Question for those following the ongoing saga of Milwaukee's pro-voucher Advocates for Student Achievement:
What does Redonna Rodgers, candidate for the Milwaukee Public Schools Board, representing District 6, have in common with the following list of distinguished lawmakers, political leaders, and the Republican National Committee:
--Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell (Kentucky)
--Republican Sen. Norm Coleman (Minnesota)
--Republican Sen. John McCain (Arizona)
--Republican Sen. Gordon Smith (Oregon)
--Republican Rep. Jeff Flake (Arizona)
--Republican Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (Wisconsin)
--Republican Mayor Rudy Giuliani (New York)
--Republican President George W. Bush
Answer:
Redonna Rodgers and each of the men on this list, plus the Republican National Committee, collected contributions from Michael Grebe, president and CEO of the Milwaukee-based Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, a long-time financier of right-wing causes nationwide.
Which begs the question: What is the connection between Redonna Rodgers and Michael Grebe?
I ask only because I've been keeping up with Lisa Kaiser's determined coverage of ASA in the Shepherd Express for the past few days. Kaiser has apparently collected hard copies of campaign finance statements filed by ASA's candidates for the Milwaukee Public Schools Board, and they inspire a litany of questions. I don't have the pleasure of reviewing them myself, so I've read with great interest the assorted details that Kaiser has published. (Is it possible that the whole list of donors and their donations might be published at the Shep Express, or at least scanned for posting online?)
Kaiser first turned her attention to ASA candidate Annie Woodward on Tuesday, because Woodward's finance reports don't match the data that ASA itself has finally reported, and because when the discrepancies were brought to Woodward's attention, she didn't exactly respond as a paragon of transparency.
You know, I hate to target people personally, but ASA-backed MPS candidate Annie Woodward released a pretty unhinged press release attacking my blog post on her campaign finance report. I’m not going to rehash Annie’s criticisms—they don’t make any sense whatsoever and she employs typical right-wing smear tactics to divert attention away from her own actions.
But I will lay out the facts as I know them:
The "ASA Executive Committee" sent out an e-mail on Feb. 19 asking for donations to Woodward’s campaign, and also the campaigns of MPS candidates ReDonna Rodgers and David Voeltner. The e-mail also stated that supporters could send one big check to the Milwaukee Fund for Public Education, c/o Kathy Ronco, at 1919 N. 48th St., along with instructions on how to divvy it up among the candidates. (Whether this e-mail is appropriate or legal is a matter for attorneys to figure out.)
Kathy Ronco is the head of the Highland Community School, an MPS charter school. The address listed for the fund is also the address given by Kevin Ronnie, an ASA honcho, on various campaign finance reports as his own address. The Milwaukee Fund for Public Education is a conduit that dumped $50,000 into the campaigns of pro-voucher candidates right before the 2003 election. The fund’s administrator at the time was Bruce Thompson, a MPS board member who is one of the behind-the-scenes leaders of ASA.
The Milwaukee Fund for Public Education filed its pre-election report with the state Government Accountability Board. The filing shows that on March 26, 2009, it transferred $300 to Annie Woodward’s campaign. It also donated funds to ReDonna Rodgers, Larry Miller and David Voeltner. Woodward did not report that $300 contribution on her pre-election financial report, dated March 29. Woodward said in her press release that she returned the contribution.
But wasn’t there another contribution from that conduit? Why in fact there was. Woodward’s pre-primary financial report, dated Feb. 9, shows that she received $500 from George Mosher. Woodward's campaign reports that donation as a conduit contribution via the Milwaukee Fund for Public Education. Woodward’s form lists the fund's address as 1919 N. 48th St., the Ronco/Ronnie address. It’s really difficult to determine the date of this transaction—the handwriting is wobbly, so it looks like "9/29/09." Should that be "1/29/09" instead?
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What's more, the tardy campaign finance reports filed last week by ASA show that it contributed $600 to Woodward’s campaign on Feb. 5. There’s no evidence on any of these forms that Woodward reported that contribution. ASA didn’t report that it got that money back. ASA made the same contributions to Voeltner and Rodgers on the same date, and both candidates reported those contributions.
I can't help recalling the old Michael Jackson lyric, "Annie, are you okay? Are you okay, Annie?"
Then Kaiser turned her attention to Redonna Rodgers, candidate in the race most important to ASA, according to the internal communications that I discovered and posted last week. Rodgers represents ASA's hope to remove MPS Board President Peter Blewett, and perhaps to install ASA's own Bruce Thompson in that position. Was Rodgers asked to promise her vote to Thompson in exchange for ASA's sponsorship of her campaign? Great question, I think. But Kaiser starts with a question much more basic: "Did ReDonna Rodgers Write Her Own Campaign Platform?"
You can read Kaiser's report for yourself, but she concludes that, in fact, Rodgers delegated the responsibility of writing her campaign literature to none other than ASA spokeswoman Anne Curley. The evidence comes directly from those now-exposed internal communications. Kaiser concludes,
But isn’t it terribly sad that Rodgers, a candidate for office, has to be told to brush up on material that appears on her own website—"ASAP"—because it was written by somebody else who apparently wasn’t even compensated for it? I can understand outsourcing campaign materials to a professional writer—and Curley’s a former Milwaukee Journal business editor who now runs a PR company specializing in "brand management"—but not to "know what you’re talking about," as Curley puts it, is pretty disingenuous, if you ask me.
Then, in a follow-up article, Kaiser tracks the donors and donations made to Rodgers's campaign.
Not that I'm prescient, but I did put forward a theory some weeks ago that ASA was being propped up and funded by right-wingers, some from Milwaukee and some not. So I was not surprised to read Kaiser's headline: "Non-Milwaukeeans and Conservatives Contribute to ReDonna Rodgers."
While Rodgers is campaigning as the voice of her district, a quick calculation of donations from individuals shows that Rodgers has heavy support from people outside of Milwaukee. Not just people outside of her district, but from non-Milwaukeeans. Rodgers took in $16,599.01 from individuals, $5,735 of which (35%) came from people who can’t even vote for anyone on the MPS board. But, hey, if nonvoters want to influence this election, this is how they’re going to do it. In contrast, the man Rodgers is trying to oust, MPS board president Peter Blewett, accepted $2,480 of $16,214.01 contributed by individuals, or 15%. (Feel free to check my math.)
ASA-ers are represented on Rodgers’ forms. Kevin Ronnie donated $800 throughout the course of Rodgers’ campaign; non-Milwaukeean Anne Curley, who wrote Rodgers’ campaign lit, gave $250; ASA advisory board member Michael Hatch, gave $100; Richard Pieper, who coughed up $18,000 for ASA, gave Rodgers $300; Mequon grandmother Suzanne Pieper, who I’m going to assume is related to the aforementioned Richard, contributed $790; and George Mosher, who also donated to Annie Woodward, gave Rodgers her biggest contribution, $799.01.
Business types and real estate types also gave heavily to Rodgers, which isn’t surprising when you consider that ASA promoted their candidates to the Realtors PAC and MMAC. MMAC president Tim Sheehy gave Rodgers $500 in conduit funds, while MMAC director Steve Bass only came up with $50 for Rodgers. (But who knows? Maybe he made good on ASA’s efforts to obtain his highly valuable walk list of the districts for door-to-door campaigning.) Uber conservative Michael Grebe, of the rabidly right-wing Bradley Foundation, gave $500.
That last note caught my eye. Michael Grebe, of the Bradley Foundation?
Does that make sense, that the Bradley Foundation's Michael Grebe would send personal contributions to Redonna Rodgers's campaign? I mean, it's a race for MPS Board, not the U.S. presidency or a U.S. Senate seat. So I Googled the man's name to see what I could find.
Boy, did I find a lot, and it all comes back to school vouchers -- and, strangely enough, the African-American vote.
Meanwhile, [school vouchers have] become the darling of the right, particularly conservative funding agencies and business groups. Right-leaning foundations such as Milwaukee’s Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Wal-Mart heir John Walton and his Walton Family Foundation, the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation and others have contributed tens of millions of dollars to the school choice movement – for research, advertising, improvements to buildings, scholarships and, in some cases, ballot initiatives in other states.
"There’s nothing that is of a higher priority to us than this particular subject," says Michael Grebe, president and chief executive officer of the Bradley Foundation and head of Wisconsin’s GOP from 1984 to 2002. "Conservatives have generally been opposed to the monopoly of public schools and the influence interest groups associated with them have had on the education of children."
Voucher critics say there’s another force at work, a politically shrewd strategy that has little to do with the education of children. Their argument goes like this: Conservatives benefit from successful school choice programs because they want to push toward the privatization of publicly financed social services, including public education. Republicans benefit because they can sway opinions and win votes of urban minorities, specifically urban blacks, who traditionally make up a solid Democratic voting bloc.
So according to Michael Grebe, NOTHING is more important to the Bradley Foundation than the expansion of school voucher programs.
Apparently, it has been so for a long, long time, as the Shep Express itself reported in 2001, in a profile on Grebe's predecessor, Michael Joyce, in an item titled "Voucher's Money Man."
During his 15-year tenure, Joyce built Bradley into the most powerful conservative foundation in the country. Perhaps more than any other person, he was responsible for the voucher legislation under which Wisconsin became the first state providing public dollars for private schools. A staunch ideological conservative who likens public schools to "socialism," Joyce is a prime example of the conservative orientation — and money — that lies at the heart of the voucher movement. A shrewd tactician, Joyce made sure that vouchers did not appear to be a white, conservative initiative.
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Joyce, meanwhile, was well paid for his efforts. According to tax records filed by the Bradley Foundation, Joyce received $610,085 in compensation from Bradley in 1999: $424,000 in salary, $26,630 in "other allowances," and $157,455 in retirement and pension benefits. Bradley Board members also receive impressive pay. Board Chair I. Andrew "Tiny" Rader received $133,500 in 1999; board members Brother Bob Smith of Messmer High School received $31,500 and Milwaukee attorney Michael Grebe received $37,250.
In Wisconsin, Joyce is identified with two main causes: welfare and school vouchers. In both, he skillfully portrayed himself as a compassionate reformer battling an entrenched government bureaucracy. In both, he advocated policies noteworthy for their lack of public accountability. In both, he always made sure that the movement had the appearance of a grassroots, multiracial campaign. Nationally, Joyce was far more likely to take the gloves off and fund projects with openly racist or sexist overtones.
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No accounting of Joyce’s national role or ideological orientation would be complete without noting the Bradley Foundation’s nearly $1 million funding of Charles Murray while he co-authored The Bell Curve, the 1994 book that posits the intellectual inferiority of African Americans.
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In a farewell opinion piece in The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel June 16, Joyce typically referred to the "social-pathology-riddled inner city."
In an interview with Rethinking Schools a few months before The Bell Curve was published, Joyce argued that "the unwillingness to recognize different levels of cognitive ability could explain some of the social pathologies that we have." He said that growing school dropout rates, for example, might be the result of the frustration when those young people with "somewhat limited intellectual ability" are expected "to manage a rigorous curriculum."
Murray, in an interview in The National Review in 1997, called The Bell Curve "the stealth public-policy book of the 1990s. It created a subtext on a range of issues. Everybody knows what the subtext is. Nobody says it out loud." As an example, he cited the dismantling of affirmative action, which he argued was a flawed policy because "most people are not smart enough to profit from an authentic college education."
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Within Wisconsin, it’s difficult to find a nonprofit voucher group that hasn’t received significant Bradley money. For example, The Institute for the Transformation of Learning, led by Howard Fuller, has been granted more than $1 million by Bradley since 1995. The Black Research Organization, started by Mikel Holt of the pro-voucher Community Journal, received a total of $319,000 in 1995 and 1996. Partners Advancing Values in Education, a pro-voucher scholarship group based in Milwaukee, has received roughly $10 million from Bradley over the years.
It stands to reason that Grebe is tied in with a who's who of conservatives, far-right-wingers and assorted looney toons on the extreme right fringe. But Redonna Rodgers?
I've looked at the Rodgers campaign website, and it seems to me that Anne Curley hasn't posted there anything about vouchers, anything that would indicate Rodgers's position on expanding Milwaukee's voucher program, or how she might vote if a pro-voucher candidate (Bruce Thompson, for instance) were to offer himself for board president against someone who wasn't as convinced about vouchers.
Is there something that Grebe knows that the rest of us do not? Or is the better question: Does Grebe have intentions that most of us don't know?
In recent years, Bradley has increasingly turned its attention to the African American community, posing as a friend with real solutions to long-term urban problems, particularly around the issue of school "reform". A brief review of its past role, however, tells a far different story.
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Two of Bradley's greatest successes have come in its home town of Milwaukee, a city now known for its radical welfare reform and school voucher programs. Both are promoted as providing opportunities for upward mobility to disenfranchised communities. In reality, the major role of both programs has been to further undermine the principle that the people are "entitled" to anything from their government, while expanding the opportunities for the privitization of public services.
Isn't it funny how the same issues and motives keep popping up, time after time after time?
Finally, the Shep Express -- and I'm sorry to keep referring to the Shep Express, but the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel hasn't made coverage of potentially criminal activity to subvert and undermine legitimate elections in the MPS Board races a high priority this year, and trust me, I'd feature its coverage of ASA's nefarious deeds if the MJS published any more -- issued its Issue of the Week, and Heroes and Jerks of the Week, all of which came back to ASA and the aforementioned nefarious deeds.
The big Issue of the Week, says the Shep Express, is issue transparency:
It’s highly ironic that Advocates for Student Achievement (ASA) is trying to position itself as a "good government group," since its internal e-mails show that members have been engaging in highly questionable campaign tactics for months.
ASA formed in 2007, yet it hadn’t filed any campaign finance reports with the city until last week, after Citizen Action of Wisconsin sent a complaint to the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office. The complaint also questioned ASA’s support for three candidates for the MPS board—Annie Woodward, ReDonna Rodgers and David Voeltner—actions that included asking for donations and supplying material support those campaigns. Campaign finance laws regulate contact between candidates and independent groups like ASA, and e-mails indicate that laws may have been broken.
The complaint led to further investigation a highly entrepreneurial anonymous blogger, who then discovered ASA’s e-mails—exchanged on a Yahoo! Groups account that was easily accessed by the public. The e-mails confirmed Citizen Action’s complaints and added more fuel to fire.
It’s funny, of course, that a group that is trying to take over the MPS board could be technologically inept. But it’s maddening, too, that these dubious campaign activities probably would not have been uncovered had Citizen Action not challenged them. And it’s outrageous that ASA’s supporters include some of the city’s leaders—MPS board member Bruce Thompson, who would love to become president of the board, even if it means recruiting candidates behind the scenes who would be sympathetic to him; former MPS candidate Kevin Ronnie; former Milwaukee Journal business editor turned PR person Anne Curley, who bills herself as a "brand management" expert; Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce’s Tim Sheehy, who’d love to see an appointed MPS board replace the democratically elected one; and various voucher and privatization supporters who seek influence over the board.
Last year, when wacky former state Sen. Tom Reynolds, a Republican, created a PAC to recruit deeply conservative candidates to run in the Democratic primaries, those activities were out in the open on the timely, detailed reports he filed with the state. Yet ASA—the supposedly "good government" group—doesn’t even meet Reynolds’ standards of campaign transparency. Voters should demand more transparency and accountability from the handful of folks who are trying to manipulate our elections.
And Jerk of the Week? Well...
Jerk of the Week: Advocates for Student Achievement
This is the second time the controversial "reform" group Advocates for Student Achievement (ASA) has won the title "Jerk of the Week." They first earned this dubious honor after they admitted that they were behind a $12,000 poll that contained highly misleading questions about MPS Board President Peter Blewett and the MPS board in general. Now, ASA is the subject of a complaint made by Citizen Action of Wisconsin to the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office over its highly questionable tactics (see "Issue of the Week"). How rotten is ASA? Even its hand-picked candidate, Annie Woodward, is trying to distance herself from the group and its allies, although she has admitted the past to attending ASA’s weekly training sessions and ASA members even went so as to ask for donations for her campaign. ASA may have foreseen their PR problem. According to an e-mail sent by ASA’s Kevin Ronnie to fellow ASA-ers on Sept. 4, 2008, about candidate ReDonna Rodgers, "We also need to respect any direction she might need to set for us in terms of her degree of engagement with ASA. There may tactical reasons for her to distance herself."