A recent Huffington Post article describes the new education lobby: ambitious, expansive, and mainly created by hedge fund managers and former government officials. In some ways, it is modeled on large, single-issue lobbying organizations like the NRA and AARP. The newer lobbying groups are focusing on teacher evaluations using student performance data, merit pay, better professional development, and elimination or reworking of tenure.
Their impact is starting to be seen at the polls. Two groups, Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) and Stand for Children, spent $150,000 in a Denver School Board election race and secured a majority that supports their pet issues. Teachers’ unions in the area overwhelmingly opposed the two groups’ political machinations, saying that groups that can write huge checks to political campaigns are driving the stakes even higher in the education reform arena.
Similar stories have played out in New Jersey, Illinois, and Texas, with Stand for Children playing a huge role in the two latter states. The group, which focuses on organizing families in targeted school districts to promote their agenda, is aiming to have affiliate groups in 20 states by 2015 (the currently have nine). StudentsFirst, a reform group founded by former DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee, is a single-issue group that played in a role in the New Jersey legislature elections and was vocal in its opposition to the recall of Michigan state Republican Rep. Paul Scott. DFER focuses its attention on reform from within the Democratic party, and actively links its donors with specific candidates for various political posts.
This flood of money has put teachers’ unions on the defensive. “The debate has been hijacked by a very small section trying to find an easy group to blame…we’re trying to eliminate this myth that there’s this horrible group out there, the union, that doesn’t care about anyone but themselves,” says Henry Roman, president of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association.
It is hard to track where groups like DFER and StudentsFirst get their funding; they insist that most of it comes from “everyday people,” but detractors claim that the real funding comes from large foundations and “hedge-fund types.” For example, last year Stand for Children received large donations from the Gates, Joyce, Casey and Walton Foundations, “philanthropic organizations that are the province of millionaires and billionaires.”
It is also hard to predict the “staying power” of these groups, but one test might be the upcoming presidential election. Joy Resmovits of The Huffington Post believes that if President Obama is reelected, this might lend more strength to these groups. “Obama winning the primary [in 2008] changed everything for us nationwide,” said Joe Williams, executive director of DFER, “Education reform didn’t affect the race at all, but the race affected state education reform.”
To read the full article, please visit http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/21/education-reform-money-elections_n_1105686.html?ref=education
