By Jeff
Bryant, Education Opportunity Network.
Big Money
Floods A California Superintendent Race
Education
historian and public school activist Diane Ravitch recently called our attention to
the race for state superintendent of school in California where Marshall Tuck,
running against educator Tom Torlakson, got a late infusion of huge campaign
contributions” from many of the same entities influencing the Minneapolis
school board race – Michael Bloomberg, the Waltons, and other heavy weight
private foundations.
As Poltico’s
Stephanie Simon explained, the contest is
between two Democrats – incumbent, Tom Torlakson, a former teacher and veteran
legislator, and a former Wall Street and charter school executive Marshall
Tuck.
Ed.note. The Torlakson –Tuck campaign has been much better
covered on this blog.
The
Torlakson campaign is “backed by all the traditional constituencies of a mainline
Democratic campaign, Simon explained, “including public sector unions,
environmentalists, reproductive rights groups and even the party apparatus
itself
Tuck, on the
other hand, “has been endorsed by every major newspaper in the state – and by a
bipartisan array of wealthy donors,” including the above mentioned Bloomberg
and Walton as well as mega-wealthy Los Angeles philanthropist Eli Broad and
numerous Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, all of whom register their political
leanings to the Democratic Party.
For that
reason Simon claimed, “The race has become a highly symbolic fight for the
heart and soul of the Democratic Party – and is shaping up to be major test of
waning teachers union power.”
Calling it,
“a campaign that echoes the same ‘Main Street vs. Wall Street’ divide that has
roiled the Democratic Party in recent years,” Simon noted Tuck’s negative
stance on teacher tenure and his strong support for charter schools compared to
Torlakson’s opposition to unfair teacher evaluations and over-emphasis on
testing that have been imposed by the Obama administration.
An analysis
of the two candidates at Education Week highlighted the divergence in
their assessments of what current school policies are achieving. Whereas Tuck
prefers the language of failure – saying, “We have a status quo that has been
broken for kids for a long time, that’s failing kids” – Torlakson talks about
recent accomplishments, including “California 8th graders’ significantly higher scores on the NAEP
reading test in 2013, a record-high graduation rate of 80 percent
for the class of 2013, and a new funding formula intended to provide more
resources and power to school districts.”
Simon noted
that Tuck is particularly eager to take on the California Teachers’
Association, the state teachers’ union, calling it too influential, while
Torlakson has defended hard won union contractual agreements with the state.
As the
education news outlet EdSource noted, both candidates have raised
about the same amount of money, $2.5 million for Torlakson and $2.4 million for
Tuck. But with total spending likely to hit $25 million, according to Simon’s
report, most of the money is coming from outside the candidates’ efforts.
As the
EdSource report explained, “There are no limits on donors to outside groups,
identified on campaign disclosure reports as ‘independent expenditure
committees.’ These committees have intensified their efforts in the past few
weeks,” mostly in a rush of support to Tuck.
Democracy
Gets Lost
What’s
getting lost in the flood of money into both these and other similarly
afflicted races is the integrity of the democratic process.
When a small
group of private individuals get such an out-sized ability to control the
conversation, the voices of the electorate are drowned out.
Those who
welcome the big money coming into these contests from corporate and private
interests are quick to note that labor organizations have long used their money
to influence education-related elections.
They are
quick to cast these contests as being referendums on the power of unions, as
Politico’s Simon did, and argue that these are merely two equivalent interests
duking it out on a level playing field.
But that in
fact is a false equivalency, as Simon herself seemed to admit in a recent Twitter exchange with me.
Teachers
unions are fundamentally democratic organizations, as Matt Di Carlo
has explained on his blog at the Albert Shanker Institute. “Teachers’ unions
are comprised of members who are teachers, they’re led by teachers (many still
in the classroom) who are elected by teachers, and union policy positions and
collective bargaining agreements are voted on and approved by teachers,” he
wrote. “When you hear ‘teachers’ unions,’ at least some part of you
should think ‘teachers.’”
Furthermore,
union influence can’t hide behind the secrecy that outside PACs and independent
expenditure committees enjoy.
That’s
different from what you should think when you hear about organizations working
to undermine the interests of teachers – like 50CAN and Students for Education
Reform – whose sole constituency is comprised of a few very wealthy people.
What you
should think instead, at least if you are a Democrat, is Citizens United and
Koch brothers.
By Jeff Bryant
Most folks
in the Democratic Party have a problem with the Citizens United ruling by the
U.S. Supreme Court that permitted goo-gobs of corporate and private interest
cash to be dumped onto our elections. The party’s platform supports amending
the Constitution to reverse the decision. President Obama has also called for
such an amendment, and Hillary Clinton has said she would consider supporting
it.
Most
Democrats are also alarmed by the enormous amounts of cash funneled into the
electoral process by folks like Karl Rove and the Koch brothers who use
corporate and private interest money to overwhelm citizen voice in elections
and usurp democracy.
But if
you’re a Democrat, you should know the influence buying unleashed by Citizens
United and perpetrated by people like the Koch brothers are at work – with the
blessing and participation of fellow Democrats – in education politics.
Historically,
elections that determine public education governance – from local school bard
races to contests determining state administrative leadership – have been
fairly subdued affairs in comparison to mayoral and legislative races.
That’s not
necessarily a good thing, because education has long been America’s most
collaborative public enterprise, affecting virtually everyone and determining
how we nurture the next generation of citizens, workers, and leaders.
But lately,
these contests have grown more animated as a new element –money from big
business and private individuals and foundations – is now altering the
electoral process in new and fundamental ways.
Examples of
this new dynamic have surfaced in the upcoming 2014 elections at both the local
school district level and at state level contests, and in each example, the big
money often coming from people who associate with the Democratic Party.
Further, these wealthy Democrats often collude with conservative Republicans in
these school-related elections in ways they never would in other contests.
This
confluence of big money is often called “bipartisanship.” But the results are
apt to be the same we’ve seen in more popular elections – a distortion of
democracy that leads to governance that is less progressive.
Big Money
Goes After School Boards
As Valerie
Strauss pointed on her blog at The Washington Post recently, “For several
years now local school board races around the country have attracted big money
from outside the state — and sometimes from across the country — as school
reformers and their supporters seek to elect like-minded public officials. In
2013, for example, millions of dollars were spent on school board
races in Los Angeles and in 2012, outsiders poured money into a New Orleans school board
race.”
In that
post, Strauss pointed to an article by Minneapolis-based writer and former
teacher Sarah Lahm, published by In These Times, describing how big money is
arm twisting the democratic process in her local school board election.
Lahm
explained how one of the candidates, Don Samuels, is benefiting from “extensive
financing and canvassing support … from several well-heeled national
organizations, such as the Washington, D.C.-based 50CAN,
an offshoot of Education Reform Now called Students
for Education Reform (SFER).”
Samuels has
out-raised his main competitor, incumbent Rebecca Gagnon, by almost 4 to 1
including “tremendous support from outside of Minnesota. The D.C.-based 50CAN
Action Fund filed a campaign finance report in Minnesota showing that it was
devoting $14,350 in financial resources to the Minneapolis school board race,
as well as in-kind donations valued in the thousands of dollars.”
Another
report on who is influencing the Minneapolis school board race, from Beth
Hawkins on the MinnPost website, described big donations
coming into the race from former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and,
again, 50CAN and Students for Education Reform. That report also mentioned
another recipient to the largesse, candidate Iris Altamirano.
50CAN, a nonprofit organization with a stated mission to
“advocate for a high-quality education for all kids,” was founded and is led by
Marc Porter Magee, a former employee of the
Democratic Leadership Council’s think tank, a centrist-minded Beltway group
carrying a Democratic Party label but supportive of many policies favored by
Republicans.
The DLC, as
my college a the Campaign for America’s Future Robert
Borosage described, “led the Wall Street-funded, corporate wing of
the Party. The New Dems scorned the base of the Democratic Party – labor,
feminists, environmentalists, minorities, peace activists. Rather than resist
conservative headwinds, they argued vociferously that Democrats should tack to
them, adopting a muscular foreign policy, trimming social liberalism, posturing
tough on crime and the poor.”
According to
Wikipedia, early funding for the DLC came from
big corporations including “ARCO, Chevron, Merck, Du Pont, Microsoft, Philip
Morris and Koch Industries.” A more recent report, from The
American Prospect, adds a whole slew of corporate money and
influence into the DLC make-up.
So now 50CAN
– with funding from the likes of Google and lots of rich private foundations
including those of Bill and Melinda Gates and the Walton family of Walmart fame
– has emerged as a DLC clone with a mission to determine the results of local
school board elections.
Despite what
50CAN states as its mission, the organization seems clearly more geared to a
political strategy than it is on developing high quality schools.
In an
interview featured on the website of a conservative D.C.-based think tank,
Magee has stated his intentions of “breaking up the old ways of thinking in the
Democratic Party … by asking: How could we solve conservative problems with
liberal means, and liberal problems with conservative means?”
Apparently,
that recipe includes using the “conservative means” of big money to influence
the “liberal problem” of education policy.
Students for
Education Reform is a similarly minded group loosely linked to the Democratic
Party label but more often at odds with progressive causes. As a recent article
in The Nation described, “SFER has received $1.6 million from Education Reform
Now, whose PAC, Democrats for Education Reform (DFER), shelled out $1 million
to attack the Chicago Teachers Union. DFER worked with the Koch brothers and
ALEC to push Proposition 32, which if passed, would have blocked labor unions from using automatic payroll
deductions for political purposes. Though SFER claims neutral territory, its
motives are laid bare by its rallying around the funding of charter schools,
the issue of limiting tenure, and its strict focus on testing.”
In
Minnesota, as Lahm reported, the state branch of SFER “received $26,000 in
outside money, some of which it spent on such things as paid canvassers and
campaign infrastructure, and $4,350 of which it passed along to the 50CAN
Action Fund for ‘walk literature.” These effort by 50CAN and SFER on behalf of
two candidates in the race have been bolstered with more money coming from
Republican donors and charter school advocates, Lahm explained.
But to what
ends, Lahm asked? Minneapolis is being “primed” Lahm contended for charter
schools expansions.
Samuels’
campaign in particular, Lahm found, “appears to support the proliferation of
charter schools in Minneapolis.” Altamirano, the other candidate benefiting
from the outside money, supports charters as well.
As Lahm
noted, “the outside money flowing to the Samuels campaign follows a relatively
recent national pattern that’s played out in places such as Texas, Oregon, Colorado and New Jersey, where local school board races
have been heavily influenced by the political and financial heft of outside
groups.” In the 2014 election, you can add Indiana to that list.
But big
money coming from Democratic Party advocates for “education reform” is
targeting state elections as well.
What you
should think instead, at least if you are a Democrat, is Citizens United and
Koch brothers.
By Jeff Bryant
