Times are a changing in the school choice and public school privatization debate and controversies. After years of expensive lobbying and political campaign contributions by the corporate Cartel of education reformers, schemes designed to use public dollars for private-sector profit and personal benefit had become grudgingly tolerated in many quarters of the educational and national community.

Publicly-funded, private school vouchers, corporate charter schools, educational savings accounts, corporate-run achievement/innovation school districts, and other mechanisms used to dismantle public education have been created in the majority of states throughout the nation.

However, as the adverse fiscal, social, professional, and academic impacts of these initiatives began to take their toll—leading to teacher strikes in both conservative and liberal states—the attitudes toward these so-called educational improvement initiatives have become increasingly negative. In addition, the sloppy and illegal implementation of these plans is resulting in the disavowals of a growing number of participants in these efforts and their willingness to snitch on their benefactors.

These individuals are flipping state evidence on their co-conspirators as they are becoming laser-focused on escaping bad publicity and/or incarceration. Thus, the well-financed school choice machine is slowly beginning to unravel.

As discussed in an earlier column, former Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) board president, Michael Bonds, was indicted for bribery in April by the federal government. His crime was taking kickbacks for his votes on the MPS charter school contracts of a Philadelphia-based charter school operator, Kenny Gamble, CEO of Universal Companies. Bonds pleaded guilty to two counts, and last Monday, he was convicted of bribery and faces a 10 year prison term and a $500,000 fine at his September scheduled sentencing.

But in an effort to reduce and/or eliminate any jail time and a fine, Bonds like President Trump’s former National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn, is cooperating with the federal prosecutors to save himself. At 60 years of age and having never been imprisoned, he has no interest in doing time this late in his life. Under the guidance of Frankly Gimbel, Milwaukee’s foremost criminal defense attorney, who has helped hundreds of white collar criminals avoid going to jail, Bonds is singing like a pop star.

Inside sources indicate that former MPS superintendent, Dr. Gregory Thornton, who introduced Bonds to Gamble, is one of several persons of interest to the feds since Thornton and Gamble have had a long-term relationship in negotiating charter school contracts in Milwaukee and the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area.

But even more interesting is the emergence of the names of local African American clergy leaders, entrepreneurs, and hustlers who Bonds aided in getting and keeping charter and partnership school contracts, despite their abysmal performance, during his reign as MPS school board president. In that capacity, he was able to bend the rules for failing charter schools and prevent them from being closed down.

The burning questions are: Who will Bonds rat out? Will he predicate his ‘snitching’ on the size of any gifts, if any? Will he implicate MPS central office staff who monitored charter schools? Will he agree to testify against any others indicted in this charter school fraud investigation?

Elsewhere in the emerging school choice controversy, 2020 Democratic presidential candidates are also on the hot seat (or will be) based on their flirtations and outright advocacy of school choice as noted in previous columns. The key issues for the Democratic constituency in the upcoming election are: larger paychecks, support for public education, health care, and honest government. Public school teachers, through their on-the-ground work stoppages and legislative activism, have placed K-12 education on the front political burner.

Their struggles in this regard have encouraged print and broadcast media journalists to dig into the political history of the candidates and to interrogate them about their positions. Last Sunday on ABC This Week, Sen. Cory Booker was confronted over his past (and present?) support of school choice and his work with Education Secretary Betsy DeVos when she headed the school choice oriented American Federation for Children. Booker did not answer the questions but said he wanted a good education for all children.

His public school privatization involvements have already kept him low in the polls. Booker will be unable to get away with this avoidance as his campaign progresses. He has also minimized his association with DeVos and has denied their previous close working association. Booker quietly ‘snitched’ to his Democratic Senate colleagues about her during her confirmation hearings to enhance his public education bonafides.

The other top candidates, Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris (to a lesser degree), Pete Buttigieg, and former Congressman Beto O’Rourke (who with his wife, Amy) has been a big supporter of expanding charter schools in the El Paso, Texas region. They will have to answer for their past sins against public education. Nearly all of them have embraced charter schools during their political careers that have caused a disinvestment in public schools and have been the root cause of recent teacher walkouts.

Unless lightning strikes (and it could), the Democratic presidential nominee will emerge from one of the seven candidates named above. Their rankings in the polls will ebb and flow during the next year, but it is unlikely that any of the other fourteen candidates will rise above this group. And public education will be a major determinant as to which of them will prevail.

Finally, as the ongoing corruption in the school choice movement continues to be publicly exposed, 2020 Democratic candidates will be under further pressure to separate themselves and their campaigns from the school choice debacle.