Right-wing billionaires who hate government, and the politicians who do their bidding, naturally want to destroy public education, and one way they are trying to do that is by promoting, and lying about, charter schools.
In Albany, NY, the charter school profiteers are especially outrageous, spending untold tens of thousands of dollars for radio ads, mailers and robocalls running down the city school district.
They did it again this week, sending an anonymous mailer urging defeat of the city school budget.
This time, they lost, but they'll be back.
Details, below.
First, a little history -- Tom Carroll was a Republican operative who, as head of fat-cat-funded CHANGE-NY, helped elect George Pataki in 1994. He went to work for Pataki on getting NY to authorize charter schools, then set up Brighter Choice as a "nonprofit" that now runs 11 privatized schools in Albany.
According to the story linked above, Carroll's "nonprofit" outfit campaigned against the city school budget on the sly.
At least three separate fliers were sent to Albany residents in the last two weeks that encouraged voters to reject the school budget and intentionally exaggerated a tax rate increase to mislead voters. A telephone push poll also asked city residents leading questions including if they were fed up with tax increases and wasteful spending.
A postal record, obtained by a Times Union Freedom of Information request, lists the customer who paid for the mailings as "School Performance." Tom Carroll, who founded the Brighter Choice Foundation -- which supports all of the city's 11 charter schools -- is on the board of School Performance Inc., according to the most recent public records available. Chris Bender, executive director of Brighter Choice, has also served on the School Performance board.
Two mailings sent out by Mail Works, a direct mail company, went to 32,178 city residents, records show. Postage alone cost $6,766. However, the total cost spent by the charter affiliate to defeat the Albany budget is likely far greater because a third mailing went out and the push poll was conducted over a few weeks. The professionally printed cards could have also cost thousands of dollars.
The TU reporter tried to ask Carroll about this, but he refused to respond.
The article notes helpfully that Carroll made $328,000 in 2009 and his No. 2, a local millionaire-by-birth, made $217,000, and that neither of them lives in the city.
Earlier this year, Carroll had run radio ads dissing the salary of the Albany city schools superintendent, which is substantially less than what he and his top aide make.
In fact, Carroll's salary as de facto superintendent of the Brighter Choice schools (despite no education experience, degree or certification) is more than $100,000 higher than any superintendent in the Albany area.
The city superintendent takes a dim view of Carroll's bare-knuckle tactics:
Albany Superintendent Ray Colucciello said the mailings show voters that some charter operators would stoop to a clandestine attack just to harm the public schools. He said that it will make it harder to have collaboration with charter schools in the future.
"How can you work together with someone who would try to defeat the resources for 8,500 kids?" he said.
Colucciello said the sneak attack could turn public sentiment against charter leaders who don't even live in the city. Tuesday, some voters at the polls echoed that sentiment.
"I think the budgets are fine, I'm just wondering where all these mystery, highly expensive fliers are coming from," said Vincent Thomas of Albany. "It just makes people very uncomfortable. If there's going to be this kind of money put into voting in non-partisan elections, then there needs to be disclosure."
Coluciello had put together a budget that did not raise the tax levy, due in part to the city's teachers agreeing to a pay freeze.
The good news is that Albany voters approved their school budget, despite the legally questionable campaigning by Carroll.
The district website's report about the budget vote noted that a responsible budget had to overcome "a weeks-long disinformation campaign using postcards and "phone surveys" that failed to identify the organization funding them."
This is just one battle in the war between public education in Albany and charter school profiteers who want to kill it.
A conflict that is not unique to Albany.