CURMUDGUCATION: Booker Returns To The Corporate Fold

CURMUDGUCATION: Booker Returns To The Corporate Fold

Booker Returns To The Corporate Fold

On Monday of this week, Cory Booker went full charter school in an op-ed for the New York Times, a choice that made a little more sense when I looked at my Wednesday e-mail from Whitney Tilson.

Whitney Tilson is a successful hedge funder who started Democrats for Education Reform mostly because at that point, Republicans for Education Reform would have been unnecessary. The GOP was already behind the idea of privatization; it was the Dems who needed a push in that direction. In some states, actual Democrats have repudiated the D in DFER, and since Betsy DeVos became the public face of so many of their favorite policies, they've been struggling for Democrat leverage. Look for them and their friends every time you hear of a poll that shows how much Real Democrats love charter schools.

Cory Booker was a hot young star and a friend of DFER, so things were looking good. But then suddenly the 2020 election actually involved more education discussion than just thirty seconds about universal pre-K, and Booker's close ties to charters and, yes, Betsy DeVos, were looking like an obstacle.

Apparently, Booker has decided to just lean into charter support. Monday's op-ed was a compendium of the usual pro-charter baloney. Students are trapped in zip codes with bad schools; this is not baloney, but the idea that we should let some privatized amateurs rescue a few of those children instead of investing resources in the improvement of the public schools-- well that is CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Booker Returns To The Corporate Fold