We Kicked the Koch Brothers' A**: How Denver Parents Beat Back Big Money, Charter Schools and Right-Wing Lies
The Kochs spent a fortune on a local school board race that was really a national proxy. Then the good guys won.
Although many Democrats are disappointed, even in a “panic,” with the results from last week’s off-year elections, they need to be aware of where progressives won and learn from communities that bucked the influences of big money, especially in contests where education was a top-tier issue.
Most notable of the wins was a school board race in Jefferson County, Colorado, just outside Denver, that many national media outlets had actually hyped but then mostly ignored once the results were in.
The vote, the New York Times reported before Election Day, was about “whether to oust a polarizing school board that has championed charter schools, performance-based teacher pay, and other education measures.”
“The skirmish has been tense,” the Washington Post explained, “with alleged death threats, social media clashes, and attacks on talk radio.”
Both news stories told of a national program bearing down on the school district, with “money pouring in from Americans for Prosperity, the national organization founded by the Koch brothers,” in an effort to impose an agenda from outside the community that included a new history curriculum, new restrictions on teachers’ job security, and more privately-operated charter schools.
Students, teachers and parents were openly revolting against the school board, staging school walkouts, holding boisterous protest rallies and waging a petition campaign to demand an election to recall the school board majority.
The national outlets consistently got the story of the election wrong, adopting a We Kicked the Koch Brothers' A**: How Denver Parents Beat Back Big Money, Charter Schools and Right-Wing Lies | Alternet: