{"id":364,"date":"2012-10-30T21:54:02","date_gmt":"2012-10-31T01:54:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/10\/propaganda-for-charter-school-amendment-1.html"},"modified":"2012-10-30T21:54:02","modified_gmt":"2012-10-31T01:54:02","slug":"propaganda-for-charter-school-amendment-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/10\/propaganda-for-charter-school-amendment-1.html","title":{"rendered":"Propaganda for charter school amendment 1 paid for by out-of-state donors"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nWho can afford to pay for these two glossy mailers pushing\nthe charter school amendment?\nWho are GeorgiaHope2012.org and BrighterGeorgia.org, anyway?\nRecipients of millions from Alice Walton and the Walton Family Foundation\nto push a bill sponsored in the statehouse by ALEC’s “our state legislators”.\nWill we believe Alice Walton and ALEC, or will we believe\nour Georgia educators, who overwhelmingly\n\noppose Amendment 1?<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\n\n\"Two<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\nGeorgiaHope2012.org’s mailer (the big one) says in really light grey type:\n<\/p>\n

\nPaid for by Families for Better Public Schools Edward Lindsey Chairman\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nWe’ve heard of them before.\nThey raised\n\n$486,750 by September, about 96% from outside Georgia,<\/a>\nincluding Alice Walton ($250,000),\nK12 Inc. of Virginia ($100,000),\nCharter Schools USA of Florida ($50,000),\nJ.C. Huizenga and National Heritage Academies Inc. of Michigan ($25,000 each).\nTheir spokesman Bert Brantley (who went to Lowndes County public schools)\nclaims\n\nthe bogus preamble<\/a>\nto the charter school amendment,\nthe one that uses ALEC\nFamily Trigger jargon<\/a>\nand asserts things that just aren’t in either of the authorizing bills;\nhe claims that preamble\n\nis “factual”.<\/a>\nHis previous PR campaign was pushing the T-SPLOST transportation tax\nthat failed by a landslide.\n<\/p>\n

\nFamilies for Better Public Schools\nis still playing the\n\ncharter school bait and switch<\/a> in their mailer\nby pretending Amendment 1 is needed for charter schools:\n<\/p>\n

\n\nEVERY CHILD DESERVES A CHANCE!<\/strong>\nVOTE YES!<\/strong>\nfor Public Charter Schools on November 6th<\/sup><\/small>.<\/strong>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nWe don’t need this amendment to create charter schools.\nAny local school board can already do that.\n<\/p>\n

\nBrighterGeorgia.org’s mailer (the smaller one)\nsays in grey on grey type:\n<\/p>\n

\nPaid for by Georgia Charter Schools Association\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nGCSA got $700,000 from the Walton Family Foundation last year,\nand is a member of\n\n\nthe National Association of Charter School Authorizers\n\n(NACSA), the outfit that Zaid Jilani outed as an ALEC member;\nNACSA bailed on ALEC two days later.<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\nThe Walton Family Foundation (WFF) also granted granted $350,000 last year\nto the Georgia Family Education and Research Council, Inc. (GFERC),\nwhich is now going by the name Georgia Family Council (GFC).\nAnd that’s not all.\nAccording to Elizabeth Hopper writing for Alpharetta-MiltonPatch 10 September 2012,\n\nCharter Amendment – HR 1162 – Alice Walton – Buying Your Vote?<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nBut Alice’s and the WFF’s financial backing goes far beyond helping\nthose in low income communities. In 2011, the WFF gave out $159\nmillion to non-profits who either “shape public policy” or to\nspecific charter schools, charter authorizers, or public school\nsystems who have agreed to promote charters I would imagine.\nIn 2011 the WFF gave to “shapers” in Georgia that we know of based\non their grant list; The Georgia Charter Schools\nAssociation\u2014$700K, Georgia Family Education and Research\nCouncil, Inc.\u2014$350K. The WFF gave to other out-of-state\n“shapers” who are backing HR 1162; Friedman Foundation for\nEducational Choice, Inc.,- $565K, Americans for\nProsperity\u2014$250K, StudentsFirst (Michelle Rhee)\u2014$1M, and\nthe BAEO, Black Alliance for Educational Options\u2014$796K.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nIs GFERC or GFC the same as Families for Better Public Schools?\nRight now I don’t have time to look down that rabbit hole.\nBut Elizabeth Hopper adds:\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nIn addition to the WFF support of these 6 out of 14 members of the\nBrighter Georgia Education Coalition\n\nhttp:\/\/bit.ly\/P2BDff<\/a>,\nAlice\nWalton wrote a personal check for $250K to the HR 1162\nConstitutional Amendment Committee,\n\nhttp:\/\/1.usa.gov\/OgECUz<\/a>\nRep. Lindsey’s group, Families for Better Public Schools (more\nappropriately \u2014 Families for Enhanced Public Schools \u2014\n\u201cbetter\u201d isn’t written in HB 797). This one check was\n51% of the take up to the reporting deadline of August 30st \u2014\nthe opposition collected one fifth of that amount. We won’t know if\nAlice is kicking in any more until after Nov. 6. How many voters\nknew Alice and the WFF were such generous backers of HR 1162 in the\nfirst place!\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nSo whatever that relationship,\nFamilies for Better Public Schools\nis yet another recipients of Alice Walton’s contributions\ntowards privatizing public education in the state of Georgia.\n<\/p>\n

\n\n\"Rep.<\/a>\nWho is this Rep. Edward Lindsey, anyway?\nWell, he’s\n\none of ALEC’s “our state legislators”.<\/a>\nLike\n\nthe Georgia Senate sponsors of both of the charter school amendment\nbills (HB 1162 and HB 797),\nwho are also the two sponsors of Amendment 2.<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd WFF recipient GCSA is the outfit\n\nwhose leaked slides admit<\/a>:\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nNo other state has had a positive outcome for a charter-positive\nballot initiative\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nLike in\n\nWashington State, where a pro-charter school referendum failed 58.3%\nto 41.7% in 2004,<\/a>\ndespite massive financial backing by WFF and the\nBill and Melinda Gates Foundation.\n<\/p>\n

\nHow about we make that happen in Georgia, too?\n\n\"VoteSmartGeorgia\"<\/a>\nLet’s not let Alice Walton and ALEC buy our public schools\nand turn them into\n\nWall Street’s next cash cow<\/a>\nat the expense of our tax dollars and of the future of the children of Georgia.\nLet’s see Amendment 1 fail worse than T-SPLOST did!\nVote No on Amendment 1!\n<\/p>\n

\n-jsq\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Who can afford to pay for these two glossy mailers pushing the charter school amendment? Who are GeorgiaHope2012.org and BrighterGeorgia.org, anyway? Recipients of millions from Alice Walton and the Walton Family Foundation to push a bill sponsored in the statehouse by ALEC’s “our state legislators”. Will we believe Alice Walton and ALEC, or will we […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[140,14,15,49,8,2,21,22,3],"tags":[1452,8744,1465,1371,8704,8705,1474,8721,1473,1464,1476,8701,1475,1470,1468,1472,1471,1469,8699,1462,548,1461,8702,12,7,1478,1477,1463,8711,8712,1188,1466,8700,6,1387,1467,1388,1479],"class_list":["post-364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alec","category-economy","category-education","category-elections","category-georgia","category-government","category-planning","category-politics","category-transparency","tag-30-october-2012","tag-alec","tag-bill-and-melinda-gates-foundation","tag-charter-schools","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-edward-lindsey","tag-elections","tag-families-for-better-public-schools","tag-gates-foundation","tag-gcsa","tag-georgia","tag-georgia-charter-schools-association","tag-georgia-family-council","tag-georgia-family-education-and-research-council","tag-georgiahope2012-org","tag-gfc","tag-gferc","tag-government","tag-j-c-huizenga","tag-john-s-quarterman","tag-k12-inc","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-nacsa","tag-national-association-of-charter-school-authorizers","tag-national-heritage-academies","tag-planning","tag-politics","tag-privatization","tag-profiteering","tag-transparency","tag-valdosta","tag-wal-mart","tag-wall-street","tag-walton-family-foundation","tag-zaid-jilani"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-5S","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}