"Democrats for Education Reform" and Fake School Reform + anti union drives

DFER's Gloria Romero Joined with Koch-Connected Groups to Attack Unions

Gloria Romero 

Democrats for Education Reform's California arm was led by Gloria Romero, a former state legislator from Los Angeles, who was termed out from running for re-election after leading the state senate.

Romero failed in her bid to become the state Superintendent of Public Instruction in 2010, and then, like so many other failed politicians, she was welcomed as a leader for DFER.

DFER began filing election disclosure forms in California in 2012. Some of its most high-profile activities under Romero were in partnership with other secretive groups.

Ultimately, it turned out that Romero was not just fronting for the ERN/ERNA/DFER hedge funders but also for non-profits closely tied to the controversial billionaire Koch brothers. And as the Center for Media and Democracy has documented, Charles and David Koch's antipathy toward public schools and unions runs deep and is part of their multi-decade agenda to re-shape America.

To try to win Prop 32, DFER's Romero worked with a group called "Americans for Responsible Leadership" (ARL), which received more than 97% of its $24 million in funding from another group called the "Center for Protect Patient Rights" (CPPR).

As noted by Open Secrets, ARL:

"spent nearly $9.8 million in the 2012 elections, including $3.2 million against President Obama's re-election bid, according to reports it filed with the Federal Election Commission. The rest was spent supporting Obama's rival, GOP nominee Mitt Romney, and 20 other Republican candidates, most of whom were running for Senate seats ... ARL also gave $11 million to a group working on a California ballot measure and nearly $1.4 million to organizations fighting two Arizona ballot initiatives," including one on redistricting.

So, a major Republican-backing operation spent millions aiding the objectives of a group with the word "Democrats" in its name to thwart unions? No wonder some in labor created "Democrats in Name Only for Education Reform" or dferdinos.com.

Foundations and school reform

One of the things the right wing does is keep organizing.  While we rest and recover from an election such as California Prop. 30, they are off on their next campaign.  They do this by having hundreds of advocates. So that while some recover, others launch their next campaign.

The Foundation for Excellence in Education’s annual conference was held  Nov 26-27   in Washington, D.C. The agenda hits most of the main policies former Gov. Jeb Bush has supported: How to make teachers more effective; school district accountability; charter school accountability; the parent trigger and funding; and what to expect from new Common Core assessments.

The agenda of the agenda of the right and of the Obama administration has focused on Common Core Standards.  To date there has been no evidence that common standards actually change what happens in classrooms.  This is the kind of reform that the well funded foundations like because they can go out and advocate and raise funds without having to get their hands dirty by talking with teachers, students or parents.

Major donors such as the Gates Foundation, the Broad Foundation, and others  are increasingly driving education agendas and that influence just continues to grow. These foundations  have no public accountability, but they  been successful in capturing the policy agenda from local school boards, state legislatures, in the press  and  in Congress  despite their lack of evidence of  success.

Improving schools requires working with teachers, not against them

     California public schools are in crisis- and they are getting worse. This is a consequence  of massive budget cuts imposed on the schools by the legislature and the governor in the last four years.  Total per pupil expenditure is down over $1,000 per student. The result is significant  class size increases.   Students are in often classes too large for learning.  Supplementary services such as tutoring, art, and drop out prevention  classes have been eliminated.  Over 14,000 teachers have been dismissed due to the budget emergencies.

       California schools are now 47^th. in the nation in per pupil expenditure and 49^th in class size. Low achievement scores on national tests  in reading and math reflect this severe underfunding. California teachers have been subject to demoralizing  budget cuts that often prevent good teaching. 

     Instead of working with teachers to restore budgets, or to limit budget cuts, a group that claims to be school “reformers” argue that the important issue is teacher accountability.

      This group of “reformers” includes so called   Democrats for Education Reform  led by former State Senator  Gloria Romero and  by Michelle Rhee, former Chancellor of the Washington, D.C. schools. See. https://sites.google.com/site/democracyandeducationorg/

       The so called “reformers” disrespect teachers.  They prefer schools with principals as managers – and that does not work.  They seek to  reduce teachers to interchangeable cogs in a corporate machine with few rights and little independence.   They have reduced teachers’ job security and professional self respect  in the classroom.

Blogging as if public schools matter

This post is based upon an interview with veteran reporter and author William Greider. Social Security in Perspective, Part III A conversation with William Greider by Trudy Lieberman in the Columbia Journalism review  posted on Dec.21,3010.   The interview with Grieder is about how the press miss report the condition and the so called “crisis” of social security.   For this post I have taken Greider’s points and applied some of them to reporting on school reform.  I am relying upon Greider’s extensive knowledge of economics reporting and applying some of  the ideas to reporting on school reform where I see a parallel problem. 

Why do many reporters not report on the realities of school change?

  They too often  rely upon the wisdom of selected “spokespersons” and other elites. 

They have been sold a framework of  a corporate view of accountability. Corporate sponsored networks and think tanks such as the the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, the Broad Foundation,  the Bradley Foundation, the Pacific Research Institute,  and the Olin Foundation provide “experts” prepared to give an opinion on short notice to meet a reporters deadline.  Most reporters assume that these notables are telling the truth when in fact they are promoting a particular propaganda such as in the film “Waiting for Superman”.  Who do they not speak with?-  Experienced teachers, professionals with experience working to improve inner city schools for decades for equal opportunity. 

The Obama Administration’s appointment of Arne Duncan was symptomatic of the problem.  He represents the  kind of corporate/media approach to reform.   So, reporters can go to the corporate funded foundations and provide “balance” by asking the appointees of the government- they get the same story.  In particular recently they have been turning to the Gates and Broad Foundations  or the conservative Democrats for Education Reform.

Democrats ? for Education Reform 2

The Sacramento Bee today has well written  front page article on Democrats? for Education Reform.
Here is a preliminary response.  Be certain to look at the more detailed description of Democrats? below by Michael Hirsch.

Well done article on the group Democrats ? for Educational Reform. There is more on here. http://choosingdemocracy.blogspot.com/2010/12/democrats-for-education-reform.html

There is no evidence that the group has improved schools.  Politicians have seldom improved schools.  Improved schools require teachers working together.  There is some evidence in my book, Choosing Democracy, and in the effort of Quality  Investment in Education Act schools sponsored by CTA.

A positive side of the effort of Democrats? For Educational Reform is that they point out, create a megaphone, to describe and criticize the failure of some of our schools, particularly urban schools. 

Instead of talking about the most basic cause- the lack of adequate funding for schools and for school reform- they offer a series of ideas centered on the problem is the teachers unions.  Well. No.  The problem is the significant under funding of California schools as well developed in prior posts and in the suite Robles v. California.  And, given the current state budget, the underfunding of schools is going to get much worse.

In the last two years the k-12 budget “solutions” have cut 4.6 billion dollars from the schools. We have larger classes and fewer teachers.  School reform has stopped- except for the politicians hot air.  School funding makes up a total of 30% of the state budget.  Any crisis in the state budget and any cuts in the state budget will make school budgets worse.