Every week we’ll be rounding up the top education news. Here’s the top news from the last eight days.
Who is funding the LAUSD elections?
LAUSD Board elections are becoming more and more expensive. We’ve already discussed how much of that money is from dark money PAC’s, but over the last week larger, legacy media have taken a look at the mega-bucks that are taking over the LAUSD Board elections.
LAist notes that the record for spending in an LAUSD primary election is at least $5.7 million. That record is being challenged with a couple of weeks left, and the figure of over $4 million spent so far is rising rapidly.
About half of those dollars are from retired Manhattan Beach businessman Bill Bloomfield who is sending out hit pieces against incumbent Jackie Goldberg (LAUSD5) and in the open election in LAUSD7. Bloomfield tells the Los Angeles Times that the Board needs a “fresh directive” to justify mailers that, in Goldberg’s words are “vicious lies.”
It seems that the mailers with vicious personal attacks that strain credulity (e.g., that Goldberg is pro-gun, that Schmerelson is pro-smoking) all come from one side of the debate, the pro-charter one.
How a “fresh direction” can grow fruit from a foundation of lies and slander remains to be seen.
It’s unfair and full of lies, but is it anti-semetic?
Last week, Sara deconstructed a mailer in the LAUSD District 3 race that cast scurrilous asperions at incumbent LAUSD Board Member Scott Schmerelson. Discussion of the flyer continued over the weekend with claims that the flyer isn’t just full of lies, it’s also anti-semitic, using a photoshopped image of Schmerelson to create an anti-semitic trope.
When asked at a forum about it this weekend, Marilyn Koziatek, Schmerelson’s chief opponent, opined that the mailer is not anti-semitic. While the flyer, all 193,000+ copies of it, were mailed from an “independent expenditure committee”, the committee is supportive of pro-charter school candidates including Koziatek.
Big Money Isn’t Just in the Local Race
While public education has not been a headline-grabbing issue in this year’s presidential election, that doesn’t mean that it’s not playing a role. Vice News takes a look at how Charter School Advocates are helping to fund the campaign of Pete Buttigieg:
While his education plan was enthusiastically endorsed by American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten, who has praised all the leading candidates’ education platforms, Buttigieg’s financial ties with the charter school community raise questions about what policy positions he might adopt if ultimately elected president.
Michael Bloomberg’s commitment to public education has long been a source of concern since even before a speech he gave in 2011 claiming education could improve with larger class sizes and fewer teachers should there be enough technology.
His 2020 campaign isn’t quite doubling down on this statement, but is still pushing a pro-privitization message.
Bloomberg’s campaign spokesman has made it clear that privatization will be a core message of his 2020 presidential run: “Mike has always supported charter schools, he opened a record number of charter schools as mayor of New York City, and he will champion the issue as president.”
His higher education plan was published by The Intercept (which received it from a rival campaign) and described it this way:
“…a higher education plan on Tuesday that pledges to make community college free, increase subsidies for low-income students, and end the practice of legacy admissions — but falls far short of what much of the Democratic pack has so far laid out on the campaign trail. “