Billionaire-backed education “reform” organizations attack California teachers
By Dan Conway
13 January 2014
The coming year will witness multiple attempts—in the form of lawsuits, ballot initiatives and state-sponsored legislation—all of which are aimed at removing job protections and democratic rights for teachers. The aim of these initiatives is to punish teachers and students for the crisis of capitalism and funnel ever-greater amounts of public funds meant for public education into the pockets of the ultra-rich.
Billionaire-backed education reform groups, having failed to enshrine antidemocratic teacher dismissal procedures into law using the state legislature, are now seeking approval for two ballot measures which, if passed in the November 2014 election, would lead to mass teacher layoffs and lay the foundation for further public school closings and charter conversions.
The first measure, proposed by the organization EdVoice, makes use of recent teacher sexual abuse scandals to create a two-tier dismissal process for teachers. In a blatant attack on democratic rights, those teachers accused of more egregious types of misconduct would actually be subject to an accelerated dismissal procedure regardless of any actual legal findings or the veracity of the accusations made against them. EdVoice is among a number of pro-charter school organizations operating in California backed by large corporate interests. The group was founded in 2001 by Reed Hastings, founder and CEO of Netflix and also a founding member of Green Dot charter schools, which is among the largest charter school operators in the state. Also active in the organization’s founding were Los Angeles billionaire Eli Broad, former GAP CEO Don Fisher and former state assembly members Ted Lempert and Steve Poizner, the latter of whom mounted an unsuccessful