Bloomberg’s Autocracy In Flower: What His Political Spending Tells Us About His Candidacy
Donations to IECs are not capped and their funds are not, by law, under control of the candidate themselves. Consequently the enormous heaps of resources controlled by IECs fund the negative, nasty, dirty campaigning which has become standard operating procedure in LAUSD board races in this era of Public School Choice and school privatization.
Because funds are not controlled by the candidate, the disconnect provides the candidate plausible deniability regarding communications up to and including slanderous, unethical and misleading broadsides. Spending in such races tends to be very lopsided and indeed in Board District 3 and BD5 IEC spending favors charter-supported candidates 3x-6x : 1
Bloomberg’s donations do follow a clear pattern in the state of California consistent with the bread crumb donation to PLAS’ Franklin.
Another major recipient of Bloomberg’s largesse associated with PLAS is Marshall Tuck who twice lost the race for the state’s superintendency. Villaraigosa, the instigator of PLAS as mentioned above, was prodigiously propped up by more than $3.5m. As were other “strong-mayor” or executive ideologues like Sacramento’s Kevin Johnson, the former husband of Michelle Rhee, poster child for school turnaround orthodoxy.
For over two decades Bloomberg has funded leaders and education initiatives that support his brand of high technological intervention.
School privatization leaders and ideology (PLAS, CCSA), charter-sympathetic school board candidates in LA (current school board members Kelly Gonez and Nick Melvoin) and particularly in Oakland (Martinez, Neighbors, Hodge); and candidates admiring of “strong” (plutocratic/non-CONTINUE READING: Bloomberg’s Autocracy In Flower: What His Political Spending Tells Us About His Candidacy – Los Angeles Education Examiner
Big Education Ape: New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg donates another $350,000 to LAUSD race - LA Daily News -