Who are Democrats for Education Reform?
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And why do they keep bashing public schools and unions?
Joe Williams heads Democrats for Education Reform and its sister organization, Education Reform Now.
DFER advisory board member Joel Greenblatt is a protégé of fallen junk-bond icon Michael Milliken.
Hedge-fund manager John Petry, a DFER board member, co-founded the Harlem Success Academy Charter School with Eva Moskowitz.There’s a political action committee called Democrats for Education Reform. A great name, but I heard that they only support nonunion charter schools, bash unions and get subsidized by Wall Street hedge-fund managers. What’s up with that?
You heard right. They’re like other public school bashers, except they call themselves Democrats. Democrats for Education Reform claims that it “leads efforts to frame the fight that is playing out within the Democratic Party on education issues.” It tries to accomplish that by pushing aside teacher unions as education spokespeople or even as informed practitioners. The organization advocates for nonunion charter schools, vouchers, merit pay, test-based teacher evaluations, curbs on tenure and removing teacher unions from almost any role in shaping curriculum or determining working conditions.
In just three years, DFER directed more than $17 million into political and grassroots advocacy for its version of education reform and for what Joe Williams, the group’s executive director and a former Daily News education reporter, credits as “creating momentum which has the potential to dominate education policymaking for years to come.”
DFER calls Barack Obama “the first ever Democratic president elected without significant support of teachers’ unions” — a shocker to those UFT members who went to toss-up state Pennsylvania to stump for Obama and to AFT and NEA members nationwide who campaigned for the candidate in 2008.
Board member Whitney Tilson is chief of T2 Partners and Tilson Funds and vice chair of New York’s KIPP Academy Charter Schools.
David Einhorn, another hedge-funder on DFER’s advisory board, is president of Greenlight Capital, LLC.What has DFER been up to in New York?
In New York State elections this fall, the group stumped exclusively for pro-charter candidates, but because it has no community membership, just a letterhead stacked with super-rich backers, it advertised on Craigslist for campaign workers. DFER was zero for three on the incumbent state senators that it targeted in the Democratic primary.
In New York State elections this fall, the group stumped exclusively for pro-charter candidates, but because it has no community membership, just a letterhead stacked with super-rich backers, it advertised on Craigslist for campaign workers. DFER was zero for three on the incumbent state senators that it targeted in the Democratic primary.
The ex-Bloomberg aide tapped to topple Harlem state Sen. Bill Perkins, who took issue with charter management companies for their lack of accountability, got clobbered. State Senators Velmanette Montgomery and Shirley Huntley also handily defeated DFER-backed insurgents in the primary. Among the group’s key list of 15 nationally endorsed candidates in the November elections, just seven won.
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Why do Democrats for Education Reform hate teachers?They say they don’t (hard to believe if you look at their policy positions). It is unions that they say they hate.
What’s their beef with unions?
That we exist. It’s the typical economic royalist rationale, that unions — unlike themselves — are selfish special interests. They’re deaf to counter-arguments that what’s good for kids is good for teachers, too, and that tenure means due process and not job security for incompetents.
That we exist. It’s the typical economic royalist rationale, that unions — unlike themselves — are selfish special interests. They’re deaf to counter-arguments that what’s good for kids is good for teachers, too, and that tenure means due process and not job security for incompetents.
Who are these people? They don’t sound like Democrats.
If party registration and political donations indicate political allegiance, these DFER deep pockets are blue-blood Democrats. The group’s financial records show board members, advisers and the Who are Democrats for Education Reform? | United Federation of Teachers:
If party registration and political donations indicate political allegiance, these DFER deep pockets are blue-blood Democrats. The group’s financial records show board members, advisers and the Who are Democrats for Education Reform? | United Federation of Teachers:
