Jackie Goldberg: Lies the Billionaires Tell
Jackie Goldberg is running for re-election to the Los Angeles Unified School Board. She is an experienced public official who has supported public schools for decades as a school board member and state legislator. A rightwing billionaire dumped nearly half a million into her low-budget race to try to stop her in the March 3 election (early voting has already started.)
Jackie was endorsed by the UTLA along with Scott Schmerelson, George McKenna, and Patricia Castellanos. Vote for them if they are candidates in your district.
Jackie sets the record straight here:
Dear Friends, Families, and Board District 5 Voters,
By now, you may have received a number of mailings telling you to “Vote ‘No’ on Jackie Goldberg”, all of which are being sent by a man named Bill Bloomfield, who lives in Manhattan Beach, CA.
Bloomfield is extremely wealthy and was a Republican until 2011 when he became an “Independent.” He avidly supports charter school candidates and opposes all progressive Democrats. So far this election cycle, he has spent almost $130,000— on “hit” pieces against me. But this is far from his first rodeo. He was part of the $13 million worth of lies that were used in 2017 against then-Board President Steve Zimmer, and he helped bankroll part of the $10 million spent to spread lies about Board Member Bennett Kayser in 2015.
In 2019, Bloomfield’s contributions to the California Republican Party totaled $445,000. He also spent $7,583,806 to try to elect Marshall Tuck to be State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Tuck ran on a platform of increasing support for the state’s charter schools. Bloomfield not only supports charter schools over district public schools, he also opposes raising taxes on the wealthy to increase funding for public schools.
This very, very rich financier has never met me, never interviewed me as to my views, and has repeatedly distorted the truth to send you bald-faced lies about me and my 22-year record of public service. His goal is to defame me to stand in the way of my quest to raise taxes on the rich and to make charter schools more transparent, equitable, and accountable.Jackie Goldberg: Lies the Billionaires Tell | Diane Ravitch's blog
Let me respond specifically to some of the many lies Bloomfield has been peddling about me in his monstrously misleading mailers.
Thank you,
- LIE: Bloomfield’s mailers attempt to paint me as a racist.
- TRUTH: I have lived in Echo Park for the last 40 years. My son went to LAUSD schools that were primarily composed of Latino students. I taught high school in the Compton Unified School District for 17 years and was one of two teacher-leaders to define plans that raised the reading of our students from the bottom of state testing in reading to the State average.
- Among my campaign endorsers are Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farmer Workers, County Supervisor Hilda Solis, State Senator Maria Elena Durazo, La Opinion, Maywood City Councilmembers Elizabeth Alcantar and Eddie de la Riva, Bell City Councilmembers Fidencio Gallardo and Alicia Romero, Padres Unidos in South Gate, and Congressmembers Maxine Waters and Judy Chu, among others.
- These leaders and community organizations, as well as La Opinion, do not endorse racists!
- LIE: Bloomfield claims my “agenda is too extreme and too dangerous for kids!” He attacks me for removing funding for DARE, an anti-drug program for which the district paid millions of dollars to the Los Angeles Police Department.
- TRUTH: The LAUSD Board of Education discontinued funding for DARE after a study revealed that, in spite of great intentions, the program was a complete failure in reducing student drug use.
- LIE: Bloomfield, remarkably, suggests that the National Rifle Association (“NRA”) loves me.
- TRUTH: I have a lifetime “F” grade from the NRA because when I was on the Los Angeles City Council, I wrote and passed a measure that outlawed sales of cheap “Saturday Night Specials” in Los Angeles. While on the Public Safety Committee in the State legislature, I helped kill major legislation that would have made gun ownership more protected, and thus increase the chance for all of us and our children to be victims of gun violence. What I actually voted against that Bloomfield’s mailer attempts to misrepresent was a bill that would have automatically expelled a student for bringing to school a toy gun that may look like a real gun. Though I do think this would be a dangerous and foolish thing for a student to do, I believe that all students should have a right to a hearing before being expelled.
- LIE: In one of his most insidious smears, Bloomfield claims that I support sexual predators.
- TRUTH: I voted against a bill that included so many limitations for where a convicted sex offender could live that there literally would be nowhere left for them to go. And I did so because I knew that the California courts would overrule the bill and we would be left with noprotections on where sex offenders could live after being released from prison. Sure enough, after its passage, the California Supreme Court did just that, ruling that the law was unconstitutional because the state could not have a law that left people with no place to live. The following year, my Assembly colleagues and I passed a law preventing sex offenders from living near schools, parks, and other places where children might be.
- LIE: Bloomfield attacks me for the terrible crisis at Miramonte school.
- TRUTH: I was not even on the Board at that time of the Miramonte crisis.
- LIE: Bloomfield suggests voters have to choose between me and President Obama, claiming that I voted to shut down Teach for America.
- TRUTH: I did not vote to shut down Teach for America. What I did do is raise the issue that a great many Teach for America teachers leave our District in two or three years. I said that the District should recruit people who want to be teachers, not build their resumes—and I still believe that to be true.
- LIE: Bloomfield misleadingly claims that I cut programs for students of color.
- TRUTH: In the 2001-2002 school year, the state legislature was facing a huge budget shortfall. The state was in a deep recession. Yes, I voted for the budget. In those days, it took a 2/3 vote to pass a budget, so allAssembly Democrats had to vote for the budget, or else the state’s services—including funds for schools—would be shut down. Did I have to vote on a budget that took $9.8 billion from schools and public universities? Sadly, I did. But that was after fighting and winning the battle to avoid larger cuts of $14 billion.
- LIE: Bloomfield claims that I “forced Latino students to attend academically inferior and dangerous schools.” He then points to a 1985 U.S. Department of Justice investigation of the District. Notably, his source relates to issues in South Gate and Watts.
- TRUTH: The boundaries of the Board Districts that each School Board member represents were not the same in 1985 as they are today. Though South Gate is currently in my Board District, I did not represent either South Gate or Watts during my first time on the Board when the Department of Justice’s investigation began, and I had nothing to do with the issues that brought upon the investigation.
- LIE: Bloomfield claims that in my first tenure on the Board, student scores dropped.
- TRUTH: Student test scores were low in the 1980’s. Why? Because when Proposition 13 passed, the District literally lost 25% of its General Fund money due to big corporations and the wealthy no longer having to pay their fair share in property taxes. Schools became overcrowded. Most were on multi-track, year-round schedules, and funding to build new schools was rigged against the District. It was because of my work and the leadership of then-Speaker of the State Assembly Robert Hertzberg, however, that the Assembly and Senate finally set aside several billion dollars for LAUSD and other severely overcrowded districts, which resulted in 131 new schools being built.
- My record of support for public education is long, significant, and well-documented. That is why UTLA, the teachers’ union, SEIU Local 99, the union representing teacher aides, cafeteria workers, CSEA Local 500, which represents library aides, the Teamsters AND the union representing school principals and administrators have all endorsed my campaign.
- So, I urge you not to believe the vicious lies that this conservative, anti-public school millionaire is spreading about me in order to try to stop my work trying to tax the great wealth in this state and get our state legislators to invest in our children and youth again. My mother taught in LAUSD for 40 years. I grew up committed to public education, and I have never wavered in my support for full and adequate funding for public schools—from pre-school through college. I was a youth activist in the civil rights movement, and I continue to spend my life working to improve the lives of the next generation.
- I often remind people that our children are not part of the future—they are our entire future. We must all work together to improve our state and federal governments’ investment in our children and youth. California, if it were a separate nation, would be the fifth richest nation in the entire world. While New York spends $29,000 per student in their schools, California only spends $16,500 per student. Great change is needed. I ask you to join me in this fight for FULL FUNDING for our public schools. The time is NOW! Please honor me with your vote on or before March 3.
Jackie Goldberg
Board Member, LAUSD Board of Education, Board District 5