Why Are Teach for America and a California Billionaire Investing in a Minnesota School Board Race?

[Omaha Steve]

http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17218/teach_for_america_and_silicon_valley_billionaire_minnesota_school_board


BY SARAH LAHM



Students at Patrick Henry High School, a public school in Minneapolis. (Photo by Adam Bettcher/Getty Images for Free The Children)


In the aftermath of a failed 2013 bid for mayor, former Minneapolis city council member Don Samuels is running for a spot on the school board. If he wins, he will undoubtedly be able to thank the extensive financing and canvassing support he’s received from several well-heeled national organizations, such as the Washington, D.C.-based 50CAN, an offshoot of Education Reform Now called Students for Education Reform (SFER), and various people associated with Teach for America, which has been called a “political powerhouse” for its growing influence in policy and politics beyond the classroom.

These groups often project an image of grassroots advocacy but are in fact very well-funded, often through the support of extremely wealthy hedge fund managers and large philanthropic foundations. Together, they and like-minded “education reform” proponents have dramatically, but not necessarily democratically, altered how public education works throughout the United States.

While August campaign finance reports show Samuels out-raising his main competitor, incumbent Rebecca Gagnon, by almost 4 to 1 through local donations, they also show that Samuels is getting tremendous support from outside of Minnesota. The D.C.-based 50CAN Action Fund filed a campaign finance report in Minnesota showing that it was devoting $14,350 in financial resources to the Minneapolis school board race, as well as in-kind donations valued in the thousands of dollars. Since 50CAN Action Fund is a 501(c)(4), its reports do not have to disclose which candidates it is supporting, but 50CAN Action Fund’s Minnesota chair Daniel Sellers told a reporter in July that the group had spent money on Samuels.

Outside forces, dark money
The outside money flowing to the Samuels campaign follows a relatively recent national pattern that’s played out in places such as Texas, Oregon, Colorado and New Jersey, where local school board races have been heavily influenced by the political and financial heft of outside groups.

FULL story at link.

[gopiscrap]

1. Why else? Money and power

it's all a concerted effort by business to fuck over public education to privatize it, ruin the teachers" unions and turn it into a business, like the prison industry.

[kimbutgar]

2. He's a brought and paid for Koch whore

His job is to do what's going on in Colorado now with the school board pushing ring wing AP history.

He's probably been trained in PR and given his talking point script. It's so disgusting people don't realize he is a made man in the Koch corporate right wing empire trying to take over our country.

[madfloridian]

3. Kick because the rich are buying school boards around the country.

Then they have people on the ground to help take over the public school systems for the reformers.