Billionaire charter backers clash. Broad vs. DeVos

Billionaires DeVos vs. Broad

Power philanthropist Eli Broad is urging senators to vote against confirming fellow billionaire and right-wing school "choice" advocate, Betsy DeVos.

The growing grassroots resistance to Trump's choice for Ed Secretary has split the charter/voucher movement and its wealthy backers. Pro-choice groups and think tanks have been thrown into a dither with some like BAIO's Howard Fuller endorsing DeVos while others, distance themselves for fear of being associated with Trump and the Alt-Right.

According to EdWeek:

In comparison to DeVos' philanthropic work, the Broads belong to a class of donors that prefer a much more managed approach to school choice, investing in charter school models that can scale up and measure their performance. They are strong supporters of charter management organizations—nonprofit networks of charter schools (think KIPP)—whose rapid growth has been propelled by the federal government and a handful of wealthy donors. 

Eli and his wife Edythe Broad are among some of the most influential backers of charter schools nationwide. Their foundation has given over $150 million to charter schools nationally. Of that, $79 million has gone to charters in Los Angeles. He's also used his money to influence local school board elections in favor of pro-choice, anti-union candidates.

He's also a big Democratic Party campaign donor who personally bankrolled many of Arne Duncan's ed initiatives and currently is underwriting Education Post, the pro-charter, anti-teacher union project run by Duncan's former assistant, Peter Cunningham.

But Broad has no real problems with Trump or the Republicans. In 2013 he was exposed for secretly funding a right-wing, anti-union group connected with the Koch Bros. He formerly helped run the failed giant AIG Corp., once the world's biggest insurer, into the ground.

DeVos and her husband Richard on the other hand, are free-market evangelical conservatives who favor vouchers and for-profit charters as opposed to, what she calls, "government schools". Her appointment has far less to do with her competencies or lack thereof as a department head, but rather as an ideologue and an important piece of the Trump/Bannon move to take over and demolish the institutions of government, including the Dept. of Education.

Broad's letter to McConnell and Schumer urging them to dump DeVos, came on the same day as two Republican senators announced that they plan to vote against DeVos' confirmation. Both Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska hail from rural states. Both raised concerns over DeVos' hyper-focus on school choice and her overall knowledge of public schools.

Only one more Republican needs to break with the party to sink DeVos' nomination, but GOP leaders say they are confident DeVos will ultimately be confirmed as the next secretary of education.

We'll soon see if Broad has enough juice to swing one-more Republican vote away from DeVos. I doubt it.

Ritsch leaves Dept. of Ed for TFA after serving as Duncan's clean-up man

“I don’t think anyone in the country has done more over the past 15 to 20 years than Wendy Kopp to identify the talents and characteristics that lead to great teaching” -- Arne Duncan on Ritsch's new boss.

Massie Ritsch

The revolving door between Arne Duncan's D.O.E. the corporate-reform industry keeps turning. Now Duncan is sending his second communications chief in two years, out to work for the school privateers. Massie Ritsch, the acting assistant secretary for communications and outreach, is leaving his job to take a new position Executive Vice President of Public Affairs and Engagement for Teach For America.

Valerie Strauss at the Washington Post reports that TFA has been popular with the Obama administration for years, evidenced by the the millions of dollars it has won from the Education Department in recent years and by the praise heaped on it by the secretary himself.

Ritsch's D.O.E. connection should help TFA keep the cash pipeline open and flowing.

.@ED_Outreach news: I will join @TeachForAmerica as civilian @MassieRitsch in January. Similar job. New challenges. Vital work. Long title.
— Massie Ritsch (@ED_Outreach) November 21, 2014

Ritsch had served as deputy assistant secretary for external affairs and outreach at the department until late 2012, when he took over for Peter Cunningham, who had been assistant secretary for communications and outreach from the start of the Obama administration.

Writes Strauss:

A mark of just how effective Cunningham had been from the start of his tenure was his success in persuading Rolling Stone magazine to put Arne Duncan on the 2009 list of the 100 top “Agents of Change.” Duncan was No. 98, but still ahead of Taylor Swift, who was No. 100.

I do have to tip my cap to Ritsch for one thing. He was the scrubber at the D.O.E. who had to clean up after many of Duncan's mouth poops. Like when Arne claimed that criticism of Common Core was coming from, "White suburban moms upset that Common Core shows their kids aren’t ‘brilliant’".

Bank on Taylor Swift to surge ahead of Duncan without Ritsch and Cunningham there to spin things. And look for TFA's Wendy Kopp to possibly decorate the next cover of Rolling Stone.