California teachers union loses seats to education change groups | The Sacramento Bee

California teachers union loses seats to education change groups | The Sacramento Bee:

Teachers union frets about rise of education change advocates: ‘It will have an impact’

The Torlakson name has been a near-constant on the ballots of voters in the San Francisco East Bay, where state schools chief Tom Torlakson got his political start more than three decades ago. Last week, though, the remarkable string of Torlakson victories ended resoundingly.

Mae Cendaña Torlakson, his wife, was trounced by fellow Democrat Tim Grayson after a campaign that attracted more than $3.3 million in outside spending since March by EdVoice, a nonprofit that seeks changes to teacher tenure and other rules.

Grayson’s success was among several legislative victories by candidates who received heavy support from EdVoice and the California Charter Schools Association.

The organizations’ campaign arms, funded by a small, influential circle of wealthy donors around the country, spent at least $8.7 million directly to help elect candidates, all but one of them Democrats in same-party runoffs, in six Assembly districts and two Senate districts in the weeks leading up to the Nov. 8 election.

CALIFORNIA VOTERS DID THEIR HOMEWORK, LOOKED AT THESE RACES THOUGHTFULLY AND RESPONDED BY MAKING WELL-INFORMED CHOICES.

Gary Borden, executive director of California Charter Schools Association Advocates

“We are pleased to see that folks we supported by and large ended up being successful,” said Gary Borden, executive director of the California Charter Schools Association Advocates, downplaying the impact of money. “California voters did their homework, looked at these races thoughtfully and responded by making well-informed choices.”

When the new Legislature is sworn in next month, its Democratic majority will contain more members than ever who owe their elections at least in part to support from charter schools and EdVoice. The California Teachers Association, meanwhile, made its top electoral priority Proposition 55, the income tax extension on high earners, with billions in proceeds going to shore up public schools.

Teacher unions long have had a dominant role setting the education agenda in a Capitol controlled by labor-friendly Democrats. Yet EdVoice and charter schools back legislation each year meant to improve schools.

Republican lawmakers have been among their strongest allies on an issue that sometimes divides Democrats, many of whom represent urban areas with poor-performing schools. In 2015, for example, a teacher-evaluation bill by Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, D-San Diego, backed by EdVoice and charter schools, stalled in its first committee when the CTA opposed it. The panel’s chairman, Assemblyman Patrick O’Donnell, D-Long Beach, is a strong ally of the union.

Reflecting on the election, Eric Heins, president of the CTA, called the trend “dangerous,” contending in an interview that his group was “swamped” by the torrent of opposition spending on mailers, phone calls and get-out-the-vote efforts.

Top donors to the charter schools association’s outside spending committee this election cycle are Gap co-founder Doris F. Fisher; Netflix CEO Reed Hastings; Carrie W. Penner, the granddaughter of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton; developer Eli Broad and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

The top contributors to EdVoice’s campaign committee are Southern California businessman Bill Bloomfield, venture capitalist Arthur Rock, Penner, and Alice and Jim Walton, relatives of the Wal-Mart founder.

“We can look forward to more of that happening unless we begin to expose where that money is coming from,” Heins said. “This isn’t a popular uprising. It’s a few billionaires (backing their interests in) nonaccountable charters. This is not as they are trying to portray it: a mandate of some kind for charters.”

Still, Heins said he was concerned about the eventual policy effect on incoming freshmen lawmakers backed by the education groups, who can serve a dozen years in office.

“I think ultimately it will have an impact,” he said. “This is a long-term game they are playing. And if the public follows the money – there is a clear agenda.”

The money given for the general election is in addition to the nearly $10 million spent before the June primary in legislative races. EdVoice and charter schools also gave several hundred thousand dollars more to other groups that spent in the races. Just two of their preferred candidates this year lost last week’s election, and those campaigns did not hinge on education policy.

This year’s legislative spending, experts say, suggests that EdVoice and charter schools will be active in future legislative contests as well as in the 2018 races for governor and to replace the termed-out Tom Torlakson.

“I think the strategy was just to put down a marker” for 2018, said Democratic consultant Parke Skelton, who advised Glendale Democrat Laura Friedman in the race for Los Angeles County’s 43rd Assembly District. A charter-school-funded outside spending group spent about $2.4 million this year to help elect Friedman.

“They wanted to send a message that they could be big players, as well,” Skelton added at a recent conference on the California election results.

EdVoice and charter schools spent heavily in an unsuccessful 2014 effort to elect charter schools executive Marshall Tuck as state schools chief. They had more success the following year, when they helped propel Democrat Steve Glazer to victory over heavy opposition from teachers unions and others in the East Bay’s 7th Senate District.

In the race to succeed Torlakson in 2018, Tuck could run again, while potential rivals seen as allied with the teachers union include former Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan, outgoing Assemblyman Susan Bonilla of Concord and Assemblyman Tony Thurmond, D-Richmond.

Several Democrats, including former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, state Treasurer John Chiang and Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, are already running for governor. Delaine Eastin, the former state schools chief, said she plans to pair her run with a plan to fix the state’s ailing schools. In a recent interview, Villaraigosa, a big proponent of charter schools, hinted that he expected heavy opposition spending from the teachers union.

Issues championed by charter schools, EdVoice, or both, could become part of the gubernatorial contest, Republican consultant Rob Stutzman said at the post-election conference.

“This is a secret-sauce issue for a Democratic gubernatorial candidate,” he said.

Some see parallels between the arrival of Grayson, Friedman and the others and the rise in recent years of business-backed Democrats who have helped frame the debate on climate change policy and other issues.

The state’s top-two primary system, in which the two highest finishers, regardless of party, advance to a fall runoff, altered the calculus. Candidates such as Grayson, who can appeal to a wider swath of the district’s moderate electorate, end up in better position in the fall. That means they essentially have to be targeted for defeat in the primary, something Mae Cendaña Torlakson and her supporters failed to accomplish.

“The top-two-primary process has fundamentally changed legislative campaigns, and it’s important to embrace that,” said Leo Wallach of Rally Campaigns, who worked for Grayson and against Torlakson, among several other races.

“Voters have a chance to elect independent-minded candidates who may not fit the typical mold,” he said. “Campaigns have to be more thoughtful about building winning coalitions and targeting each unique portion of the persuadable electorate.”

The dynamics of the races varied, as did the candidates’ fealty to one side or another.

Advocates for changing teacher-employment polices stress that they look less for total compliance than they do for somebody who signals they will look at an issue based on its merits and sometimes go against leaders of their own party.

Some challenge the notion of a landslide. In only the Torlakson-Grayson race did the CTA actively engage, choosing to dedicate resources on the tax measure. Grayson did not conceal his support for charter schools “where they provide a way to ‘tailor’ education to the needs of a community’s students,” as he wrote on his website.

Heins, of the CTA, said he would closely monitor the incoming class of lawmakers.

“The proof is in the pudding,” he said. “You’ve got to watch how they vote and where they put their priorities.”

Charter schools and education groups bought these races:

State Senate

Democrat Scott Wiener of San Francisco defeated Jane Kim

Democrat Bill Dodd of Napa defeated Mariko Yamada

Assembly

Democrat Tim Grayson of Concord defeated Mae Cendaña Torlakson

Democrat Marc Berman of Palo Alto defeated Vicki Veenker

Democrat Anna Caballero of Salinas defeated Karina Alejo

Democrat Laura Friedman of Glendale defeated Ardy Kassakhian

Republican Catharine Baker of Dublin defeated Cheryl Cook-Kallio

Where their preferred candidates lost:

Democrat Ash Kalra of San Jose defeated Madison Nguyen

Democrat Eloise Reyes of Colton defeated Cheryl Brown

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article115261173.html#storylink=cpy

Jim Miller: 916-326-5521, @jimmiller2

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article115261173.html#storylink=cpy

Malloy administration fails to properly regulate Connecticut charter schools. - Wait What?

Malloy administration fails to properly regulate Connecticut charter schools. - Wait What?:

Malloy administration fails to properly regulate Connecticut charter schools.

Charter schools are privately owned, but publicly funded, organizations that grab more than $110 million a year from Connecticut taxpayers.

But thanks to Governor Dannel Malloy’s pro-charter school policies, charter schools are allowed to violate Connecticut laws and walk away from their obligations to Connecticut’s student, parents and teachers.

For example, charter schools fail to hire certified teachers and employees.  See Wait What? post entitled Connecticut charter schools violate state law with use of uncertified teachers and administrators

In addition;

Charter schools refuse to educate their fair share of students who require special education services or those who need help learning the English language

And

Charter schools maintain inappropriate and unfair discipline policies that lead to unacceptably high numbers of students being suspended from school.

Instead of stepping up and ensuring these corporations are following the laws, regulations and policies, Governor Dannel Malloy’s administration simply looks the other way.

Earlier this year, Governor Malloy’s Commissioner of Education made her position extremely clear.

As the CT Mirror reported;

 The state education commissioner says she does not have the same obligations in investigating complaints from parents, students and teachers 

Malloy administration fails to properly regulate Connecticut charter schools. - Wait What?:

 

It’s the racism, stupid. | Fred Klonsky

It’s the racism, stupid. | Fred Klonsky:

It’s the racism, stupid.

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who helped write tough immigration laws in Arizona and elsewhere, said in an interview that Trump’s policy advisers had also discussed drafting a proposal for his consideration to reinstate a registry for immigrants from Muslim countries.

The headline above the fold in the morning New York Times:

Senate Democrats’ surprising strategy: Trying to align with Trump.

You will excuse me if I am not surprised.

Mr. Trump campaigned on some issues that Democrats have long championed and Republicans resisted: spending more on roads, bridges and rail, punishing American companies that move jobs overseas, ending a lucrative tax break for hedge fund and private equity titans, and making paid maternity leave mandatory.

 Some Democrats are even co-opting Mr. Trump’s language from the campaign. “Every single person in our caucus agrees the system is rigged,” said Senator Debbie Stabenow, Democrat of Michigan.

 Even the liberals’ favorite, Senator Elizabeth Warren, spoke of It’s the racism, stupid. | Fred Klonsky:

Testimony Submitted to Texas State Board of Education – Cloaking Inequity

Testimony Submitted to Texas State Board of Education – Cloaking Inequity:

Testimony Submitted to Texas State Board of Education

This week, the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) debated Proclamation 2018 which served as notice to both publishers and the public that the Board is inviting bids to furnish instructional materials covering ethnic studies (e.g., African American Studies, Mexican American Studies, etc.) to be used in social studies. This is nationally important because states like Texas and California typically lead the way in the curriculum market because of their large-scale buying power.

Below I have included my written testimony on ethnic studies and Proclamation 2018. I have also included the input from the Texas NAACP on the importance and a reaffirmation of the Texas SBOE request for materials. I’ll begin with my testimony.

A prominent challenge in Texas is that the standards have in many ways historically excluded communities of color. Recent research by professors from the University of Texas at Austin that was published in the Harvard Educational Review analyzed the Texas standards and found that communities of color have been often excluded and sometimes misrepresented in the curriculum.

Considering the growing diversity in Texas, this is a travesty because the most recent research on ethnic studies has shown incredibly positive benefits for student success.

Research from Stanford University recently demonstrated that high school ethnic studies classes have reduced dropout rates for students of color, raised graduation rates, reduced unexcused absences, boosted self-esteem, raised self-efficacy, increased academic engagement, and raised personal empowerment.

Districts across the United States are recognizing the positive impacts of ethnic studies on students from all backgrounds. Many have passed resolutions requiring students to take an ethnic studies classes. In fact, here in Texas, the Houston Independent School Districtand others have confirmed the importance of ethnic studies courses for student success.

Texas students, educators, and other stakeholders have provided many examples and reasons in their testimony today to support ethnic studies.

Ethnic Studies should be available to every Texan.

Thus, I write in favor of rejecting the proposed textbook, and in support of Proclamation 2018 – a call to publishers for effective ethnic studies textbooks and instructional materials.

 

Why has the road to ethnic studies been difficult in Texas? Georgina Cecilia Perez, Texas SBOE member, wrote in a email:

There is plenty of blame to go around: the lack of approved courses and standards leading to deplorable (alleged) textbooks submitted for review and potential adoption; the shortsightedness of placing the cart before the horse; the lack of funding for districts/campuses to effectively implement courses, purchase credible texts and instructional materials; the lack of funding for effective PD for our educators; etc.  Texas has a long way to walk on our path to restorative justice, effective education, equality, equitable school funding, and much more…  advocates carry a heavy burden, as do our educators… but most importantly, our students are hurt due to these injustices.  As adults, it is our responsibility to provide the blessings we know our children deserve. My hope is that there are enough of us to get it done.

Please Facebook Like, Tweet, etc below and/or reblog to share this discussion with others.

Want to know about Cloaking Inequity’s freshly pressed conversations about educational policy? Click the “Follow blog by email” button on the home page.

Twitter: @ProfessorJVH

Click here for Vitae. Testimony Submitted to Texas State Board of Education – Cloaking Inequity:

Testimony Submitted to Texas State Board of Education – Cloaking Inequity:

Valerie Strauss Wonders: Will Donald Trump Destroy U.S. Public Education? | janresseger

Valerie Strauss Wonders: Will Donald Trump Destroy U.S. Public Education? | janresseger:

Valerie Strauss Wonders: Will Donald Trump Destroy U.S. Public Education?

Nobody knows, of course, exactly what Donald Trump’s administration will mean for public schools, but for a balanced and insightful analysis, I urge you to read Valerie Strauss’s fine column from the Washington Post, Will Donald Trump Destroy U.S. Public Education?  She begins:

“There’s a reason that people who care about public education in the United States are mightily worried about President-elect Donald Trump.  There are, actually, a number of reasons—all of which lead to this question: Will Trump’s administration destroy U.S. public education?  The short answer is that he can’t all by himself destroy America’s most important civic institution, at least not without help from Congress as well as state and local legislators and governors.”

Strauss believes that Congressional action last December demonstrated a firm rejection of federal overreach by Arne Duncan’s U.S. Department of Education: “(T)here is no appetite in the country for intense federal involvement in local education, which occurred during the Obama administration at such an unprecedented level that Congress rewrote the No Child Left Behind law—eight years late—so that a great deal of education policymaking power could be sent back to the states.”

What about Trump’s idea of a $20 billion block grant to help states privatize education?  That is a real worry, says Strauss.

Strauss explains that today’s alarm among supporters of public education has been fed by what people have been watching now for fifteen years as policies of the federal government have in many ways begun to undermine the very concept of public schools: “That many people are worried that Trump could deliver a fatal blow to public schools speaks not only to his views and those of the people around him, but also to the past 15 years of school reform and the consequences of the policies promoted by… Bush’s No Child Left Behind law and Obama’s Race to the Top initiative and waivers to NCLB. Corporate school reform has led to standardized test-based ‘accountability’ as well as school ‘choice’ programs—pushed in part by billionaires who have made school reform a pet project….”

According to Strauss, “Not all choice supporters agree on every topic—Obama and many Valerie Strauss Wonders: Will Donald Trump Destroy U.S. Public Education? | janresseger:

What Student Protests Tell Us About America Under Trump

What Student Protests Tell Us About America Under Trump:

What Student Protests Tell Us About America Under Trump

While it may be President Obama’s job to ease the country through the change in leadership to a President Donald Trump administration, the rest of the country doesn’t have to go along with it. At least, that’s the message coming from a massive show of protest and resistance in cities and towns across the nation.

An outpouring of opposition coming from students in k-12 public schools and college campuses is especially significant.

Why? Public schools have long been at the frontline of many of the nation’s most significant battles.

Much for the class conflict that ignited during the Great Depression and spawned the New Deal was foretold by the challenges schools faced in educating the massive influx of poor, uneducated immigrant children into the country in the early decades of the 20th century.

In the 1950s and 60s, school desegregation was an epicenter in the Civil Rights Movement that produced landmark Supreme Court decisions such as Brown v Board of Education and Schwann v Charlotte-Mecklenberg.

Today, pubic schools – where non-white students outnumber their white peers and a majority live in poverty – are the nascent sign of the increasing diversity and inequality in the country. It’s no coincidence that the current Supreme Court case considering the rights of transgender individuals in public places arose from an incident in a public school.

So public schools, as long as they stay truly public, are often the first institutions to reflect society’s most important social trends. In this new era under a Trump regime, student protests are telling us something is very wrong.

What Students Are Saying

Student protests exploded as the reality of the election outcome sunk in the morning of November 9.

As The Intercept reports, that day, high school walkouts occurred across the country, with students leaving their classrooms en masse in Phoenix, Boulder, Seattle, and Des Moines, In one school in the Bay Area of Northern California, 1,500 students – half the school – took to the street to express their dissatisfaction with the election results.

“They’re angry … They’re crying and they feel unsafe,” explains the principal of that school to a local news reporter. Protests also occurred in Oakland, Contra Costa County, and San Jose.

As Education Week reports, student protests continued in many places through the rest of the week, from Omaha to Los Angeles where students in 16 schools walked out.

In Omaha, students chanted, “Not my President,” according to a local news source. “Most of us are 15, 16, 17 years old,” said one student. “We feel like we don’t have a say … By doing this, students have a voice.”

College students have joined in the protests as well with huge rallies in Austin, Texas, the University of Connecticut, and American University in Washington, DC, according to Politico.

In Nashville, Tennessee, Vanderbilt students staged a “Protest Against Hate” and walked out of class on Friday, a local news outlet reports. “Since the election, I think people have thought that they can come out of their shells and be blatant with their racism,” one of the protestors is What Student Protests Tell Us About America Under Trump:

 

Petitioning Trump: Integrity for Ed – Missouri Education Watchdog

Petitioning Trump: Integrity for Ed – Missouri Education Watchdog:

Petitioning Trump: Integrity for Ed

BigMedia and BigData lost their bets when Donald J. Trump was elected the next President of the United States.  Our nation surprised and divided, bloggers wrote So now what? and What happens to education?

The last few days have seen a flurry of announcements concerning who President Elect Trump might appoint as Secretary of Education. Truth in American Education  wrote about Trump’s short list, which sources say, includes Pro-Common Core folks like Eva Moskowitz , who co-founded her Success Academy School with Common Core friendly (DFER) Democrats For Education Reform board member, John Petry. Trump’s list also names Michelle Rhee as a potential candidate for USDoE Secretary.  Rhee has definitely promoted Common Core and was less than transparent when reporting Common Core test scores.  President Elect Trump’s education list also names Common Core supporter Robert Pondiscio of Fordham Institute, who not only props up Common Core and aligned tests, but also labels parents as misinformed.  Gerard Robinson of Jeb’s Digital Education Now! is also in the running, and would be a double whammy of Pro-Common Core and edtech student datamining.  We all know that during the election, Trump promised to get rid of Common Core.Some of the names on his education short list concern grassroots parents, teachers, education experts and leave them hoping that President Elect Trump sticks to his word and doesn’t give into Corporate cronyism, edtech special interests, and Pro-Common Core reform groups.

In fact, a petition was started today, asking Trump for integrity.

We hope you will sign-on in asking President Elect Trump for integrity and to keep his promise. As the petition states,

“We adamantly oppose any nomination for U.S. education secretary who has either openly supported or passively assisted Common Core by enabling education centralization, which includes most of the education establishment on the Right and Left. Such a pick would contradict your campaign promises.”

Whether you voted for him or not, Trump is the next President. Let’s hope he reads this petition and let’s hope he will choose a Secretary and education cabinet members who oppose Common Core and all of its inherent data collection. We also hope President Trump will return parental consent when sharing children’s information outside of schools.  

 

Read it in full, share and sign the petition.

You can also contact the President Elect on twitter: @realdonaldtrump

Tell President Elect Trump to keep his word: give education, not just back to the states, give education back to the parents and their schools.

#NoCommonCore   #integrity4ed Petitioning Trump: Integrity for Ed – Missouri Education Watchdog:

CURMUDGUCATION: Chait Sends Ed News from Alternate Universe

CURMUDGUCATION: Chait Sends Ed News from Alternate Universe:

Chait Sends Ed News from Alternate Universe

New York magazine ran a piece by Jonathan Chait that considers some more ed policy possibilities from the upcoming Trump administration-- but just to switch things up a bit, his article throws around pieces of news from some alternate universe.

"Will Trump Give Education Reform the Kiss of Death?" is a legitimate question, but Chait throws in some ideas that are just counterfactual. The hook here is to consider the hypothetical Ed Secretarydom of either Eva Moskowitz (Success Academy) and She Who Will Not Be Named (former DC Chancellor and reformster cover girl). These hypotheticals are certainly legitimate-- hell, Trump may well appoint Britney Spears to the post, so any conjecture has a non-zero chance of accuracy.

But in the article, Chait keeps dropping little anti-truth bombs.

First, this little piece of ed reform history:

Teachers unions revolted, eventually joining with congressional Republicans to block funding for CURMUDGUCATION: Chait Sends Ed News from Alternate Universe:

Louisiana Higher Ed Underfunded by Trump Cabinet Prospect, Bobby Jindal | deutsch29

Louisiana Higher Ed Underfunded by Trump Cabinet Prospect, Bobby Jindal | deutsch29:

Louisiana Higher Ed Underfunded by Trump Cabinet Prospect, Bobby Jindal

In 1989, Louisiana businessman Patrick Taylor convinced the Louisiana legislature to fund what would be called the “Taylor Plan”— payment of four years of tuition and fees for Louisiana students to attend college based upon high school GPA and ACT-score eligibility requirements– with initial program eligibility also hinging upon income requirements.

In 2008, the Taylor Plan was renamed the Taylor Opportunity Program for Students (TOPS).

TOPS is funded via both general fund and tobacco settlement monies. However, the days of a fully-funded TOPS program are limited given that TOPS costs have been rising notably (e.g., 2001: $104 million; 2015: $250 million; by 2020, projected to be over $300 million).

Meanwhile, Louisiana has been facing years of budget crisis. In 2015, the Louisiana legislature voted to put a cap on TOPS funding; even Taylor’s widow agreed to the cap as a means of preserving the program. However, then-governor Bobby Jindal vetoed the TOPS cap despite the fact that he had no solution to the ever-increasing costs of TOPS and only temporary, patchwork solutions for the 2015 Louisiana budget crisis.

Even though it made a good sound byte for Jindal (who was then planning a 2016 presidential run) to say,

I made a promise to the students and families of this state that a TOPS scholarship would be available to every child who worked hard and met the performance criteria established by law — this legislation would renege on that promise,

the reality is that in spring 2016, TOPS was only funded 80 percent– and the colleges and universities had to absorb the shortfall.

Add that to Jindal’s cutting higher ed funding by 55 percent since the economic crisis of 2008, as the February 2016 Hechinger Report notes in a story originally printed in the Advocate:

When Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal took office eight years ago, state 

Louisiana Higher Ed Underfunded by Trump Cabinet Prospect, Bobby Jindal | deutsch29:

Let’s Privatize American Education Even If There Is Little to No Research to Support School Choice | BustED Pencils

Let’s Privatize American Education Even If There Is Little to No Research to Support School Choice | BustED Pencils:

Let’s Privatize American Education Even If There Is Little to No Research to Support School Choice

I’m beyond annoyed- even dismayed- that I have to post an article like this under Trending News. As Jack Hassard points out in the article “Let’s Privatize American Education Even If There Is Little to No Research to Support School Choice“, efforts to privatize education are hardly new. The only pushback I would offer here is the focus on the political right when it comes to education. The corporate Democrats have almost completely abandoned public education as a centerpiece of a strong democracy. No surprise I guess; they have also given up on the idea of liberal/progressive values and have paid the price in 2016.Let’s Privatize American Education Even If There Is Little to No Research to Support School Choice | BustED Pencils:

Trump, a Common Core foe, considering Core supporters for education secretary - The Washington Post

Trump, a Common Core foe, considering Core supporters for education secretary - The Washington Post:

Trump, a Common Core foe, considering Core supporters for education secretary

When Donald Trump was running for president, he said repeatedly that the Common Core State Standards initiative has been a “total disaster” and he would get rid of it if he landed in the White House.

And when he was duking it out with a gaggle of Republicans for the GOP presidential nomination, he went after former Florida governor Jeb Bush, a key Core supporter and a leader of corporate education reform, by calling him a “very, very low-energy” person who could put to sleep the people watching him speak.

Yet on Wednesday, asked during an interview on MSNBC to name women and people of color being considered for the Trump Cabinet, Trump spokesman Jason Miller offered the names of two women who have been allies of Bush and who have been Core supporters: Michelle Rhee and Eva Moskowitz.

Rhee is the former D.C. schools chancellor and founder of the StudentsFirst education advocacy group who, along with Bush, was a leader in the corporate reform movement. Several years ago, she and Bush traveled around the country urging states not to abandon the Core.  She has called herself a lifelong Democrat.

Moskowitz, also a Democrat, is the founder of the Success Academy network of “no excuses” charter schools in New York and is also a supporter of Bush, who has given speeches at benefits for the Success schools.  Last week, after Trump’s election victory was clear, someone posted on the Success Academy’s LinkedIn site a Langston Hughes poem titled “Let America Be America Again.” Sean Spicer, spokesman for the Republican National Committee, said Wednesday night that Trump had met with Moskowitz, who is a former member of the New York City Council.

It is worth noting that wherever the Common Core State Standards are now in use, it is because individual state legislatures approved the initiative. While the Obama administration did coerce states to approve the Core by dangling federal funds as well as waivers from the No Child Left Behind law, states didn’t have to. But no U.S. president or education secretary can force a state to abandon them.

There have been a number of names floated as potential picks for education secretary under Trump, including Williamson Evers, a former assistant secretary of education and fellow at the Hoover Institute at Stanford University; and Kevin Chavous, a school choice advocate and former head of the D.C. Council’s education committee who helped bring charter schools to the nation’s capital. And there’s this: Some conservatives have suggested Jeb Bush — who publicly declared he wouldn’t vote for Trump — as a candidate for education secretary.

Meanwhile, other conservatives have urged Trump not to fill the job at all. That, they say, would signal his intention to eliminate the Education Department, an action he said during the campaign that he would consider. Brian Darling wrote in this piece in the Conservative Review:

It would be a bold move for President Trump to refuse to nominate a new head of the Department of Education to show that he is committed to abolishing it. For years, abolishing the Department of Education was part of the Republican platform until President George W. Bush teamed up with a liberal icon, the late Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, to pass No Child Left Behind that expanded federal intervention in education.

An article urging Trump to pick an anti-Common Core education secretary was published Wednesday on Breibart.com, the website that has for years been run by Stephen K. Bannon, who became the chief of Trump’s campaign in its later months and was named by Trump as his chief White House strategist. The article quotes Jane Robbins, education fellow at American Principles Project, as saying:

“Trump’s most consistent education-related commitment during the campaign was to end Common Core and restore local control, and that won’t happen if the Department of Education is run by someone who has supported or protected Common Core in the past. Mr. Trump needs to listen to the grassroots forces who are relying on him to restore local autonomy in education.”

Would Trump, a Core opponent, really pick a Core supporter as his education secretary? Stay tuned.Trump, a Common Core foe, considering Core supporters for education secretary - The Washington Post: