Jersey Jazzman: You Don't Mess With the Rocketship

Jersey Jazzman: You Don't Mess With the Rocketship:

You Don't Mess With the Rocketship

by Duke

Yesterday, I detailed how an "obscene" amount of money is coming into the Perth Amboy, NJ school board race. Three of the wealthy Californians who have pumped towns of thousands of dollars into the campaign - Greg Penner, Arthur Rock, and David Goldberg - are also partners in Rocketship Education, a charter school management company.

It turns out that Rocketship is very aggressively involved in California school board politics:

The six-figure spending by independent committees highlights the muscle of charter proponents in Santa Clara County, where the county Board of Education is rapidly approving charter schools that compete for students and funding with established public schools.

The most aggressive campaign appears to be aimed at Anna Song, who is running for her fourth term on the county Board of Education.

The Santa Clara County Schools Political Action Committee has raised nearly $200,000 from Jan. 1 through Oct. 20, and financed auto-dial calls plus four mailers slamming Song and three supporting her challenger, trustee David Neighbors.

"It's an outrageous amount of money to take out one school board member," said