California’s New Wave Of Billionaire Ed Reformers

Billionaire (by Maggie T)

The San Diego Education Report Blog had a nice summary of some of the newest wave of Ed Deform coming to California. As most of you who follow education reform already know, Michele Rhee is basing her StudentsFirst organization in Sacramento. Rhee is engaged to Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, who will no doubt support Rhee’s agenda in Sacramento.

Rhee wants to raise $1 billion and recruit 1 million volunteers and she just might be able to pull it off. Billionaire Eli Broad has already stated that he plans to be a big donor to the cause. According to the SD Ed Report Blog, much of the $1 billion will be used to buy election board members and other elected officials sympathetic to Rhee’s ed deform agenda, including more charter schools, value-added teacher evaluation and the elimination of tenure.

New to California is the group Democrats for Education Reform, a New York-based organization backed by hedge fund billionaires like David Einhorn. They hired State Sen. Gloria Romero, former chair of the Senate Education Committee and author of the “parent trigger” law. She is allied with Rhee declaring, “I am proud to march shoulder to shoulder with Michelle Rhee. . . Si se puede!”

Translated: Yes we can wrest control of the Democratic party from the CTA. “We have to tackle the special interests which for too long have dominated the education discourse in our party,”