New Common Core PR campaign: yet another anonymously funded effort by Bloomberg & his billionaire cronies

Today, Walcott announced there will be a "Common Core" public campaign to justify the new more difficult, developmentally inappropriate standards and the much harder tests.  This campaign will include ads placed on subways, buses, and the Staten Island ferry, costing $240,000, paid for by an anonymous donor.  All Walcott would apparently say was that it's not being funded by Bloomberg.  Here is the tweet and photo from Yasmeen Khan of

Credit: Yasmeen Khan, Schoolbook

Schoolbook:

Common Core public awareness campaign costs $240,000;
funded with private money.Walcott said donor anonymous, but it's NOT Bloomberg
— Yasmeen Khan (@yasmeenkhan) April 15, 2013

Image: Pissed Off Teacher

Why the secrecy?  Is the Common Core now so controversial that even its billionaire supporters won’t announce their names?
I would hazard a guess that the funders are either Gates, Broad, Murdoch, Merryl Tisch or David Coleman himself.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised; the DOE and Bloomberg are very eager to go to anonymous billionaires to finance their PR and nakedly political campaigns.

This one most recalls the infamous “Keep it Going” subway and bus ads in 2007- 2008, when Bloomberg was pushing to renew mayoral control and was preparing to run for a third term.  These so-called non-political ads were sponsored by the Fund for Public Schools, and cost at least $270,000; later revealed to be paid by Broad.

I speculated in 2008 that Gates/Broad were also probably the donors to the anonymously funded Education Equity Project, otherwise known as the Joel Klein/Al Sharpton snake oil sideshow. The DOE press secretary, David Cantor, wrote to our NYC ed list serv “No Gates or Broad money is going to this initiative. Zero.” 

I corrected this on the blog, but it was later revealed that Broad, Gates and Bloomberg himself had indeed financed that effort.  Earlier, Juan Gonzalez had explained how an initial $500,000 contribution from Harold Levy's hedge fund to the organization served as Al Sharpton's stay out of jail card. 

Learn NY, the astroturf organization Bloomberg formed to lobby for retaining mayoral control, that used to leave anonymous remarks on our blog, also refused to disclose its funders, until it  came out much later that Broad and Gates had given millions to it.  

Interesting how shy billionaires are stepping forward to admit financing these campaigns, but not at all reserved when it comes to imposing damaging policies on our schools.