New Candidate for School Board District 5

[Bob Hudson]

Meet Andrew

Candidate's Statement

"I am running for Walton County School Board to give students, parents, taxpayers and teachers a stronger voice. Walton County has some of Florida’s best public schools. Together, we can make sure that our schools continue to improve, so that all children in Walton County have access to the best possible education. And we can do this while respecting the wallets of taxpayers. For more than a decade, I’ve worked to promote education reform in Florida and across the country. I have the experience and energy to be a thoughtful and effective member of our school board. Northwest Florida is my home, and I look forward to working with you to ensure a brighter future for students and taxpayers in our community. I hope you will trust me with your vote and your support." - Andrew R. Campanella

ANDREW'S CONTACT INFORMATION:
Andrew Campanella for School Board - District 5 PO Box 9266 Miramar Beach, FL 32550

andrew@electandrew.com

Online:

www.electandrew.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/ac4sb Twitter: www.twitter.com/electandrew

Phone: 850-533-6686

ANDREW'S BIO:

Andrew Campanella is a champion for improving educational opportunities for children in Florida and throughout the country. Andrew currently leads a national public awareness effort that spotlights effective K-12 education options for children. In this role, he works with hundreds of organizations and thousands of schools across America. Previously, Andrew served as a senior advisor for one of the nation’s leading education reform advocacy organizations, the American Federation for Children. In addition, he worked as the senior director of teacher recruitment at the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence, where he helped recruit thousands of teachers for public schools in Florida and across the country. Andrew also owned a successful small business. His public outreach firm focused on education issues, and provided advice to organizations including the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools and The Center for Education Reform. Andrew holds a bachelor’s degree from American University. He is proud to call Miramar Beach his home.

ANDREW'S TOP PRIORITIES:

Andrew will work in a collaborative, productive way to give students, parents, taxpayers and teachers in Walton County a stronger voice.

As a member of the school board, Andrew will:

---> Respect taxpayers. Work to pass a conservative, fiscally responsible budget that puts students and teachers first, without raising taxes.

---> Plan for smart growth. Bring parents and taxpayers together to plan for the future when building new schools in our communities.

---> Promote student achievement. Give parents and teachers more of a say in the selection of curriculum, textbooks, and instructional materials.

---> Reward great teachers. Work to increase pay for Walton County's excellent teachers, without raising taxes.

---> Support school choice. Serve as a resource for families who want to exercise their school choice rights.

 

[Misty]

At the risk of being removed from this board for saying to much...I'd invite everyone to do their own research on the organizations this guy is affiliated with and VOTE NO!

[FONT=Lucida Grande, Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]Eradicating public schools in the United States is not the answer to Walton Counties woes.[/FONT]

 

[Jim Tucker]

At the risk of being removed from this board for saying to much...I'd invite everyone to do their own research on the organizations this guy is affiliated with and VOTE NO!

Eradicating public schools in the United States is not the answer to Walton Counties woes.

You might get removed for broad swipes. Why don't you just tell us what you think and why you think it? Is there something not on his website that we need to know?

Throughout Andrew's career, he has worked to promote quality educational choices for families. Andrew strongly believes that every child has God-given potential, that parents know their children best, and that parents should have more power over where their children go to school.


Supporting school choice and supporting quality public schools goes hand-in-hand, especially since Walton County has some of the highest-performing public schools in the state.


Still, “one size doesn’t fit all,” and Andrew will work to inform parents about the many options they have in our state – including school choice within our district, our public charter schools, the Step Up For Students scholarship program for private schools, the McKay Scholarship for Students with Disabilities, Florida Virtual Academy, and other options.
Andrew believes that being a school board member isn’t just about ensure that our public schools are the best they can be...but about helping to create an environment where parents are empowered, students and teachers have options, and every family has opportunity.

Is it because he is part of http://www.federationforchildren.org/mission?

What We Do


The American Federation for Children focuses its time and resources on supporting state-level efforts to provide low-income and middle class families with access to great schools through publicly-funded private school choice. We also work strategically with school choice allies in the charter school community. The family of school choice includes school vouchers, scholarship tax credit programs, public charter schools, virtual charter schools, home schools, and meaningful public school choice.


We advocate at the grassroots and grasstops levels, and directly to legislators in favor of a wide range of school choice initiatives. We also fight against bills and regulatory changes that would hurt existing school choice programs.

Misty are you part of the system and feel threatened by someone who wants change? I don't know enough about the issues so please inform me.

 

[Matt J]

School Choice is code for school privatization. It's the corporatization of public schools and it's wrong on many many levels.

 

[Misty]

Through ALEC, corporations, ideologues, and their politician allies voted to spend public tax dollars to subsidize private K-12 education and attack professional teachers and teachers' unions by:

Promoting voucher programs that drain public schools of resources by using taxpayer dollars to subsidize private school profits, and specifying that those schools must remain unregulated. Voucher programs have been pushed in the following ways:

Offering private school vouchers with "universal eligibility" (using taxpayer dollars to subsidize private schools for the rich and others); "means-tested eligibility," (using poverty as the first domino in an effort to privatize public schools); and "universal eligibility with means-tested scholarship." (Here, "scholarship" means using taxpayer dollars to pay private school tuition and/or profits.)

Giving tax credits to parents who send their kids to private schools, (see this bill http://alecexposed.org/w/images/7/79/2D ... xposed.pdf, this bill http://alecexposed.org/w/images/8/84/2D ... xposed.pdf, and this bill) http://alecexposed.org/w/images/9/9a/2C ... xposed.pdf and to corporations that donate to scholarships for private schools.

Creating a scheme to deem public schools "educationally bankrupt" to rationalize giving taxpayer dollars to almost completely unregulated private schools, rather than addressing any problems.

Back-dooring privatization by creating voucher programs to subsidize unregulated, for-profit schools or religious schools for specific subsets of students, such as foster children, or children of military families.

Evading requirements under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) by preying on parents of children with special needs through subsidies for unproven and profit-driven private schools, which are not covered by the IDEA. (See this bill, this bill, and this bill.) Nearly identical bills have been introduced in Wisconsin and other states.

Segregating students with disabilities from non-disabled students by incentivizing the creation of largely unregulated private schools for students with disabilities, and then allowing private schools to refuse children's admission such that the private testing/evaluation scores can be higher than for public schools that must take all students.

Setting up low-income students for failure in college by incentivizing early graduation for the students in need of a complete high school education.
Taking charter school authorization away from local school boards in favor of a statewide advisory committee, that a governor can pack with pro-voucher people.

Promoting climate change denial in education see also.... http://alecexposed.org/w/images/6/63/2F ... xposed.pdf
Certifying individuals with no education background as teachers, a move that would weaken the quality of education, that fails to recognize there is more to teaching than knowledge of a subject, and that would undermine the role and competitiveness of professional teachers. See...http://alecexposed.org/w/images/b/b9/2F ... xposed.pdf

Eliminating tenure for teachers in favor of "performance," allowing districts to fire older teachers in favor of lower-cost young teachers. (Hasn't this been the beef of more than a few members of this board???)

Undermining teacher's unions indirectly through the above bills, and directly through bills like these.... http://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/Bills_A ... _Education

 

[Misty]

The American Federation for Children (AFC) is an organization with roots in Milwaukee that promotes public school privatization through “voucher programs” and charter schools. It shares an address and leadership with its 501(c)(3) partner Alliance for School Choice (ASC).

AFC is chaired by Betsy DeVos, the billionaire wife of Amway heir Dick DeVos (son of Amway founder Richard DeVos) and former chair of the Michigan Republican Party. In recent years, she has funneled tens of millions of dollars into school privatization efforts and other right-wing initiatives.

AFC is an ALEC member and is represented by former Rep. Jensen on the ALEC Education Task Force. Jensen is the former Republican Wisconsin Assembly Speaker convicted in 2005 of three felonies for misuse of his office for political purposes, and banned from the state Capitol for five years (the charges were later reduced on appeal). Jensen is one of AFC’s registered lobbyists in Wisconsin.

Jensen has proposed bills to ALEC on behalf of AFC/ASC that were adopted as “model” legislation. For example, in March 2011, Jensen presented to the ALEC Education Task Force the “Education Savings Account Act,” which creates financial incentives for families to take their children out of the public school system and put them in for-profit primary and secondary schools.

If something sounds to good to be true...it probably is.

 

[Misty]

Children First America is an organization associated with the Children's Educational Opportunity Foundation America. It's mission is to eradicate public schools in the United States.

Board Members:
Betsy DeVos The same Besty DeVos who chairs the AFC
James R. Leininger, M.D.
Brother Bob Smith
John Walton....(AKA Wal Mart)

 

[Misty]

Last but not least, for whatever its worth, Bill Eddins (the State Attorney) has a son also named Bill Eddins running for School Board District 3 (Walton County) who is currently the Principal at Okaloosa Academy (charter school) and was the Principal at Walton Academy (charter school). I do believe this is an attempt by the powers that be to "pack" the board with support in order to push for privatization of the public school system.

Parents should proceed with extreme caution...as I said before, if it sounds to good to be true it probably is!

 

[Jdarg]

http://www.andrewrcamp.com/

http://www.redefinedonline.org/author/acampanella/

http://www.expertclick.com/NRWire/Releasedetails.aspx?id=39670

The googling can go on forever, as he is a professional in this school privatization field. Clearly his interest in this school system is all about this agenda. I was mainly interested in seeing how long he has lived in Walton County (from the article since 2012), since I can't find anyone that knows him personally, from both asking around and looking at Facebook friends. Not having at least ONE mutual friend in this tiny town is very strange. It was like he was dropped out of the sky by the School Voucher/Privatization camp.

 

[Jim Tucker]

http://www.andrewrcamp.com/

http://www.redefinedonline.org/author/acampanella/

http://www.expertclick.com/NRWire/Releasedetails.aspx?id=39670

The googling can go on forever, as he is a professional in this school privatization field. Clearly his interest in this school system is all about this agenda. I was mainly interested in seeing how long he has lived in Walton County (from the article since 2012), since I can't find anyone that knows him personally, from both asking around and looking at Facebook friends. Not having at least ONE mutual friend in this tiny town is very strange. It was like he was dropped out of the sky by the School Voucher/Privatization camp.

Apparently Bob Hudson knows him. Unless he is just doing us a service and posting about candidates. Or instigating this specific discussion about privatization?

Thanks for the info Misty!