Capital & Main: Eli Broad Wanted to Destroy Public Education | Diane Ravitch's blog

Capital & Main: Eli Broad Wanted to Destroy Public Education | Diane Ravitch's blog

Capital & Main: Eli Broad Wanted to Destroy Public Education

Upon his death recently, Eli Broad received many laudatory obituaries, describing his philanthropic contributions to the arts and medical research. He even built an art museum in Los Angeles, named for himself. Modesty was not one of his virtues.

Less noted was his determination to disrupt and destroy public education. Not only did he launch an ambitious plan to privatize 50% of the public schools in Los Angeles, but his Broad Superintendents Academy “trained” scores of aspiring superintendents in his philosophy, which meant top-down, tough management and a willingness to close schools with low test scores and replace them with charter schools, no matter how much the schools were loved by students, teachers, parents, and the local community. Anyone could apply to his Academy regardless of previous job experience or lack of education experience.

I was invited to meet Eli Broad at his penthouse apartment on Fifth Avenue in New York City about ten years ago. He explained to me that he didn’t know anything about education but knew management. Lack of management skills, he said, was the biggest problem in education.

I have yet to see any evidence that Broad leaders were CONTINUE READING: Capital & Main: Eli Broad Wanted to Destroy Public Education | Diane Ravitch's blog

Matt Barnum: Philanthropies are no longer driving education policy - Chalkbeat

Philanthropies are no longer driving education policy - Chalkbeat

After a high point in the Obama administration, philanthropies no longer drive education policy

Soon after the pandemic shuttered school buildings across the state, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced an ambitious plan to “reimagine” education in the state with the help of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

“Let’s take this experience and really learn how we can do differently and better with our education system in terms of technology and virtual education,” Cuomo told reporters a year ago, saying the effort would be a collaboration with the Gates Foundation.

The announcement drew widespread attention. It seemed like a blast from the recent past: a deep-pocketed foundation shaping education policy.

But this time, it didn’t play out that way. There was a swift backlash, and it soon became clear the ambitions of the plan were much more modest in scope. In fact, there’s no indication the philanthropy played any role at all, and Gates did not issue any grants to the state.

Why the plan apparently fell apart is unclear, but it’s one recent example of the waning role of education philanthropy in national and state policymaking.

That marks a rather dramatic change from just a few years ago, when wealthy benefactors helped reshape American education in remarkably swift fashion. But their priorities don’t appear to be affecting school policy in the way they used to. That likely reflects the fierce backlash to philanthropies’ influence during the Obama era, as well as a scaled-back federal role in education, a Trump administration that some funders CONTINUE READING: Philanthropies are no longer driving education policy - Chalkbeat

Eli Broad, Who Helped Reshape Los Angeles, Dies at 87 - The New York Times

Eli Broad, Who Helped Reshape Los Angeles, Dies at 87 - The New York Times

Eli Broad, Who Helped Reshape Los Angeles, Dies at 87

The businessman, who made a fortune in home-building and insurance, spent lavishly to try to make the city a cultural capital.

Eli Broad, a businessman and philanthropist whose vast fortune, extensive art collection and zeal for civic improvement helped reshape the cultural landscape of Los Angeles, died on Friday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He was 87.

Suzi Emmerling, a spokeswoman for the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, confirmed his death but did not specify the cause.

Mr. Broad (pronounced “brode”) made billions in the home-building and insurance businesses and spent a significant part of his wealth trying to make Los Angeles one of the world’s pre-eminent cultural capitals.

Few people in the modern history of Los Angeles were as instrumental in molding the region’s cultural and civic life as Mr. Broad. He loved the city and put his stamp — sometimes quite aggressively — on its museums, music halls, schools and politics. He was, until he began stepping back in his later years, a regular figure at cultural events and could be seen holding court in the V.I.P. founders’ room at the Los Angeles Opera between acts.

Mr. Broad played a pivotal role in creating the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art and brokered the deal that brought it Count Giuseppe Panza di Biumo’s important collection of Abstract Expressionist and Pop Art. When the museum teetered on the verge of financial collapse in 2008, Mr. Broad bailed it out with a $30 million rescue package.

He put his name on the Los Angeles landscape as well. The best known of his many contributions to the city is the Broad, a $140 million art museum that he financed himself that houses Mr. Broad’s collection of more than 2,000 contemporary works. It opened in 2015.

He also gave $50 million to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and led the fund-raising campaign to finish the Walt Disney Concert Hall when that project was dead in the water.

The museums, medical research centers and cultural institutions emblazoned with the names of Mr. Broad and his wife, Edythe, include the Broad Art Center at the University of California, Los Angeles; the Broad Center for the Biological Sciences at the California Institute of Technology; and centers for regenerative medicine and stem-cell research at three California universities.

There are “very few in L.A.’s history who have come remotely close to his sense of duty and his willingness to put his own time and effort — pressing his political connections, strong-arming business peers into stepping up for the arts — the way he did,” said Joanne Heyler, the founding director of the Broad. CONTINUE READING: Eli Broad, Who Helped Reshape Los Angeles, Dies at 87 - The New York Times

A Broadie Joins the Biden Administration | Diane Ravitch's blog

A Broadie Joins the Biden Administration | Diane Ravitch's blog

A Broadie Joins the Biden Administration

Maureen Tracey-Mooney joined the White House staff as a Special Assistant to the President for Education.

She is a graduate of the notorious Broad Center, the plaything of billionaire Eli Broad, which teaches its “students” the value of applying business principles in education and the benefits of closing low-performing schools instead of helping them. According to the Broad Center, “As a Broad Resident, Maureen Tracey-Mooney worked with Achievement First as Director of Extended Learning.” Achievement First is a “no excuses” charter chain that is known for harsh discipline. It is based in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New York and was funded by billionaires like Jonathan Sackler, who made his billions selling OxyContin and creating an addiction crisis that took at least 200,000 lives. (In 2019, the charter chain announced it would take no new donations from Mr. Sackler, who had already given $1.6 million).

Broad Resident: https://www.broadcenter.org/alumni/directory/profile/maureen-tracey-mooney/
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/03/05/white-house-announces-additional-policy-staff/

Maureen Tracey-Mooney, Special Assistant to the President for Education

Maureen Tracey-Mooney worked on the domestic policy team on the Biden-Harris Transition and supported the development of President Biden’s PK-12 agenda. Previously, she worked on President Obama’s campaign and transition. She served as then-Vice President Biden’s Deputy Domestic Policy Advisor in the first term of the CONTINUE READING: A Broadie Joins the Biden Administration | Diane Ravitch's blog

Education with the Biden Team | tultican

Education with the Biden Team | tultican

Education with the Biden Team

By Thomas Ultican 1/16/2021

Joe Biden has garnered wide spread praise for his choice of Miguel Cardona as Secretary of Education; maybe too wide. The co-founder of Bellwether Education, Andrew Rotherham says Cardona is “a Goldilocks on charter schools.”  However, Goldilocks was a fairy tale and Rotherham is a well known neoliberal who campaigns for “school choice.”

At the Democratic convention in 2008, the largest groups of delegates cheering the loudest for their new standard bearers were teachers. They saw in Barack Obama and Joe Biden leaders who would end the destructive nightmare, No Child Left Behind. Linda Darling-Hammond the progressive education scholar advising Obama was viewed as someone who would bring professional sanity to national education policy and end the unjustifiable attacks on public schools and their teachers.

They were not aware of a pre-convention seminar billed “Ed Challenge for Change.” This seminar sponsored by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and real estate mogul Eli Broad included a new group of young wealthy hedge fund managers named Democrats for Education Reform (DFER). They had previously established a relationship with Senator Barak Obama. He seemed to share their ideas on education issues like charter schools, performance pay, and accountability. DFER, Gates and Broad viewed Darling-Hammond as a touchy-feely anti-accountability figure and believed she would destroy any chance that Obama would follow through on any of their education reform initiatives.

The seminar group began subjecting Darling-Hammond to withering criticism. They championed the non-traditional (meaning no education background) leader of the Chicago school system, Arne Duncan, to be the next Secretary of Education. Darling-Hammond was berated as favoring the status quo in CONTINUE READING: Education with the Biden Team | tultican

Biden Picks Former President of Broad Foundation as Deputy Chief of Staff | Diane Ravitch's blog

Biden Picks Former President of Broad Foundation as Deputy Chief of Staff | Diane Ravitch's blog

Biden Picks Former President of Broad Foundation as Deputy Chief of Staff

President-Elect announced that Bruce Reed will be his Deputy Chief of Staff. This is alarming news, though not surprising. Reed previously served as Biden’s chief of staff when he was vice president. The toxic Broad Foundation gave grants to some of Betsy DeVos’s favorite causes.

This report from TYT (The Young Turks) describes why we should keep a close watch on Reed. He is not a friend of public schools. The Broad Foundation has spent many millions of dollars underwriting charter schools and funding campaigns for candidates who oppose public schools. Eli Broad has tried to buy control of LAUSD to replace more public schools with charters.

Reed has been an outspoken proponent of charter schools for decades, championing their rise inside the Clinton White House, where he led the Domestic Policy Council. But although Reed has publicly drawn the line at for-profit charter schools and vouchers, the Broad Foundation funded organizations that support both. 

Reed also frowned on community, or “mom-and-pop” CONTINUE READING: Biden Picks Former President of Broad Foundation as Deputy Chief of Staff | Diane Ravitch's blog

Choosing Democracy: The Sacramento Bee Misinforms About School Budgets

Choosing Democracy: The Sacramento Bee Misinforms About School Budgets

The Sacramento Bee Misinforms About School Budgets

Marcos Bretón today in the BEE,  describes what he thinks are the facts of   the SCUSD budget. Most of the data  are cut and paste from prior articles he wrote. , The title is deceptive.  It is not factual.

SCUSD is not going broke,  SCUSD  has  a $93 million surplus at the end of this year,

And, they claim they will spend $100 million on books and supplies.

They  usually spend  $ 10 million.  

I don't know if he wrote the headline.

This is irresponsible reporting.   The Bee supports the School Board incumbents. But, at least they  should accurately report on  the budget. 

California itself has a major  problem of underfunding of schools. They have been doing so since 1988.  This is on the ballot as Prop. 15.  See the Prop 15 video below. http://choosingdemocracy.blogspot.com/2020/10/what-is-prop-15-explained.html

The Sacramento  funding crisis is not in teachers’ salaries, or health benefits.

California under funds its schools  and that produces large classes- the largest in the nation. We have few counselors and  almost no school nurses. Lets talk about the real issue of California school funding,  

Choosing Democracy: The Sacramento Bee Misinforms About School Budgets

Capital & Main: Why Aren’t Democrats Supporting the Rollback of Proposition 13? | Diane Ravitch's blog

Capital & Main: Why Aren’t Democrats Supporting the Rollback of Proposition 13? | Diane Ravitch's blog

Capital & Main: Why Aren’t Democrats Supporting the Rollback of Proposition 13?

Back in the late 1970s, a conservative California businessman named Howard Jarvis put a proposition on the state ballot to cap property taxes. It was called Proposition 13. It passed. It has caused massive defunding of public services, especially public education. Prop 13 “rolled back both residential and commercial property taxes in California. In so doing, the conservative businessman set in motion a cataclysmic decline in the state’s revenues, triggering devastating budget reductions to public education and a host of public services. No other ballot measure in contemporary California history comes close to rivaling the impact of Prop. 13, whose aftershocks can still be felt more than four decades later.”

This year, there is an effort to reverse Prop 13. It is called Proposition 15. It would allow the state to raise the commercial tax rate.

Larry Buhl of Capital & Main notes that a large number of prominent Democrats, including Governor Gavin Newsom, have not endorsed Prop 15, which would help the state rebuild public services and make up for the dramatic decline in tax revenues caused by the coronavirus.

Why the silence of the Dems?

As of September 1, the Yes on 15 campaign boasted more than 400 endorsers, including county supervisors, mayors, city council members, members of the state assembly and senate, and school board members. Notably absent, however, are statewide elected officials, except for Sen. Kamala Harris and State Superintendent Tony Thurmond.

42 of California’s 45 Democratic U.S. Representatives
have not endorsed Prop. 15.

Alex Stack, spokesman for Schools and Communities First, the group behind Prop. 15, told Capital & Main that SCF didn’t expect any statewide Republicans to endorse.

Also missing on the endorsement list are the state attorney general, secretary of state, 42 of the 45 CONTINUE READING: Capital & Main: Why Aren’t Democrats Supporting the Rollback of Proposition 13? | Diane Ravitch's blog