Another "false front" education reform group? Keep eye out for their op eds in local papers.

[madfloridian]

The Michigan Education Association writes about the Education Action Group and warns to watch out for their activities.

Behind the false front

Note the ties to the Mackinac Center and the DeVos family.

EAG isn’t really a group. It’s two very partisan men with ties to the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and Dick DeVos of Amway Corp. fame. Olson’s brother is director of education policy at the Mackinac Center, another anti-union, pro-privatization group. The man who incorporated EAG, Eric Doster, is a Michigan Republican Party lawyer who has served on the board of the Great Lakes Education Project, a political action committee linked to DeVos. DeVos, of course, helped finance the failed 2000 vouchers initiative.

EAG bashes the collective bargaining process and school employees’ rights to inform the community and to work to elect leaders who value students and the employees who teach and help them at school.

Olson claims to be nonpartisan, but he is a partisan Republican Party activist and an officer in the state party.

Olson refuses to disclose his group’s funding sources, making it difficult to discern whose agenda EAG is pushing.

This Michigan-based "reformer" group just had an opinion piece published in the Tampa Tribune. It is anti teachers unions.

Teachers' union seeks to nullify the public's will

The column refers to an effort by the teachers' union in Florida to fight the new anti-tenure law. They totally mispresent what the situation is about, and then they go on to express support for Rick Scott's extreme education changes.

By filing this suit, union leaders are telling people that teachers should not be held accountable for the performance of their students. They want us to believe all teachers are equally intelligent and motivated. They're saying that all teachers should continue to have a guaranteed job for life under tenure and remain on a common pay scale, regardless of the outcome of their work.

More than anything, FEA leaders are blatantly displaying their disrespect for the democratic process. They have no interest in the outcome of the elections that put Scott and his legislative allies in office. They are willing to use the courts to overturn the will of the people.

So much for majority rule. Union leaders, with all their wealth and influence, can simply shop for a politically-friendly judge who will rule in their favor. The eventual ruling may have little to do with the constitutionality of the new law and more to do with judges who accept donations from the teachers' union and feel obliged to pay them back.

And they speak of Rick Scott:

Reform-minded leaders like Scott have stood up to the unions and demanded accountability in the classroom. If teachers are not going to be held responsible for student performance, who will be? Can you think of another profession where employees are not held accountable for the final product?

They simply are not telling the truth. I wonder how many op eds in how many newspapers?

One member of this group has been regularly hounding an education blogger these last few months. They demanded and got all his education emails. The blogger, Fred Klonsky, posted about it often at his blog.

The return of Velderman. Ask GOP tough questions and you get put on a watch list.

It was late last school year that the goof ball ideological terrorists at the Michigan-based Education Action Group demanded that my school district hand over to them all my work emails.

Which they did.

EAG gofer Ben Velderman signed the FOIA request. The reason for the FOIA was that this blog asks tough questions about education and public policy and is outspokenly pro-teacher and pro-union.

Nothing has changed about that. Certainly not a FOIA request from some punk from EAG.

Now Think Progress reports that this is becoming standard GOP practice. Ask a Republican elected official a challenging question and you get placed on a watch list.

There are many of these groups which are fronts for corporations. One of them that is doing great harm to public schools is called the Parents Revolution. It is no parents revolution, it is funded by billionaires, connected to Green Dot charter schools.

The MEA website says this EAG group has tactics that "include sending anti-union mail to residents, attending local school board meetings and using the news media to further its negative agenda."

They also recommend:

If EAG surfaces in your district, please inform your local MEA UniServ director. You also may want to share what you know about EAG with your school board members and administrators, so they can consider EAG’s motives.

Maybe I should let them know it is surfacing in Tampa, Florida.

[Jakes Progress]

1. I hope you keep all your DU contributions in a safe place.

What with the history books being written by the corporations that are being handed our education system, it may be that your warnings here will be the source for future stories of how American Education was given to the corporations, how it took a Democratic president to achieve the neocon dream of privatizing schools.

Oh. And they will serve as a good reference for the first onslaught from Democrats to destroy the unions too.

Put them on paper and keep them safe. You won't be able to find this kind of information in the media or the mainstream in few years.

[madfloridian]

2. Well...change is coming in format.

I do save the research, BUT with the new changes to DU3 there may not be journals. And for sure the link will change even if they do have them. The sites that link to what I write will only get archives then.

Some of us here have made a difference in calling attention to the reform, so that's good.

[vets74]

16. Four Gold Stars -- identifying GOPer use of the False Front pattern for their schemes

In fact, the Republicans are little more than a collection of False Fronts.

-- Anti-abortion hypocrites. They call Liberals "baby killers." Would croak if someone outside of north Dakota actually outlawed abortion.

-- Ron Paul. Talk leftie on military, Patriot Act, The Fed, etc. Complain about both political parties. In the end... always endorse and back Far right corporatist candidates such as his son.

-- White Citizens Council. That's the original pre-rebranding name of the Tea Party. Burn them crosses, dearies.

40% + 20% + 20% of their primary voters, by False Front shell.

All are well funded, of course.

[Jakes Progress]

22. Copy your stuff and put it in a file.

Make hard copies.

I applaud your calling attention and trying to stem the corporate tide, but I fear your warnings are drowned out by the cheers and swishes. I see them as a valuable historical resource though.

You have noticed the number of big time all-faithful who never darken the thread of one of your posts. Some have tried but your logic and truth leave them with nothing to say, and without the courage to admit error, they just go back to their lists, picture pages, and blue boxes. Their intransigence has done more to alienate true Democrats and enable the centrists than a dozen right wing hacks. It Democrats united to stop this "Rush to Corporatize" we could be effective. As long as there are those willing to sacrifice unions and children just so the "We Won" chant can be sung, we are screwed by our own party.

[Bozita]

3. K&R ... Bigtime!

[madfloridian]

19. Thanks...

:hi:

[midnight]

4. I googled them and they have rolled out their campaign this week in Oct.

"The campaign began this week with ads on talk radio, according to EAG vice-president Kyle Olson, and will pick up pace next week with TV spots and about a dozen billboards in the Milwaukee and Madison area. What’s not clear is where the funding for all this is coming from. The group, based in Muskegon, Mich., has ties to the Michigan Republican Party and has raised eyebrows before with billboard campaigns in Ohio and Michigan."http://educationactiongroup.org/documents/milwaukeenewsbuzz.com_WEAattack1012010.pdf

[madfloridian]

5. Thanks. I hope people are on the look-out. They have been ugly to that blogger.

And they don't have to disclose funding, do they? I don't think so.

Groups like this are dangerous.

[Starry Messenger]

6. k&r

[Reader Rabbit]

7. Have you posted this in the Michigan forum?

Or at least a post there with a link to this thread? Might be a good way to get boots on the ground.

[madfloridian]

11. Good idea....

Will do later. Unless you want to do it. Never thought of it. Thanks. :hi:

These kind of groups have grabbed so much power, it's scary.

[defendandprotect]

8. kr

[sulphurdunn]

9. Can you think of another profession where employees are not held accountable for the final product?

Yea. It's called Wall Street. The employees are speculators not educators. Unlike the latter, they contribute nothing of value to society anymore than other venture parasites like EAG. And, if Amway is the future financial model for public education in America you better hide the silverware Virginia.

[madfloridian]

12. Exactly right....Wall Street.

You know what makes me mad? Our party did NOT have to go along with this reform, so they have enabled it all. :mad:

[LWolf]

10. k&r

[madfloridian]

13. Leader of group manipulated Frances Fox Piven into an interview...lied to her.

From last year:

http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2010/03/education_action_group_leader.html

"The Education Action Group’s Kyle Olson is used to firing sharp criticism at teachers unions, but he was lambasted by a Huffington Post columnist for a “fib” that Olson calls “regrettable.” The leader of the Muskegon-based activist group also contributes to Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government news Web site, and went to New York to interview sociologist Frances Fox Piven her about her book “Challenging Authority: How Ordinary People Change America.”

Peter Dreier, whom Olson has criticized for his links to ACORN, wrote on the Huffington Post that Olson lied to Piven in order to get her to consent to the interview.

“Olson manipulated his way into Piven's home hoping to entrap her into saying something outrageous that he could use to further his own career,” Dreier wrote. “Clearly he aspired to be the next James O'Keefe, who became a right-wing celebrity for his anti-ACORN videos, but whose recent arrest in New Orleans for breaking into Sen. Mary Landrieu's office has destroyed his own credibility.”

..“I told her in an e-mail that I was taking a social justice class,” Olson told me. “I told her a fib. It’s regrettable and it won’t happen again. My integrity is something I value, and this was something regrettable.”

[Gabi Hayes]

14. I wonder what he thinks the difference is between a fib and a lie, and why

he chose the word ''fib'' instead of the the L word

can't imagine.....

and what was regrettable? the fact that somebody found out he fibbed and revealed that regrettable incident, or the fact that he fibbed about his background to insinuate himself with Piven?

who does he think he's fooling with such Luntzspeak?

[madfloridian]

15. Luntzspeak....indeed it is.

There's a lot of that going around.

[roody]

17. I am reading about another group, Stand for Children,

that was once legitimate but was bought out. It is in the latest Rethinking Schools.

www.rethinkingschools.org

[madfloridian]

18. Ah yes, Edelman's group. Here is more about his words.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/7848

"An education activist’s blunt tale of wooing House Speaker Michael Madigan and outfoxing teachers unions created a stir Tuesday by violating a cardinal rule of Statehouse power plays — what happens under the dome stays under the dome.

..."I’m being quite blunt here. The individual candidates were essentially a vehicle to execute a political objective, which was to tilt toward Madigan. The press never picked up on it. We endorsed nine individuals – and six of them were Democrats, three Republicans – and tilted our money toward Madigan, who was expecting because of Bruce Rauner’s leadership … that all our money was going to go to Republicans. That was really a show of – indication to him that we could be a new partner to take the place of the Illinois Federation of Teachers. That was the point. Luckily, it never got covered that way. That wouldn’t have worked well in Illinois – Madigan is not particularly well liked. And it did work."

They "outfoxed" teachers and are bragging about it?

[Wilms]

20. ^

[prairierose]

21. madfloridian, thank you so much for all of your work and keeping...

us up to date on all of the different billionaire funded astroturf groups out to destroy public education and teachers in this country. This is an issue that is so important to the future.

I read your posts and every time I see the name of a new astroturf group my head is spinning. How many are out there now. Do you know if there is one blog or org that keeps track of all of these and shows their funding? I can't keep track of all of them.

Thank you for all of the work you do to keep us educated about those who hate public education.

:hi:

[chervilant]

23. I strongly agree

with prairierose! Words are inadequate to express my appreciation for your diligent advocacy for our beleaguered veteran teachers and our disintegrating system of public education.

I find it sad that fewer people are reading and commenting on your OPs. I find it VERY telling that the Obama sycophants are seldom seen herewith these days.

[vssmith]

24. My wife and I taught for 35 years in Michigan

Our daughter has now been a teacher for 10 years. She can hardly wait to find another occupation and I can guarantee you that there are a lot more that feel the same way as she does.