los Angeles Parents Union) get their funding. Unfortunately, it isn't always easy figuring out where these nefarious organizations obtain their funding since the IRS doesn't require 501C3s to list their deep pocketed and ideologically skewed corporate donors. That said, we were able to discover several of the Parent Revolution's neoliberal co-connivers. The email exchange between the activist and myself, and some of the information uncovered — especially regarding why they're funded — is of interest to a wider audience.

Hey Robert-

Just wanted to check some facts..

What was Parent Revolution's budget last year? 1.5 million? Is there a link to that info some where or did you already send it to me?

Thanks.

I know of a staggering 500K from Walton Family Foundation alone this year. Problem with estimating last year's budget is that we typically don't get online access to their 990 forms until about a year or two after the fact. For this year's Walton donation see: Los Angeles privatization pushers take second biggest slice of reactionary Walton pie, where I link to Strauss' article who has the data released by the Waltons.

Unfortunately, most donors don't publicize their contributions to the neo-feudalism project the way the Waltons do. Moreover, the byzantine non-profit laws don't require organizations to list where they get their funds. The only way to do this is to sort through probable donors 990 forms and search for the 501C3 you are looking for.

You always need to keep an eye out on the news too. Here's the kind of announcements you have to keep track of: California Education Policy Fund Awards Grants Totaling $3.73 Million, to Organizations Dedicated to Statewide Education Reform. The opulent Rockefellers list Austin's band of privatizers as grantees, without giving a figure. Notice too, that one of the "education" organizations the foundations touts as supporting the "needs of underserved students" is none other than the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce.

The last 990 data we have from LAPU/Parent Revolution is from 2009 (enclosed), which showed them with a 650K budget. I know it's at least twice that now, but we won't see 2010 and 2011 990s for a while.

To get a better estimate, you need to work backwards from the Foundation 990s. You would want to look at the usual poverty pimping suspects: Eli and Edyth Broad Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. We would also need to figure out how the following individuals are donating money to them: Laurene Powell Jobs (probably through Emerson Collective), Reed Hastings, Casey Waserman, and other privatization pushers.

Also, most of their board members donate in order to win a seat on the board, so we'd need to figure out how much money they donate as well.

This is one of the most difficult things about "non-profits" since they don't have to list their funders. Some do, and it makes it so much easier to look up the figures. Austin's little group is actually smart enough not to list where they get their funds, since it looks bad for them. After all, if they were an authentic parent organization, then their funders would be parents and community members.

I'll check with some of my sources to see if I can get more information.

Subsequent discussions found me providing my correspondent with evidence of the Wasserman Foundation funding Parent Revolution and other right wing anti-public education organizations.

I also learned that by law all 501C3 "non-profit" corporations must, on demand, provide their 990 forms for inspection to any member of the public. In other words, I can walk into Parent Revolution's office and order them to show me their 2010 990 form, which they intentionally filed late so that GuideStar wouldn't have it online for another year. I will be writing a piece on that (and visiting some of Los Angeles' most vile privatization 501C3s) very soon.

However, the most important discovery made during this investigation was a sizable $50,000 contribution from the Eli and Edyth Broad Foundation to Parent Revolution on their 2009 990 Form. Corporate charter charlatan Ben Austin constantly states that his organization supports "parent empowerment" and is leading a "dynamic social movement" "committed to a kids-first agenda where parents have a real voice in their kids’ futures." Sounds very noble no? Well, in a rare lapse of candor, the Broad donation defines both the purpose of their contributions and Parent Revolution's raison d'être:

"To support efforts to help Charter Management Organizations apply for new LAUSD schools under LAUSD's School Choice Resolution"

This puts to lie all of Austin's bluster about a "kids-first agenda" and reminds us that school privatization and growing charter school market share is Parent Revolution's only agenda.

Once more Alex Russo afflicts the afflicted and comforts the comfortable

"I want to work with people who have relevant experience in our neighborhoods, whose kids go to the same schools mine do, and who believe in the self-determination of all communities. I do not appreciate the dominant-culture control of the 'reformers' who parachute in, a la Peace Corps style, to show us Brown and Black folks how to be like them." — Andrea Merida

Photo courtesy of LS4C1.

It seems Alexander Russo just can't stand when ordinary working class people stand up to the plutocrats he serves with such aplomb. Wasn't it just yesterday when we discussed him excoriating "activists, community members, and educators standing up to the corporate education reform juggernaut" in The trouble with Alexander Russo?

On the first of June, he wrote a paean to right-wing school privatization veteran Linda Serrato. In the piece Russo makes abundantly clear his heartfelt desire that he wants to see the administration be supportive of "Charter Trigger" laws. Since this administration is responsible for educational malpractices including Race to the Trough and Corporate Core Curriculum, it wouldn't be surprising if they did express support for Ben Austin's American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) template legislation.

Yet it's not Russo's love for all things profitable and corporate that is of note in the above article. What's astonishing is that he banned parent activist Caroline Grannan for the month of June from making comments on his blog. Grannan's crime? She had the audacity to point out that privatization pimp Serrato was a paid hack, just like the rest of the so-called Parent Revolution condottiere so beloved by the Heartland Institute.

Grannan wrote eloquently about heavy-handed Russo's selective censorship in Parent Trigger flap over paid flacks vs. real advocates. Her fellow Parents Across America (PAA) member Julie Woestehoff also wrote an excellent piece entitled Mercenaries in the corporate reform propaganda war.

While his corporate reform bias isn't in question, Russo likes to pretend he is seemingly above the fray and that he somehow devotes equal skepticism to all sides. He cites a handfull of his posts where he is mildly unflattering of some corporate reforms. Let's put his feigned neutrality to the "Who Stands to Gain?" test coined by the sage Russian philosopher, since ultimately that's the question people have been asking about paid corporate education reformers that has Russo in such a tizzy. First and formost we can't forget Russo's employer, Scholastic, made $1,906.1 Million in revenues last year. Secondly, we have to remember that he's not a volunteer activist, or even an unpaid blogger. Instead, he's paid by one of the largest education companies to write about various topics that are most typically centered around what eventually will bring in more profits to his employer. Who stands to gain? Corporate reforms like Corporate Core and other scripted curriculum mean more profits for Scholastic, which, in turn, will ensure Russo continued employment. This is probably why he's so sensitive when his idols Rhee, Romero, Petruzzi, and Austin are rightfully accused of being hired guns, since he's one himself.

Hence Russo couldn't leave Woestehoff and Grannan's valid criticisms of both himself and his corporate reform colleagues unchallenged. Indeed he launched a full scale smear campaign against PAA, leveling accusations that they are "white, middle-class, middle-aged types," who are "coming at education reform from a less immediate and compelling perspective" and further says "it isn't really clear whether PAA represents any great number of young low-income minority parents who have a direct and immediate interest in making low-performing, neglected schools better." I would ask Russo this directly, but he tends to ignore me or respond with obtuse misdirections: since corporate education reform is funded by Walton, DeVos, Broad, Bradley, Gates, Koch, Hastings, Dell, Powell-Jobs, Scaife, Tilson, et al. can he name one of the entities from that list that meet his criteria? Taking just the funders from the above mentioned Parent Revolution, can Russo tell me who out of that group of plutocrats are "low-income minority parents?" Or perhaps he's referring to Parent Revolution's leader (and it's not Maggie Gyllenhaal) who lives in a 1.2 million dollar home in an area of Beverly Hills that's 87.5% white. Despicable, duplicitous, and disgusting.

I left the following comment under Russo's recent piece. He typically deletes or edits my comments, so it's good to have a record of the original:

Wow! One of the biggest cheerleaders for corporate "reforms" savaging one of the few genuine parent movements in the country. Who would have expected that?

I'm not a member of PAA, because I'm not a parent. If I was, I'd join in a second because their policies precisely reflect those of all the families that I do countless hours of VOLUNTEER work with in my impoverished community [1]. I think PAA are actually not critical enough of the other side, whose motives are as clear as the six figure salaries they receive. Mr. Russo, show me a PAA leader paid Gloria Romero, Michelle Rhee, or Ben Austin type money, and I'll make a public apology right here.

[1] http://projects.latimes.com/mapping-la/neighborhoods/neighborhood/westlake/

Several of the PAA founding members, including those of color who take righteous exception to Russo casting them as white and middle-class, have commented there. But as I argued in my first polemic against Russo, there's a serious power imbalance on every level between those forces heralding corporate education reform and grassroots resistance to that selfsame neoliberal agenda. Our very own Professor P. L. Thomas discusses such an "unfair imbalance of power" in his very erudite Does Tone Matter in the Education Reform Debate? far better than I am able to articulate. Interestingly Thomas' essay mentions yet another Russo attack on Professor Diane Ravitch. We must continue to point out that these power imbalances exist, and that they are manifestations of system that hinges on our oppressors maintaining those imbalances at all costs. In that regard Russo is merely a mouthpiece for those really in power, and a shrill and servile one at that.

Peas in a pod: Koret Foundation, The Hoover Institution, and Democrats for Education Reform

"I tell you, my friends, the trouble with this whole country is that so many are selfish! Here's a hundred and twenty million people, with ninety-five per cent of 'em only thinking of self, instead of turning to and helping the responsible business men to bring back prosperity! All these corrupt and self-seeking labor unions! Money grubbers! Thinking only of how much wages they can extort out of their unfortunate employer, with all the responsibilities he has to bear!" ... "Then was revealed the New American Education, which, as Sarason so justly said, was to be ever so much newer than the New Educations of Germany, Italy, Poland, or even Turkey." — Sinclair Lewis [1]



It's no secret that the malicious types running Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) hold the same ideological positions as the furthest-right think-tanks around. Starting with their founder Whitney Tilson, [2] who channels American Enterprise Institute's (AEI) Andy Smarick at every opportunity, DFER is a bastion of right-wing thought that amounts to an enormous serving of Milton Freidman's free market fantasies finished with a healthy dollop of Ayn Rand's infantile insistence that "Big Business" is "America’s Persecuted Minority."

Much like Eli Broad's economic hit-men (and hit-women) trained at his various residencies and academies, DFER operatives have done astonishing damage to the public commons and undermine democracy at every opportunity. In Democrats for Neoliberal Education Reform I outlined the duplicitous underhanded craftiness DFER Colorado operatives Mike Johnston and his colleagues employed to "railroad the anti-community, anti-teacher, pro-corporate SB-191 through the Colorado Legislature." More importantly, we looked at the language of their own document which gleefully "discuss[es] students as mere commodities to be consumed by the owners of the means of production."

In the past right-wing Democrats like those comprising the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) pretended that they were somehow different than the John Birch Society inspired organizations that informed the DLC's policies. DFER, on the other hand, makes no attempts to mask their muses and ideological allies. Much like Arne Duncan's ballyhooed "education reform" tour with serial bigot (and philanderer) Newt Gingrich, DFER makes no bones about the fact that their natural allies are fringe-right creeps that would put children back to work. [3]

Case in point Gloria J. Romero, DFER California Director, just completed a panel entitled "School Choice, Special Interests and the Education of Our Children" along with arch-reactionaries Terry Moe of The Hoover Institution and Lance Izumi of Koret Foundation. The event, held in "honor" of deceptively named "school choice week," was moderated by teabagger and staunch anti-unionist Lary Sand, who some might recall as having moderated a school privatization event held by Ben Austin, Ben Boychuck, and Bruno Behrend. DFER's Romero, whose hatred of organized labor echoes that of the Brothers Koch, must have been very confortable on a panel with reactionaries whose views up ten years ago were considered extremist even by the mainstream GOP.

Any guesses as to who the panel considered "Special Interests?" It's safe to say that it wasn't The Broad Foundation, The Gates Foundation, or The Walton Family Foundation. Let's look briefly at our ideological peas in a pod.

Terry Moe, who writes with all of the authority of Philip Morris treatise on the health benefits of smoking, is a favorite in the Murdoch, Walton, DeVos, Bradley, Koch, and Scaife circles. The extreme right-wing Hoover Institution (named after the vile president who stood by and did nothing the last time the banksters and Wall Street swindlers crashed the economy) is wont to lionize right-wing monsters (and Milton Freidman acolytes) like the butchering murderer Generalissimo Augusto Pinochet.

Lance Izumi, who spends much of his time writing fallacious fact-frees texts trying to scamboozle middle class parents into accepting "school choice" and distance learning in order to bolster the burgeoning charter and online school sectors, is a senior fellow at the Koret Foundation. Koret, which unabashedly promotes Freidman's discredited ideas while simultaneously celebrating the Nakba, have their — in their own words — "free-market think tank, Pacific Research Institute" based at The Hoover Institution.

Gloria Romero is best known for her obsequious service to the lucrative charter school industry. While a California State Senator, she worked tirelessly to ensure Caprice Young, Jed Wallace, and other charter school tycoons would continue to dine voraciously at the public trough. Among her dubious accomplishments was SB-592 which handed public school property over to private corporations. Romero's most famous betrayal of the working class people of California was her collaboration with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ben Austin to create the vile corporate charter trigger, which allows well funded Charter Management Organizations to increase market share. Since her ignominious defeat in her bid to garner the California State Superintendent of Public Instruction seat on behalf of the California Charter Schools Association, Romero has worked harder to union bust and privatize public schools than all of the teabagger elected governors combined. Her shameless pandering to the right and constant opportunism was best summed up in 2009 by my friend and comrade Alvaro Maldonado when we were still trying to prevent the parent trigger law from passing:

For those harboring illusions about State Senator Gloria Romero, her ideology, and her intentions. Long time immigrant rights activist Alvaro Maldonado, who led the fight against the racist Prop 187, had this to say about State Senator and Privatization Pontiff Gloria Romero:

I just saw her the other day! She use to be a left liberal, now she's just a plain capitalist liberal! Gloria Romero was an 1970's activist turned Democratic politician just like Fabian Nunez. I think, it should be a good lesson to all that those liberals who tie themselves to the Democratic party are almost without exception, turn into promoters for the capitalist system; be they co-opted, sold out, or just believe that there is no alternative (I generally I don't buy the argument on practicality claimed by the "progressive" Democrats... Their excuses generally hide their opportunism). The UFW traditional leadership (Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, etc) gave us years of union and Democratic party opportunism in their stances on many an issue... but thats too long a story to get into on this comment page... it should suffice to be weary of "progressives" keeping close ties to the Democratic party.

On balance, there's no difference between education policies and philosophies of the Koret Foundation, The Hoover Institution, and Democrats for Education Reform — not even a nuanced difference. Indeed, this is why we are seeing more and more events at which the fringe-right is paired with right of center Democrats. This insidious pairing has several consequences, the first of which is that these right wing DFER types try to call their politics, adopted from the far-right, "progressive." They're not, and we must call them out on this each and every time they try to pass them off as such. We must name names, and remind everyone that reactionary ideas of free-markets and competition are the antithesis of equity and social justice.

"One result of 30 years of neoliberalism is the a widespread assumption that if you're unhappy dominating or exploiting your fellow human beings, it must be because you're stupid or incapable." — Mike Marqusee

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NOTES

[1] Lewis, Sinclair. It can't happen here; a novel, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1935.

[2] For some prime examples see Tilson's amateurish and spurious "Rebutting Ravitch" diatribe. He regurgitates Freidman/Rand balderdash with statements about how public education is "lacking in market mechanisms." Moreover Tilson's own unsuccessful attempts to rebut Professor Ravitch are augmented with likewise perfidy by some of his political idols; including The Hoover Institution's Chester Finn, arch-reactionary Andy Rotherham, and for good measure other assorted right wingers like Stuart Buck and Jay Greene.

As an aside, Tilson's prose leaves so much to be desired, which isn't too surprising for a child of privilege who went on to grow mummy and daddy's money by shorting housing derivatives. That said, don't the elite colleges these ruling class brats attend teach them to write? Tilson couldn't compose a cogent sentence if his life depended on it.

[3] In this age of standardized bubble tests and Fox News, it's easy to forget that "Child labor wasn't outlawed until the passage of the FLSA in 1938. Also read about Mother Jones 1903 "Children's Crusade," fight to limit child labor to 55 hours a week."