Corporate Money Rolls Into School Board Elections Nationwide
The hijacking of local school board elections by corporate funders pushing their education “reform” policies continues unabated across the country. This pattern has already been seen in our elections in Oakland last November which we analyzed here. November was when the PAC for GO Public Schools collected $185,000 to be donated to their three candidates Jumoke Hodge, James Harris, and Rosie Torres. This doesn’t mean GO doesn’t also support other corporate “reformers” on the board such as Jody London who also ran in November, but it seems they were more worried about the potential for losing in the districts of Hodge, Harris, and Torres. So to defend their policies at all costs they collected $50,000 each from such luminaries as Arthur Rock, a San Francisco hedge fund capitalist, Gary Rogers, millionaire founder of Dreyer’s Ice Cream and seed funder of GO Public Schools, and the California Charter Schools Association. Compared to the next largest source of money, the OEA, GO spent 9 times as much.
The money doesn’t stop in Oakland. Last week’s Los Angeles school board elections saw millions of dollars in corporate money, again ridiculously
