Marshall Tuck’s Dirty Secret: How Right-Wing Money Infiltrates Democratic Politics
Recently in the lead up to the Janus vs. AFSCME case that hit the Supreme Court last week, I wrote several columns focusing on the impact of the Koch brothers’ network’s attack on the union movement, the Democratic Party, and public education. Thus, I was cheered to learn that the California Democratic Party overwhelmingly endorsed the stalwart progressive Tony Thurmond over Marshall Tuck for State Superintendent of Public Instruction.
While this is a low-profile affair as statewide races go, it is important because lots of moneyed interests see it as a way to push their agenda under the radar here in super blue California. As I noted during Tuck’s last failed campaign for the same office, he is a stealth front man, “the pure embodiment of the reckless, unaccountable arrogance of corporate education reform”:
As Diane Ravitch recently put it in her blog, “What qualifies Tuck to run the state education department? Well, he was an investment banker. The rich and powerful like him. He has friends in Hollywood. He thinks no teacher should have tenure. He failed as leader of Green Dot. He failed running the mayor’s takeover schools. That means he is an expert on reform.”
And just in case you might be thinking she exaggerates the extent to which Tuck is a tool of plutocrats, last week’s campaign report from “Parents and Teachers for Tuck for State Superintendent 2014” showed that his support is not so much from Mom and Dad and the kindergarten teachers as it is from rich folks with big plans to “disrupt” California’s schools.
And despite his earlier loss, Tuck, a former Wall Street investment banker and CEO for a charter school company who has no classroom teaching experience or any expertise whatsoever with regard to education, is back with his robust privatization agenda. That agenda, and the fact that he is a registered Democrat with Continue reading: Marshall Tuck’s Dirty Secret: How Right-Wing Money Infiltrates Democratic Politics:
