LEARNING MORE: Podesta Leaks indicate Hillary Clinton will continue privatization of US schools
Courtesy of Russia, Hillary campaign’s communications show the revolving door, media and union collusion and “grey area” fundraising moves. Yes, it’s legal and yes, we already knew about it, but the new emails expose particular deceptions and what used to suggest quid pro quos. We see who makes the big decisions, how media is gamed, and supposedly-prohibited coordination.
SPECIAL INTERESTS: In 2015, John Podesta approved a meeting requested by Laurene Powell Jobs and at least three other billionaire education reformers, along with a Walmart heir. They wanted Hillary but got Podesta and her senior education advisor Ann O’Leary, who assembled the campaign’s finance people to handle money arrangements for the meet.
Mere weeks before the launch of the Hillary campaign, the subject of the email was “Ed Reformer Conversation”. Attendees were to include founders of the NewSchools Venture Fund who back charter schools, ed tech and new teacher recruitment/preparation programs.
Hillary now supports all these things, advised by O’Leary who also runs The Opportunity Institute, a policy shop funded by billionaire ed reformer Tom Steyer, the Gates, Carnegies, Fords — and strangely, both big teacher unions.
CODEWORD: “ACCOUNTABILITY”: The same players who brought us annual testing pivoted to pushing tech in school and “reinventing teaching”. It’s in the ESSA law and has already reached New York as TeachNY, compliments of O’Leary, who in 2001, was instrumental in shepherding through No Child Left Behind as then Senator Hillary’s aide.
But Hillary’s education policies are not okay. Her education reform donors push charter schools (which Hillary knows draw boos). Their federal test mandates have shown no efficacy in 15 years. And their ham-handed, one-size-fits-all testing is not a “civil right” for children of color.
Ed tech and teacher-tinkering based in automation and junk science are sold as the next big remedies to low achievement, but are also investments for the billionaire donors in Hillary’s orbit. Philanthropist Laurene Jobs (of the Apple computer empire) hired Arne Duncan for some “social entrepreneurship” which generates great PR, but is essentially rewarding him for pushing ed reform as Secretary of Education.
Jobs’ meeting also included Reed Hastings, the controversial CEO of Netflix, who sells streaming content as a “disruptor” and John Doerr, a pioneer in for-profit corporate curriculum, diverting public school money for decades. Also worrisome was Jobs’ acquiring the remnants of InBloom from Rupert Murdoch, after a major privacy backlash made the student data mining firm run aground. InBloom had been led by former NYC schools commissioner Joel Klein (who had a 85% disapproval rating from NYC teachers).
WALL STREET’S CUT: These were the “$$ and substance folks” invited to the discussion, also repping the Waltons, Gates, Kochs, Broads and Icahns of the world. But many other investors can make money too, realizing returns from charter construction financing tax credits through the lucrative Build America bond program which Hillary wants to renew.
Don’t forget test administration, teacher licensing, testing fees (see the EdTPA debacle), consulting and the many education services Joanna Weiss foresaw corporations taking over as she “forced” Race To The Top onto the states (her words) while serving as Arne Duncan’s chief of staff in the Dept. of Education. Before this, Weiss was partner and COO for the NewSchools Venture Fund, meaning she ended up disseminating billions in “recovery” stimulus funds to the same privatizer crowd she worked for, contingent on expanding corporate tests, linking them to teacher evaluations and Common Core.
Podesta’s reply to O’Leary was that he didn’t think the billionaires would be “reassured” — they wanted to speak directly to Hillary. But Podesta’s one liner makes a great disclaimer — the new legal standard after the recent Supreme Court decision is that it’s not a quid pro quo if you took money but didn’t deliver in return. Here, we don’t know what was actually asked, but Podesta would schedule more meetings with the ed reformer billionaires through March 2016.
NOT IN THE EMAILS: As with AFT president Randi Weingarten, Richard Trumka and other labor leaders, the biggest exchanges are worked out in person or over the phone. Steamrolling the member teachers of the AFT, Randi approved charter schools, Common Core, standardized testing and now, new federal controls over the teaching profession. So we know what the donors got, we just can’t see what teachers got.
RECYCLING MISTAKES: How can they ignore so much protest, so much hard data showing waste and fraud to taxpayers and damage to children’s educational experience? How can they ignore scholarly research to baldly adopt disproven mass-education theories? How can they keep selling bad ideas after the mass opt outs and court rulings?
Podesta explains why. In this 2012 appearance with Jeb Bush promoting ed reform with their hands out to the wealthy, he lays out an “infrastructure” plan to patiently outlast teachers and parents who resist. Backing Republicans and Democrats alike, they planned to usher in a new breed of younger, cheaper, more compliant teachers. And to use friendly media for spin. And to provide staff to lawmakers to write policy — yes, they do house calls.
Podesta’s plan will occur slowly over decades.
INSIDE ACCESS: His emails show many secret alliances between Podesta and Bush-era neocons. In 2015, he granted a “favor” to a powerful Republican legal strategist, then working as a corporate lobbyist, to arrange meetings between senior Hillary campaign staff and a charter industry group:
Given the incestuousness and horse trading now evident, it’s no accident these elite players are so insulated from the average parent, classroom teacher, or taxpayer. They see our schools as marketplaces for sweeping neoliberal business ventures, and press to privatize education budgets and assert new federal controls over billions in competitive grants and corporate contracts, despite a 15 year track record of increasing school segregation and unmet goals.
THE 99% NEED NOT APPLY: The Podesta leaks present a granular look into the way the wealthy control U.S. politics to privatize schools, self-dealing on an unprecedented scale.
David Dayen astutely reminds us that the hour is nigh to stop the ripoff. A few weeks before the 2008 election, Podesta was emailed from Citigroup exec Mike Froman the Wall Street-vetted list that would make up almost all of Obama’s cabinet. Can we afford to go through this again?
The leaks show how the machine runs and where the tentacles go, but when Ann O’Leary says these are “money and substance folks” — doesn’t that tie the donation a little too closely to the request for policy changes?
Staying positive, it’s never too late for Hillary to live up to her own promises to “end the revolving door” and get “money out of politics”. This election saw small donors giving her primary opponent Bernie Sanders over $230 million, proving big donors and corporate PAC dollars were never necessary to compete. At the same time, Hillary’s own campaign staff was concerned her Wall Street ties hurt her in the public eye and at the ballot box.
MONEY TALKS: As clashes over privatization of schools look to begin anew, it’s helpful to know how directly linked to campaign cash these policies are, with the same insiders slated to return to power. Hillary’s promise to give teachers “a seat at the table” rings hollow after secret policy meetings took place with high rollers and union bosses. It should be “academic” that teachers set education policy, so Hillary granting teachers access (in exchange for endorsement) only reminds us how far off we already are.
Zooming out, our education woes are just one by-product of a broken campaign finance system. And it’s Orwellian that they now know we can see this and refuse to explain or apologize (or improve, to shore up educator support for the election). It may be unfair that Podesta’s emails were leaked online, but if they aren’t acknowledging that this campaign payola is wrong and needs to stop, we are worlds apart.