Say you want a revolution?: Parents Revolution, ‘Astro turf’ organizations and the privatization of public schools

Overshadowed by two wars, a corporate financed health care debate, economic crisis, swelling unemployment, corporate theft, social unrest and reality TV, a discussion of educational policy is virtually impossible under the current corporate media regime. Unacceptable to most American citizens, the current public educational system is being radically disassembled, state by state, like Legos in a pre-school play room. In its stead is being built a new corporate educational model of non-profit and for-profit educational retail charter chains or outlets that will replace the decaying urban public schools. The public school water bag has burst and the Educational Maintenance Organizations (EMOs) are like kids scrambling for candy under a broken piñata.

For those witnessing the health care or health insurance reform dispute as it is playing out on the national landscape, they won’t be surprised when they begin to see the ‘astro turf’ groups assembled around charter schools emerge, if they haven’t already. This is another reason Arne Duncan, Newt Gingrich and Al Sharpton are riveted on visiting major cities at the end of September for their whirlwind educational restructuring tour to promote educational reform, as they mendaciously refer to it (See Project Censored, http://dailycensored.com/2009/09/14/duncan-donuts-with-arne-gingrich-sharpton-and-duncan-do-education/). They want to be on hand to applaud and cheer on the ‘grass root’ efforts aimed at charterizing a way forward in the Great Race to the Top, the hallmark of Duncan ’s reform efforts.

As I mentioned in an earlier three part article for Counterpunch, Duncan loves charter schools and so does President, Barrack Obama and they’ve got pockets full of newly minted cash to fund them, along with the Walton Family, the Gates Foundation and of course the Eli Broad Foundation. Now that Los Angeles Unified School District has voted to turn over 250 public schools to the new ‘outside operators’ it’s time for them to move quickly to capture the headwinds of the coming educational ‘debate’; a debate which already happened, behind closed doors. The rest is show.

One week before the vote to handover the pubic schools to non-profit organizations such as Green Dot the LAUSD School Board voted to lay off hundreds of teachers. What followed were massive class size increases of fifty or more, with students sitting on the floors and teachers scrambling to accommodate the overflow (Landsberg, Mitchell, Budget cuts push some classrooms way over capacity http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-ed-cuts20-2009sep20,0,2312077.story). But alas this is preliminary planning for the new neoliberal reformers, the way it is supposed to work; public schools are purposely starved to induce failure in order to bring in the new ‘turnaround artists’ and non-profit privatization outfits to ‘fix the problem’.

According to Los Angeles journalist and immigration rights activist, Robert D. Skeels:

Ms. Flores Aguilar’s (LAUSD School Board member) cynical vote to massively increase class sizes for public schools followed by her resolution to privatize nearly a third of the district comes straight out of the playbook of corporatization advocates like Newt Gingrich, the Hudson Institute, and the Cato Institute (http://rdsathene.blogspot.com/search/label/green_dot).

Skeels’s right, any cursory perusal of the neoliberal think tank proposals tell a similar sordid tale.

The Thinkeries and Those Who Inhabit Them

In the case of educational policy analysis, one way to begin to think critically on issues such as charter schools is to rightly focus on the highly vocal educational think tanks, corporate media coverage, grass-root groups and personalities that purport to be non-partisan and objective, but in reality are supported by huge economic interests. Within the corridors of the think tanks walk the researchers, scholars and intellectuals that produce research to justify neo-liberal public policies that support charter schools, vouchers and other privatization schemes. The talking points are then quarterbacked to the coin operated “people’s representatives” that then proceed to construct powerful scripts for dissemination by the corporate media designed to “sell the product” to a discouraged and deracinated public.

This of course is disconcerting for advocates of public disclosure, public transparency and political democracy in general and surely unacceptable for informed decision making and democratic oversight and governance of one of the most critical systems in the country – our nation’s schools. Yet this ghastly governance goes on seemingly unabated each and every day; non-disclosure and non-transparency are now more norm than aberration and the sock-puppet press more stenographers than journalists. One of the most insidious and popular efforts in arranging “consent generating” activities is to start educational ‘grassroots front groups’, as we’ve seen in the health care town hall fiascos.

Capitalizing on people’s real and legitimate frustration regarding public policy, many ‘astro turf’ organizations, as in the case of health care, are notoriously funded by corporations even though they prefer to pose as authentic grass-root driven protest groups. Disconcertingly, the same thing can be said about the new wave of ‘parent revolution groups’ you might be hearing about. These astro-turf groups are well schooled, well financed and powerful; in many cases they boast the membership of thousands and thousands of parents. The difference: they are largely funded by deep-pocket philanthropists whose preferred public persona is that of the non-profit public benefit corporation.

Parents Revolution and Green Dot

One place to start looking at the tremendous growth of these seemingly grass-root groups of parents is in the city of Los Angeles where not only 250 schools have been given the bums rush out of the corridors of public management, but they are due to be thrown into the laps of non-profit outfits like Green Dot Public Schools or Alliance Public Schools, to name just a few (see Weil, Counterpunch). It is truly astounding, for in the case of the non-profit school systems that are emerging, these non-profit EMO’s are bent on creating a new, national retail chain of charter schools with outlets in as many states and school districts they can possibly get their hands on and their tactics are not unlike the ‘grass-root’ town hall health care meetings.

Take the group ‘Parents Union ’. Steve Barr, the originator of Green Dot Public Schools, a non-profit EMO out of LA, started Parent Union in Los Angeles a few years ago. According to a document put out by Green Dot in 2008 entitled, Green Dot Public Schools & Los Angeles Parents Union the company said they realized the urban school failure and:

Green Dot responded to this grassroots demand for change by saying, in effect, it’s not that you want a charter school per se, you simply want – and deserve – a high-quality school for the young people in your neighborhoods. Recognizing the need for parents to organize and work collectively to demand high-quality education, Green Dot formed the Los Angeles Parents Union (lapu), a citywide grassroots organization of parents that pushes educators, administrators, and public officials to improve their schools (Green Dot Public Schools & Los Angeles Parents Union, 2008 http://www.annenberginstitute.org/pdf/EKF08_GreenDot.pdf).

And then there is the ‘Parent University,’ another laboratory experiment launched by Green Dot. According to Green Dot:

lapu developed an innovative program called “ Parent University ” in which parents gain skills to communicate with teachers and administrators to advocate for their children and use organizing tools such as primers on graduation requirements and school-quality scores, among other supports. The effectiveness of Parent University and the sheer number of parents attending serve as examples of the changing face of human capital in Los Angeles education reform, as parents gain both expertise and a voice to push for positive changes for their children and their communities (ibid).

Green Dot’s organizing efforts make them now poised to seize some of the 250 charter schools that LA has released from public governance. Why did Barr start Parents Union? Simple: to organize parents and teachers so they would rebel against their under-serving public schools and throw their lot in with Green Dot. According to minutes from the first Portland Public School branch of the Parents Union :

We talked about what our Parent Union is going to look like. From the beginning I have encouraged everyone to look at the Los Angeles Parents Union/Parents Revolution and the Chicago Parents Union/P.U.R.E. We are in contact with both groups they are elated that we are ready to go. It will be easier having models that will help give us insight on how we will customize our own Parents Union (PPSPU May 12, 2009 http://ppsparentunion.org/2009/05/18/notes-from-the-first-ppspu-meeting-may-13-2009/).

This is the Portland based chapter of Parents Union, mind you. But the minutes clearly show a connection to both Parents Union as well as LA Parent Revolution. This is not done to equate the two but only to show the organizing efforts of Parents Union and how they pose as a grass-root group fighting for working people when in fact they are created by Green Dot Public Schools. It is important to point out the Chicago PURE is in no way the subject of this article nor does it merit any criticism. It is Parents Union and how they capitalize on parent frustration and how they pose as a grass-root organization that is the appalling feature of the debacle.

For example, the Parents Revolution is not just based in Los Angeles and Portland but has also spread to Chicago , where Duncan ’s Renaissance 2010 is up and running with disastrous effects. Barr isn’t stopping there. In September of this year Barr was in Washington , D.C. home of the charter experiment managed by Michele Rhee, the notorious Chancellor of D.C. schools and highly visible proponent of the corporate model of education. According to Examiner.com Barr called a community meeting together:

A tiny handful of parents from the neighborhood attended the community meeting Barr called to rouse the masses to mutiny against D.C. public schools(Grannan, Caroline September, 13, 2009 http://www.examiner.com/x-356-SF-Education-Examiner~y2009m9d13-Breaking-news-from-afar-Edreform-darlings-Rhee-Barr-turn-on-each-other).

The publication went on to report however, that Barr also met with resistance from the parents at the meeting when he asked them to lead an uprising against D.C. Public Schools over the schools. According to Grannan:

My friend is decidedly not a fan of Rhee or of DCPS leadership, but she declared: “I will not help Green Dot create their own personal privatization laboratory for Congress to trot over to see whenever they want.” (ibid).

Just what is the Los Angeles Parents Union/Revolution?

The Los Angeles Parents Union, through its subsidiary the Parent Revolution, seeks to dismantle traditional Los Angeles public schools by getting parents to organize petition drives to have the schools ‘decertified’ or in the case of Locke High School and the hostile takeover by Green Dot, the mission was to organize disgruntled teachers. The Parent Revolution is funded at least in part by billionaire Eli Broad, however Service Employee International Union (SEIU) is also chipping in, making for another set of interesting bedfellows and a discouraging platform for the future of organized labor. Don’t forget about Bill Gates, he helps out when he can.

Ben Austin, who brought EMO Green Dot Public Schools in for the Los Angeles Locke High School “turnaround,” started the Parent Revolution. Austin , conveniently, is a city attorney for Los Angeles but he is also an executive employee of Green Dot, which raises grave issues of conflict of interest and obvious appearances of impropriety. Austin earns $119,031.66 as City Attorney. Just one of Ben Austin’s jobs pays roughly 2.5 times the median UTLA teacher salary (LA City Employees, Salary Base, http://lang.dailynews.com/socal/citypayroll/?appSession=356196676051698).

The organization boasts at its website:

watch our video and find out how you can transform your child’s school. If 51% of the parents at your school sign the petition demanding a better school, we will guarantee your child a great school, in your neighborhood within three years (Parent Revolution, http://www.parentrevolution.org/)

This is how Green Dot managed to pull off the hostile takeover of Locke High School in Los Angeles . They are very well connected to Mayor Villaraigosa’s executive suites. For example, Ryan Smith joined the mayor’s Partnership for Los Angeles Schools to oversee the Connected Communities Department within the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, Villariagosa’s outfit. His title: Director of Family and Community Engagement. According to Partnership for Los Angeles Schools:

Prior to joining the Partnership, Smith was the Executive Director of the Los Angeles Parents Union, a 5,000 member organization dedicated to empowering LAUSD parents to advocate for the transformation of failing public schools (Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, http://www.partnershipla.org//about?id=0004#ryans).

And then there is Ryan’s buddy, Marshall Tuck, who joined Villaraigosa’s Partnership in 2007. Partnership for Los Angeles Schools reports that:

Prior to joining the Mayor’s office, Marshall was President and COO of Green Dot Public Schools, one of the leading operators of charter schools in the country. At Green Dot, Marshall led a team of 250 employees that operated ten charter high schools in some of the most need-based areas of Los Angeles . Under his leadership, students at all Green Dot schools outperformed their peers at comparable schools in both academic achievement and graduation rates. Prior to Green Dot, Marshall acted as General Manager of the Strategic Accounts group at Model N, a successful enterprise software company (Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, http://www.partnershipla.org//about?id=0004#anchor1).

His title in the mayor’s office for which he collects taxpayer monies: Chief Executive Officer (Skeels, http://rdsathene.blogspot.com/search/label/green_dot).

Marco Petruzzi, the current President and Chief Executive Officer of Green Dot, is also the head of the Venice, California chapter of the Parent Union and although there is nothing to indicate he’s getting paid for his work with the parent organization, he’s certainly getting paid by Green Dot. How much? Hard to say for he became CEO in 2008 and the IRS 990 forms for Green Dot only run through 2007. Prior to joining Green Dot though, according to their website, Marco founded ‘r3 school solutions’, an organization that provided management and administrative services to charter management organizations, another burgeoning business. Prior to founding r3 school solutions, he was a Partner at Bain & Company, a global management consulting firm. Petruzzi has fifteen years of consulting experience working with top management of major international groups in corporate and product-market strategy, channel management, pricing strategy, commercial organization, operations, R&D management and supply chain management assignments, in the USA , South America, and Europe . He also worked at McKinsey & Co. and for Enichem Americas, a petrochemical trading company based in New York (Green Dot Website).

But what about education, where are Mario’s credentials and experience in either teaching or working in the field of pedagogy? He doesn’t need any for he works with the Broad Superintendent Academy , which hosts such dignitaries as Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Ray Cortines, the Superintendent of Los Angeles Schools who will implement the neoliberal takeover of Los Angeles Public Schools. According to the website for the Broad Superintendent’s Academy:

The Academy identifies and prepares prominent leaders—executives who have experience successfully leading large organizations and a passion for public service—then places them in urban school districts to dramatically improve the quality of education for America’s students (The Broad Academy,).http://www.broadacademy.org/about/overview.html).

In other words they train former Wall Street investment managers, not to mention former military, to become CEO’s of newly designed traditional public and publicly funded charter schools.

It seems rather ironic that these are the same people who rail against public unions and public employees while at the same time they punch a time-clock to receive public funds.

MSNBC Applauds the Revolution

As chapters of Parents Revolution pop up all over the state of California , in the Northwest and even in Chicago , some parents are concerned about what happens after getting the 51% of parents to sign. What to worry? With the plethora of EMO’s like Barr’s and the candied promises of the managerial elite who fund them, the gullible have found their answers.

When the LA takeover of 250 schools was passed by a 6-1 vote in a heatedly debated resolution on August 25, 2009, Ben Austin was quick to tell the Parents Revolution afterwards:

We made history today. All of us are living together in a revolutionary moment. Big, scary, good, revolutionary change is happening right now, and we get to be part of it. We have parents standing together alongside the President of the United States calling for a revolution. That’s exciting. But there are two reasons for us to temper our joy, just a little bit (Parent Revolution, September 9, 2009 http://www.parentrevolution.org/).

However as Robert D. Skeels noted:

Steve Barr, Marco Petruzzi, and Ben Austin don’t live in working class neighborhoods, have working class jobs, or working class concerns. Nor do any of them possess degrees in education. What they do have is a very lucrative CMO with sycophantic press and close allies in the Democratic Party’s DLC and DFER, all of whom seem bent on increasing their already substantial wealth. (Robert Skeels, http://rdsathene.blogspot.com/2009/07/ben-austin-six-figure-salary-man-green.html)

Nowhere better could this sycophantic press be seen than on the MSNBC special that premiered on Sunday, the 20th of September. A two hour special, the program, entitled About Our Children, featured Bill Cosby who outright said at the beginning of the program why he was on the show; “I’m the draw.” And indeed he was, seen on stage and at times filming with kids and asking them if they could spell. Paul Rodriquez, the comedian, was on hand as well, condemning bilingual education. But besides the spectacle of the Opraization of American education through platitudes and self-help handwringing on the part of the upper class for the corporate media, the program also featured Chancellor of Washington D.C. Schools, Michelle Ree as well as Ben Austin.

Austin was on stage representing the Parents Revolution, but nowhere was his affiliation with Green Dot disclosed. Nor were viewers told of his work as the city attorney of Los Angeles . Portrayed as a frustrated parent leading a revolution of angry torch marchers, Austin told the audience that “parents can realize they have power.” The whole spectacle was a lead up to the Gingrich, Sharpton and Duncan show that premiers at the end of September. For as Robert D. Skeels astutely observes:

If Parent Revolution’s Austin or any of his network of rich boys with white savior complex were really children’s’ advocates, then where were they when the community was engaged in struggle against the budget cuts? Green Dot’s Ben Austin was almost certainly lounging at home in his gated Beverly Hills community while we supported the parent campers at John Liechty Middle School and Miguel Contreras Learning Complex. While LAPU’s Ben Austin enjoyed lavish luncheons with ever the opportunist Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, we supported the hunger strikers and parents in front of Cortines office. While Ben Austin was endorsing fat checks from Eli Broad and William Gates, we were raising funds for Aurora Ponce (Robert D. Skeels, September 20, 2009 http://rdsathene.blogspot.com/).

It seems that so far the rhetoric of “failing public schools” due to No Child Left Behind has clearly worked. Astro-turf groups such as Parents Revolution have been able to disguise their non-profit corporate masquerading by capitalizing on the disaster wrought by decades of neoliberal economics. But you won’t hear or see that on MSNBC.