Teachers, School Boards, and the Power of Money: How the Right Wins at the Local Level

Capital, power, and education: “Dark Money” and the politics of common-sense. A critical essay review of Jane Mayer’s Dark Money: The hidden history of the billionaires behind the rise of the Radical Right

“…Which means we need a movement…to destroy the prevalent statist paradigm" (p. 54). This provides support for the claims that we have made elsewhere that it is social movements that transform education, rather than educators themselves (Apple, 2013(Apple, , 2014Schirmer and Apple, 2016).…”

“…What's more, Koch-sponsored political advocacy organizations, such as Americans for Prosperity, have looked beyond state-level educational policies and budgets, also turning their attention to micro-political spaces, like small-town school board elections. These spaces -critical sites for establishing "common-sense" -enable conservative billionaires to run against progressive, grassroots candidates, many of whom campaign on a budget of a few hundred dollars (Schirmer & Apple, 2016). From the federal to state to local, from endowed professorships to private research centers, from legislative models to lobbying efforts, the Koch brothers are undoubtedly at the center of the conservative advance of education.…”

Motivation to Teach in the Current Climate: An Examination of Three School Districts in Transition

“…More specifically, when community members in power, such as local politicians, superintendents, and school board members are more influenced by venture philanthropists, state and federal politicians, and other external stakeholders, the needs of their own community, teachers, and students are often ignored (Kumashiro, 2012; Ravitch, 2010; Spring, 2016; Strauss, 2014; Tienken & Zhao, 2013). As Schirmer and Apple (2016) state, “those of us who believe in the value of democratic institutions must have an acute awareness of the vulnerability of things that we too often take for granted—such as local democratic control through school board races” (p. 150). This disregard can create a climate that is extremely hostile and demoralizing, especially for teachers, causing low morale and motivation (Feinberg & Soltis, 2004; Tienken & Zhao, 2013).…”

“…These issues have all come to a head creating a continuous problem with the recruitment, education, preparation, and retention of motivated, committed, high-quality teachers in the United States (Darling-Hammond, 2010; Darling-Hammond, Wei, & Johnson, 2009; Ingersoll, 2007; Krasnoff, 2015; Sinclair, 2008; Zeichner, 2003). Now more than ever, it is necessary for those “who are committed to a critically democratic education for all of our children [to increase the support and be] respectful of the teachers who now labor so hard in uncertain conditions in our public schools” (Schirmer & Apple, 2016, p. 151). There is a pressing need to “advance our understanding of what motivates and sustains healthy, committed, and effective teachers” (Richardson, Karabenick, & Watt, 2014, p. xiv), as well as offer a better understanding of teacher quality and career development.…”

Rightist gains and critical scholarship

“…This is one of the major reasons that in more recent analyses, I and my colleagues have gone further in our focus on the local dynamics of rightist interventions and the resistances to them. We argue that there is a growing need to not only pay close attention to large-scale conflicts over educational policy such as privatisation and marketisation at state and national levels, but just as importantly to think carefully about seemingly "small-scale" radically neoliberal, neoconservative, authoritarian populist and new managerial changes that are occurring at the local level as well (Gunter, Hall, and Apple 2017;Schirmer and Apple 2016). These seemingly small-scale conflicts can teach us a good deal about the ways in which the various elements of the rightist alliance work to gain consent and control.…”