I am currently in Columbus OH, where I am participating in Patriot Majority's Bus trip to Stop the Greed Agenda against the Koch Brothers. I was hired to do this by the National Education Association, and will be posting at least once a day at their Education Votes website. I will crosspost PART of those posts here, as I am doing this morning, and provide a link back to their site, since they are paying for my blogging. I hope you will follow the link and also explore what else is on their website. My first post was written last night as an introduction to what I am doing.
By now most Americans paying attention have begun to realize the influence some billionaires are wielding upon the politics and governance of our nation. Perhaps most infamous among those billionaires are the Brothers Koch, Charles and David, who by themselves have funded much of the infrastructure of the political right in this nation, including these organizations very visible and unfortunately influential in recent years: Americans for Prosperity (AFP), American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and FreedomWorks.
Please keep reading below the fold
There has been pushback against all of these, but now there is an organized effort to push back against the Koch Brothers, who are currently spending $400 Million on what can fairly be labeled their “Greed Agenda,” which includes pushing for more tax breaks for the 1%, fewer restrictions on Wall Street gambling, and more giveaways to oil companies. Relevant to my writing, it also includes moving public funds to charter schools, some of which are poorly regulated on-line charters. It includes the so-called “parent trigger.” And these are just two of the ways that the Koch Brothers are undermining public education while they simultaneously attempt to use their wealth to undermine democracy.
so far I have offered you my opening paragraph. Here's another snip from the piece at Education Votes:
Public education is under particular threat. I have long believed that public education is the canary in the coalmine of American democracy. If we lose our public schools, we have lost a fundamental underpinning of democracy. There are many ways public education is under threat. One clearly is the attempt to delegitimize public schools. We have seen this now in two heavily promoted films, first “Waiting for Superman” and now “Won’t Back Down.” Both films saw the involvement of another billionaire, Philip Anschutz, whose Walden Media played a role in the production and promotion of both films. The latter is noteworthy because it was an attempt to popularize the idea of the “parent trigger.” This is one of the methods promoted by ALEC of both delegitimizing public schools and undercutting teachers unions as the voices of professional educators by demonizing the unions.
I ask you to go here to read the complete piece. Thanks.