I recently posted a short essay on political opportunist and public education turncoat A.J. Duffy jumping on the privatization bandwagon. In that essay I mentioned how the Los Angeles Times was using the episode to push their vile privatization agenda via an odious editorial. Right on the heels of the Times' gleeful hit-piece, expounding on their love for all forms of corporate rule, they gave Duffy's newfound partner in poverty pimping, Caprice "Capricious" Young, a platform to further pimp privatization. Young, an unelected board member of Duffy's lucrative foray into the privatization pool was quick to lay on the corporate charter spin. Remember she called Duffy's treacherous betrayal to the public commons a "conversion... to put it in evangelical terms."
After choking back a great deal of bile, I commented thusly:
One of the greatest enemies of public education talks about "mutual respect?" Ms. Young's entire career has reeked of opportunism and greed. Other than stuffing copious amounts of money into her pockets, why is she even qualified to weigh in on education issues? Despicable, duplicitous, and deceitful are adjectives often used to describe this corporate charter charlatan, but I feel those words are too kind to be used on the likes of her. She has never wanted "teacher led schools," and the unelected boards she sits on bears testament to precisely just that. What does she say? "[W]e recruited a solid board, including charter and business leaders" (emphasis mine). Note that the capricious Young doesn't mention educators, community members, or parents in that board composition — the inevitable result of putting public money into private hands.
Unsurprisingly, former Alain Leroy Locke High School teacher Bruce Smith went after me in the comment section of Young's disgusting blowback piece. Smith was one of the sell-out teachers that helped seize Locke for the beleaguered Green Dot Charter Corporation, and then was promptly let go by his corporate masters. Strangely, he still defends Green Dot at every opportunity.
Among other things, Smith claims I "consistently disgrace public discourse about education." Is that what opposing privatization is called? I responded to Smith as follows:
Bruce Smith, please tell us how many educators, community members, and parents are on her board? Or do such people only exist as an afterthought in the lucrative charter-voucher sector? Young is a CORO Fellow [1], an organization well known for producing enemies of the public commons, but are staunch allies to the corporate agenda. Did you know she founded the California Charter School Association (CCSA) along with racist and nativist Steve Poizner? I don't need to know someone to discuss their exploits, Young's actions and vile ideology vilifies her far more than any of my prose. One look at who funds these people should be sufficient to judge them, but perhaps you aren't opposed to plutocracies?
While he's at it, perhaps Smith can explain why his heroine was unable to keep her lucrative gig at ICEF? The plutocrats dropped her like a hot potato once they were able to get Broadyte Parker Hudnut to navigate the sinking ship that is the ICEF privatization program to the ocean floor.
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NOTES
[1] Poverty pimping and privatization pushing CORO Fellows list includes: Caprice Young, Yolie Flores-Aguilar, Ryan Smith, Jordan Henry, Ricardo Mireles, Gabe Rose, Wesley George Farrow, Bill Jackson... Anyone knowing of more please feel free to contact me so I can add them to this list.
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