Truth in American Education

Fighting to stop the Common Core State Standards, their Assessments and Student Data Mining.

  • Home
  • About Us
    • TAE Advocates
    • Network Participants
    • Related Websites
  • Common Core State Standards
    • National Education Standards
    • Gates Foundation & NCEE Influence
    • State Costs for Adopting and Implementing the Common Core State Standards
    • National Curriculum
    • Common Core State Standards Content
      • Standard Algorithms in the Common Core State Standards
    • Myths Versus Facts
    • States Fighting Back Map
    • Closing the Door on Innovation
    • CCSSI Development Teams
  • Common Core Assessments
    • Opt Out Info
  • Race To The Top
    • District-Level Race to the Top–Race to the Top IV
  • Resources
    • Legislative Bills Against CCSS
    • Pioneer Institute White Papers
    • Model Resolutions
    • Parents’ & Educators’ Executive Order
    • CC = Conditions + Coercion + Conflict of Interest
  • Audio & Video
  • Privacy Issues and State Longitudinal Data Systems
    • Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems
  • ESEA/NCLB
    • Statements and Proposed Plans
    • Every Child Achieves Act July 2015
    • Student Success Act
    • Every Child Ready for College or Career Act
    • No Child Left Behind Waivers
    • ESEA Blueprint, Briefing Book, and Position Paper
  • Home School/Private School
  • Action Center
    • Parent and Community Action Plan
    • Stop CCSSI ToolKit
    • Sign Up or Contact TAE

Education Philanthropists ​Target Local School Board Races

December 3, 2018 By Shane Vander Hart

Michael Bloomberg spent money targeting East Baton Rouge Parish School Board races.

Education philanthropists don’t just fund their pet projects through grants, they also inject money into races to ensure those elected will implement what they are funding.

Take the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board race for example as The Advocate reports:

A handful of out-of-state billionaires pushing for charter schools and other “education reforms” have spent a sliver of their fortunes on East Baton Rouge Parish School Board races, records show.

They include a Houston hedge fund manager who got his start at Enron, the former mayor of New York City, the co-founder of LinkedIn, the widow of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and the son of the Walmart founder Sam Walton.

John Arnold, Mike Bloomberg, Reid Hoffman, Laurene Jobs and Jim Walton have all contributed to help elect School Board candidates that support their school reform agenda.

The amounts of money donated for a local school board race are staggering:

Arnold, the Houston hedge fund manager, and Walton, the son of Walmart founder Sam Walton, are by far the biggest donors so far, giving $160,000 and $100,000, respectively. Their largesse has gone to charter-school friendly education reform and business organizations that have been spending money independently on behalf of several School Board candidates.

Those organizations have reported spending almost $350,000 so far, close to three times what the candidates themselves have reported spending on their campaigns.

About $253,000 of that $350,000 has been spent on just two races: District 2 and District 3. In District 3, Tramelle Howard narrowly defeated incumbent Kenyetta Nelson-Smith on Nov. 6.

It must be great to be able to purchase education policy and the politicians to implement it.

Filed Under: Education Reform Tagged With: East Baton Rouge Parish School Board, Education Philanthropy, Jim Walton, John Arnold, Laurene Jobs, Mike Bloomberg, Reid Hoffman, school board elections

Comments

  1. Dee says

    December 4, 2018 at 11:46 am

    Education Philanthropists? Sadly, their “philanthropy” comes with strings attached – implementing their agendas. A more correct description would be education lobbyists. Candidates supported by them should be wholeheartedly rejected!

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Phone
  • Twitter

States Fighting Back

https://app.box.com/s/10nl1409mkaf00zzzuyf

CCSS Opt-Out Form

  • Click here to download the CCSS Opt-Out Form

Campbell’s Law

"The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor."

- Donald Campbell

Copyright © 2021 Truth in American Education · Developed & Hosted by 4:15 Communications, LLC.