First published on Schools Matter on August 25, 2016
“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.
First published on Schools Matter on July 09, 2016
“There is not a speck, not a sliced-thin scintilla of evidence to suggest that Clinton will do anything except continue straight down the same road that Bush and Obama took us. And there’s no telling what Trump will do about education, but it’s a safe bet that it will be huge, it will be business oriented, and that it will involve blustery hair-brained ignorance.” — Peter Greene
It's a tough time to be a public education advocate. The fervor over the 2016 election has partisans lashing out with an unprecedented amount of vitriol towards anyone questioning the education policies of mainstream candidates. Worst of the bunch are the supporters of presumed Democratic Party nominee, Hillary Rodham Clinton. Here's an example of the angry denials from one of Clinton's most ardent supporters:
It is also total bullshit that you keep insisting that HRC is pushing charters and ed reform. That is TOTAL BULLSHIT.
Astonishingly, this was written by a teacher member of the Badass Teachers Association (BATs). Never mind that Clinton has deep ties the Walton Family Foundation, ignore her intwinement with Center for American Progress (CAP), her association with the Broads, and all the other obvious red flags indicating that Clinton will double down on Obama's policies. Clinton is on record as completely supporting privately managed charter schools, so-called "school choice," and for that matter, the entire neoliberal corporate education reform platform. Total "BS"? Here's a screen capture right off of Clinton's campaign website, where she lauds ESSA and its support of "high-quality public [sic] charter schools":
Unequivocal. Clinton has never changed her stance on privately managed charter schools, and that's why the National Association of Public [sic] Charter Schools (NAPCS) features the following on their website. A pro-charter pull-quote by Clinton appears alongside similar ones by Bill Gates, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and Arne Duncan. Clinton's mild criticisms of some charter schools a few months back were to placate certain constituencies, nothing more.
This is the same former Walmart board member who stood before the National Educators Association (NEA) Convention and had no qualms about boasting about her support for the lucrative charter school sector. The same Goldman Sachs confidant who is the favorite of the far-right Democrats for Education Reform (DFER). In sum, corporatist Jeffries of the arch-reactionary (DFER) is on record saying that Hillary Rodham Clinton is their choice to carry on their projects of privatization pushing and poverty pimping. He also states that it is because she is fully on board with their notions of "school choice" and she fully supports charter schools. Some in the BATs forum have ruthlessly attacked me, assailed my character, and called me a liar for saying as much, but to hear it out of the mouth a the hedge fund group's representative makes it a little bit harder to deny. Hillary Rodham Clinton is DFER's candidate.
The attacks on me, in any forum that I speak truth to power on education issues, are relentless. Here's something that I posted on my facebook page a bit back after an encounter with a particularly rabid Clinton supporter.
So red baiting is still a thing. I was on a teachers' message board talking about Oaxaca, Naomi Klein, neoliberalism, and privatization, and was essentially told by a right-of-center HillBot to shut up and pack my bags for North Korea.
It's like Dr. Khury Petersen-Smith writes in his powerful essay "I won't be shamed into voting for Clinton":
It was another example of a proven fact about liberalism — Democrats and their media cheerleaders save their deepest contempt not for right wingers, but for those who challenge them from the left.
Ain't that the truth! For some further reading on Clinton's education agenda check out this piece by Steven Singer and this one by Douglas Harris.
Lastly I wanted to address the dissembling about public versus private charter schools, since it has been a common form of deception employed by high-profile politicians and the billionaires that pull their strings. Clinton is an attorney, so she doesn't have the option of saying she doesn't know the legal standing of charter schools. I'm including my boilerplate prose on how charter schools are not public, since the more places this appears, the more likely this information will be disseminated:
As a Juris Doctor candidate whose specialty is education law in the era of neoliberalism, allow me to present the legal arguments on how privately managed charter schools are not at all “public.”
Generally charter schools are not public schools. This has been long established by both existing case law and public policy. The Washington State Supreme Court (2015) held that charter schools are not “common schools” because they are governed by appointed rather than elected boards. The 9th Circuit US Court of Appeals (2010) ruled that charter schools are not “public actors.” The California Court of Appeals (2007) ruled that charter schools are not “public agents.” Additionally, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) joined scores of other government agencies in unequivocally determining that charters are, in NLRB’s words, “private entities.”
By definition if a charter school is operated by a for-profit company, or by a 501c3 non-profit corporation (e.g. Harlem Success Academy), then it is not a public school. The United States Census Bureau frames this latter issue best:
“A few “public charter schools” are run by public universities and municipalities. However, most charter schools are run by private nonprofit organizations and are therefore classified as private.” (US Census Bureau. (2011). “Public Education Finances: 2009 (GO9-ASPEF)”. Washington, DC: US Government Printing O ce. Print. vi).
Because these lucrative charter schools are not public, and therefore not subject to even a modicum of public oversight, they are able violate the constitutional rights of their students. The decision in Scott B. v. Board of Trustees of Orange County High School of the Arts saw scholar Rosa K. Hirji, Esq. write for the American Bar Association:
“The structures that allow charter schools to exist are marked by the absence of protections that are traditionally guaranteed by public education, protections that only become apparent and necessary when families and students begin to face a denial of what they were initially promised to be their right.”
The distinguished Professor Preston C. Green III of University of Connecticut has written extensively on this subject. One of his recent papers examines "how charter schools have used their public characteristics to qualify for public funding under state constitutional law, while highlighting their private characteristics to exempt themselves from other laws that apply to public schools." This private-in-every-aspect except for when siphoning funds away from authentic public schools is a defining feature of charter schools.
First published on Schools Matter on June 07, 2016
“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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
First published on Schools Matter on January 13, 2015
"In the US, teachers are paid poorly and treated even worse by having their priceless work reduced to meaningless scores on bad tests"—Joe Bower
The infamous Center for American Progress (CAP or C*AP maybe?) outdid themselves in the mendacity department this week. Not only did they try to pass off one of their usual neoliberal corporate education reform propaganda pieces as legitimate research, but they were caught using a photograph in the policy paper that contradicted their central thesis.
CAP's latest disinformation campaign is centered around attrition rates for new teachers. Chicago Teachers Union's honorable Karen Lewis posted the piece asking the venerable Jersey Jazzman about its veracity. He responded with some excellent analysis, and said "this "report" is light on methodology". He also mentioned offhand that "CAP is not a hacky group". I felt compelled to address the latter:
Robert D. Skeels: Center for American Progress (CAP) regularly does events with the fringe-right American Enterprise Institute (AEI) (e.g. http://www.aei.org/events/forward-progress-global-development-in-the-21st-century/ image used here is from that page). Why not? Their politics, particularly education policies, are nearly identical. In the past I used to always call CAP's press contact whenever they released one of these sensationally titled "studies." I'd ask them "is this a peer reviewed (juried) study or a policy paper?" Every time they'd respond the latter. I don't even waste my time asking them any more. While I have the utmost respect for the eminent Jersey Jazzman above, I would posit that CAP is a hacky group. Moreover, the only "progress" CAP is interested in is that of plutocrat profits.
This isn't the first, nor last time Schools Matter has pointed out both CAPs enormous credibility issues and right-wing leanings. For example in 2009: CAP, Chamber of Commerce, Rick Hess team up to Bash Public Schools.
![Teach for [corporate] America missionary Gabrielle Wooden taught in Mississippi for 2 years, and is now an account manager for Insight Global.](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirJYMKpfH0p4H9GSfFOyBqHTTR2sOjgWOii7KAwjyS8xVROVJ73QT5jjaN7fjoUVGsmqtlq1ErMydNNhL9H1joc-d2OCcgaRFWeSSbpcjCKpBmOCb0wl741vgWI6CfycsJn8-5/s1600/wooden-fake.png "Teach for [corporate] America missionary Gabrielle Wooden taught in Mississippi for 2 years, and is now an account manager for Insight Global.")
That same article was circulating BATs, and Professor Mitchell Robinson had some important information to share about the young Teach for [corporate] America missionary depicted in CAP's puff piece as a teacher, in CAP's words, "staying in their job longer", "despite reports to the contrary". Robinson's observations on the above photo:
I knew something didn't smell right about this story…
The "teacher" in this picture, Gabrielle Wooden, is…wait for it…from Teach for America. She taught in Mississippi for 2 years, and is now an account manager for Insight Global in St. Louis.
So, the teacher that the Center for American Progress used to illustrate their "story" on how new teachers are staying in the classroom longer only stayed for two years before leaving the profession.
You can't make this stuff up.
And he certainly didn't make it up. Here's Teach for [corporate] America's Wooden's LinkedIn profile, including the first paragraph of prose from the corporate entity with "revenues over $1 Billion" where our hapless CAP photo model now utilizes her 5.5 weeks of Wendy Kopp approved TFA training.
![Teach for [corporate] America missionary Gabrielle Wooden taught in Mississippi for 2 years, and is now an account manager for Insight Global.](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglxXvZc7eg-6qIhBAaXjbC6xDH8Igi0Ixe4Hpsg2T5q5TxNOzCu8a-vMuzZ5TxHVkfJC0YWpT8rKffk56gVSG5e7KLEf-Q5Xv11ov6FFb8HvU2pX7P5GQfaRbT5B07zFAHGqxb/s1600/wooden-linkdin.png "Teach for [corporate] America missionary Gabrielle Wooden taught in Mississippi for 2 years, and is now an account manager for Insight Global.")
Insight Global is a premier technology staffing services firm, ranked as one of the fastest growing staffing firms for 9 consecutive years and named the 4th largest IT staffing firm in America. Since our inception in 2001, we have experienced unprecedented growth within our industry. We have expanded from an Atlanta based start-up to one of the most successful IT staffing firms in America, with 39 offices and counting. Insight Global employs over 20,000 people in companies each year and currently boasts revenues over $1 Billion. We plan to continue this growth by expanding to 98 offices nationwide, entering into industries such as Finance/Accounting, Administrative and Healthcare staffing, and continuing to expand internationally.
Robinson also weighed in on CAP:
CAP is about as "progressive" or "Democratic" as Democrats for Education Reform. Not sure what is meant by "hacky", but publishing "research" that has not been peer reviewed or including any of your methodology isn't just non transparent, it's borderline unethical.
In fairness CAP, on very rare occasions, publishes actual studies by legitimate researchers. Jersey Jazzman pointed that out, and the remainder of our exchange is reproduced here.
Jersey Jazzman: I'm not a fan of all of CAP's education work, but some of it is very high-quality: https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education/report/2012/09/19/38189/the-stealth-inequities-of-school-funding/
Mitchell Robinson: That's a policy analysis--the article linked at the top of the page is a puff piece. Huge difference. CAP needs to police what they publish--it's their reputation.
Robert D. Skeels: I'm actually shocked that they would publish anything by Dr. Baker, but I know his work is of the highest quality and truthfulness. I suppose occasionally publishing legitimate material lets the C*AP reactionaries feel better about their constant stream of neoliberal corporate propaganda.
I am a fan of Professor Bruce Baker, the Jersey Jazzman, and now Professor Mitchell Robinson. Special thanks to Professor Diane Ravitch for leading me to the Joe Bowers quote, and for reproducing Peter Greene's take on the above topic.
