Does your legislator work for you or for a privatizer? 2020, part 1

We’ll be updating this graphic over the next few weeks as we get closer to the 2020 election.

In 2018, the graphic got pretty long

And the amount spent was pretty massive as well.

Why are we sharing this information? 

We are sharing this because the majority of us are not completely aware of how much private money is fueling legislation that impacts  public education in Indiana. 

And it’s not just Indiana public education. It’s a whole bunch of sectors throughout the United States. Indiana’s public education system is not alone in this attack. 
​
When we elect our representatives—local, state, and national, we citizens need to question: Who do they work for? Who did they take money from? Who is influencing their votes on legislation? Who is influencing the legislation they write?

How we find this information and how you can too

Go to the Campaign Finance page of the Indiana Election Division.
​ https://campaignfinance.in.gov/

Selection “Contributions” in the left-hand menu. 

Enter in a recipient name. 

If there are too many results (red message at top), you may need to enter in some contribution date parameters. You can limit it to the past two years, for example. 

To find the donors to Hoosiers for Quality Education, we place that name in the “Recipient Committee Name” parameter located near the bottom.

If you are interested to see what big names are donating money to candidates or state-level PACs, you can search the following names in the “contributor” field.

• DeVos - Betsy and Dick DeVos are billionaire heirs to the Amway. They are proponents for school choice. They have financially supported the American Federation for Children, American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and the Alliance for School Choice.
• Fred Klipsch - Founder of speaker company Klipsch. He is an advocate for school choice and has served on the Board of Directors of EdChoice (Indiana-based nonprofit devoted to the privatization of schools through the promotion of an educational voucher system, founded by Milton Freeman). He founded pro–school privatization PAC, Hoosiers for Quality Education. Close friends with Betsy DeVos. 
• American Federation for Children - Pro–school privatization group. Supports school choice, vouchers and tax credits. Helps ALEC create model school privatization legislation. The group was organized and funded by the billionaire DeVos family. Betsy DeVos was chairman until she became the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education. 
• Oberndorf - William and Susan Oberdorf are billionaire supporters of school choice. William Oberndof succeeded Betsy DeVos as chairman of the American Federation for Children.
• Walton - The family that owns Wal-Mart, has a foundation (Walton Family Foundation) that advocates and donates to education reform efforts. The foundation has supported the charter school movement. Billionaire Alice Walton makes her own personal donations and has done so to American Federation for Children and Hoosiers for Quality Education over the past few years. 
• K12  - A for-profit online education company. The company was started with $10 million from convicted junk-bond king Michael Milken and $30 million more from other Wall Street investors. It is a member of ALEC and lobbies for virtual education. It generates large annual revenues at the expense of taxpayers. In 2019 it generated over $1 billion in revenue. 10.7% increase from the previous year. K12 operates multiple schools and online programs in Indiana. 
• Allan Hubbard -  Assistant to President George W. Bush for Economic Policy and former Indiana Republican Party chairman, who played a role in major 2011 education reform legislation in Indiana. He has supported efforts by Indianapolis Public Schools to partner with charter schools and outside groups to open new school models or turnaround failing schools. Hubbard donated to school board candidates who back this reform.
• Red Apple Development - Develops and manages the facilities operated by Charter Schools, USA. Makes money buying, selling, and building charter schools. Based in Florida. 
• ​Christel DeHaan - Former owner of RCI (timeshares) and founder of Christel House, she was a school privatization supporter. When her charter school received a C in 2012 under the state’s new grading formula, the former state superintendent, Tony Bennett, scrambled to make the grade an A. 
• Charter Schools USA - For-profit management organization based in Florida that manages schools in Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, and North Carolina. It managed three schools in Indianapolis until last year when IPS cut ties and the state did not renew the contracts. While it was against IPS policy to work with for-profit operators, the three schools were under state takeover and the state chose Charter Schools USA as manager.  
• Hoosiers for Great Public Schools - A PAC created by former mayor of Indianapolis, Bart Peterson. Bart Peterson is currently president and CEO of Christel House International. PAC was registered by Caryl Auslander on April 30, 2020. She is director of Advanced Energy Economy. Her consulting firm is Torchbearer Public Affairs. She was formerly vice president of Education and Workforce Development Policy, and Federal Relations for the Indiana Chamber. 
• ​Hoosiers for Quality Education - is an education reform PAC founded by businessman Fred Klipsch. It is the political arm of the Institute for Quality Education and is formerly known as Hoosiers for Economic Growth. It supports private school vouchers and charter school expansion.

​For example, here is a DeVos result, which suggests we should ask the question: Who have Indiana’s past three governors worked for?

And here is a more specific result using “Hoosiers for Quality Education” as the contributor and “Rogers” as the recipient. State Senator Rogers was the author of the controversial “share referendum dollars with charter schools” amendment in 2020 HEA 1065. $51,500 from Hoosiers for Quality Education is a significant amount for a legislator who has only been in office since 2018. See the second image above. You will see she is near the top in terms of campaign amounts received. Again, we should ask the question: Who does Linda Rogers work for? ​

As we citizens ask questions such as

• Why does our district need a referendums?
• Why do parents and caregivers have to pay for textbooks and technology out of pocket when this is not the case in almost every other state?
• Why is my local public school closing?
• Why hasn't the state recovered the millions of dollars from Indiana Virtual?
• Why is my child's class so large?
• Why doesn't my child's school have a nurse or librarian?
• Why does my child's curriculum feel test-driven?
• Why is there a teacher shortage? 
• Why is teacher pay behind surrounding states?

and so on, we all need to ask: Who do our elected government officials work for?

When you head to the voting booth or complete your ballot by mail, be sure to do your research. Be an educated voter and vote for public education.   


Sources: Brendan Fischer, “Former Indiana Superintendent, Lauded by ALEC and Education Privatizers, Cheats on School Grading Formula for Top Donor,” PR Watch, July 30, 2013, https://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/07/12198/former-indiana-superintendent-lauded-alec-and-education-privatizers-cheats-school; Wikipedia.com, Sourcewatch.com,  K12.com, accessed September 16, 2020 ; and Eric Weddle, “Indy’s Al Hubbard Bows Out of Consideration for No. 2 U.S. Education, Job,” WFYI.org, June 4, 2017, https://www.wfyi.org/news/articles/indys-al-hubbard-bows-out-of-consideration-for-no-2-us-ed-job.

–Keri Miksza

Indiana Coalition for Public Education–Monroe County (ICPE–Monroe County) advocates for all children to have high quality, equitable, well-funded schools that are subject to democratic oversight by their communities.

​We are a nonpartisan and nonprofit group of parents, grandparents, caregivers, teachers, and other community members of Monroe County and surrounding areas.

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