Statement on Gates and Broad Foundation funded United Way Greater Los Angeles running LAUSD forums

"Philanthropy is not progressive and never has been."— Tiffany Lethabo King and Ewuare Osayande

"The United Way of LA is chief enforcer of Eli Broad’s corporate takeover of public Ed agenda. He’s the reason why I created the term “weaponized philanthropy” to describe how lefty-liberal groups in this city are under his sway. There’s NO good reason on earth the ACLU or LGBT Youth groups would support John Deasy except for the fact that they get money from UWGLA and much of that money comes from Broad."—Cynthia Liu, PhD

Left to right: Monica Garcia, the disgraced John Deasy, Casey Wasserman, billionaire Eli Broad, and Elise Buik. Five of the greatest enemies to public education in Los Angeles under the aegis of the United Way Greater Los Angeles.

The Nonprofit Industrial Complex in Los Angeles are using their unlimited resources to sway our schoolboard elections again. Here's a tweet linking to the Occupy United Way page that first pointed out the issue.

Statement on @gatesfoundation & @BroadFoundation funded @LAUnitedWay running #LAUSD forums https://t.co/HmsVewlJzQ pic.twitter.com/rpCUti4bE7

— RDSkeels4Schoolboard (@RDSkeels4LAUSD) January 22, 2015

My slightly edited statement from that page.

With the possible exceptions of Public Counsel and CHIRLA, could the United Way of Greater Los Angeles (UWGLA) have gathered a more vile coalition of revenue hungry corporate charter chains and billionaire foundation funded Nonprofit Industrial Complex (‎NPIC) members? KIPP, Coro, Eli Broad's Dan Chang's GPS:LA, E4E, ICS, and more. It's a rogues gallery of organizations on the dole of the Koch's, Bloomberg's, Broad's, Gates', and Walton Family Foundations. How is it that these organizations with the clear-cut political agendas of their funders are allowed to host forums like this?

Just in case there's any doubt that this entire event has been orchestrated by the UWGLA, here's the text from the registration form. See the email address?

Please fill out this brief form to let us know you will attend a Candidate Forum.

Childcare, translation, refreshments, voter registration and ballot information will be provided free of cost.

For more information and media inquires, contact Sara Mooney at smooney@unitedwayla.org or 213-808-6290

UWGLA runs these events so that they have complete control over what questions get asked, the tone and content of the conversations, the composition of audience, etc. These so-called forums end up being informercials for their favored (read charter school industry connected) candidates, and more importantly, their neoliberal corporate education reform agenda. Remember, UWGLA is the same organization that pays for fake "research" papers from less-than-credible fellow neoliberal NPIC like National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ). There is no depth too low for the UWGLA to plumb, evidenced by their now infamous April 2014 astroturf stunt.

United Way Greater Los Angeles is the best public relations firm that Eli Broad has ever hired.