Thread by @jonfromcali

A quick 🧵 about the #RobMob, Christian nationalists’ real goals for our kids’ education, & our community’s mistaken interpretation of the scandal surrounding city council member Kevin McNamee’s push for “learning centers” in new housing developments. /1

I just lowered myself into the pit of toxic vapidity that is the “Liberty Station” podcast, where #RobMob’ers @Bryceeddy1 & Steve Schneider bitched & moaned about being called out for their transphobia & the wedge of bigoted fear they’re trying to drive through our community. 2/

It was all rather uninteresting—except for one statement Eddy made while bashing public schools and most teachers. I’m not gonna help the #RobMob by linking to the podcast. But if you find it online & go to the 42-minute mark, you’ll hear Eddy say this about “great” teachers: 3/

“We need to…teach them to be entrepreneurs. Because there are opportunities coming, as these schools continue to fail, where those teachers can go out and start their own teaching businesses. And I do believe that’s going to be a big wave of the future.” 4/

That comment explains the end goal of their trans bashing (& “CRT” BS & other controversies): The right wing wants to end America’s commitment to public education, & replace it with a menu of private (including religious) options funded with public $$$. 5/newrepublic.com/amp/article/16…

We’ve heard this before locally, in Mike Dunn’s diatribe about having public $ “follow the child”during that “Alternatives to Public Education” forum at Godspeak in 2019–you know, the one where Sandee Everett railed about trans identity being “a theory” & “feelings.” 6/

{gratuitous reminder of one student’s viral, now-legendary response to Everett’s nonsense} /7

cdn.jwplayer.com/previews/3xtId…

This week AZ Republicans made their state the first to implement the far right’s Ultimate Opt Out. (Considering the Constitution-allergic extremism of the current SCOTUS, this probably will result in the death of America’s model of public schooling.) /8
salon.com/2022/07/01/sch…

Note the list of alternatives for which public funds in AZ can now be spent. /9

Tutoring, “microschools,” religious schools…it all sounds like Bryce Eddy’s wet dream. And exactly like what Kevin McNamee seemed to envision when he tied supposedly “failing” (they’re not) CVUSD schools to learning centers he coerced developers to include in 2 new projects. /10

Public reaction to McNamee’s corrupt manipulation of city council’s development-approval process has coalesced around potential conflicts of interest with a flailing tutoring business he has tried, & failed, to get off the ground in recent years. /11 toacorn.com/articles/counc…

It’s entirely possible McNamee saw $$$ for himself in this scheme. But his anti-CVUSD tirade, his vision for “learning centers” in every new development, & his hope to make them all publicly accessible suggest there’s far more going on here.

{CW: exceedingly creepy photo} /12

Why else would #RobMob’er Shannae Anderson have offered clearly coordinated comments during that 6/14 council meeting, linking support for a “tutoring center” to CVUSD supposedly “drifting away” from the 3 R’s (it’s not) in favor of a “hyper focus on gender & sexuality”? /13

Why would fellow #RobMob’er (& council wannabe) Halla Maher have followed up at the 6/28 meeting with her own coordinated (if stumbling) comment fawning over these tutoring centers? Presumably Shannae & Halla have no financial stake in Kev’s tutoring biz. /14

Are McNamee & the #RobMob abusing the city’s approval process to coerce developers into building a network of “learning centers” that, if they become publicly accessible as McNamee wants, could host the public-school alternatives advocated by Dunn & Eddy & legislated in AZ? /15

Is this the moment to remind everyone that Rob McCoy is featured prominently among the “team of experts” listed on the website for the group Public School Exit? A group that advocates “for all parents to immediately protect their children from government schools”? /16

Now that pretty much every far-right candidate pimped by Rob McCoy & Godspeak’s “Free Ventura” PAC has crashed to a humiliating primary defeat, it’s time to focus on the extremist for whom the scam really was created: school board candidate Joelle Mancuso (@cvmamabears). /17

Joelle is the self-styled leader of the #RobMob that has descended on CVUSD board meetings this spring. She clearly plans to use transphobic “parental rights” arguments to win election.

What then? She won’t be able to undo the inclusive state policies the district follows… /18

Most likely she (& other extremists elected with her) will exhume Sandee Everett’s literature ban & strategy of slowly suffocating the district with lies, conspiracy theories & obstruction. This sabotage will result in admins & teachers leaving & the district’s rep swirling. /19

Which is precisely the point, alongside “choice” legislation like AZ’s: to decimate public schooling. At which point, extremists can use tax $$ while teaching their kids no history, civics, lit or science that doesn’t fit their White Nationalist ideology & backward “morals.” /20

Guess who’s deeply involved in WRITING such curricula? Rob McCoy, of course. After creating a template with his nutty, disinformation-heavy “American Legacy” lectures at Godspeak (to which he sought to draw students with flyers he illegally distributed in public schools)… /21

…McCoy is now partnering with his Christian Dominionist meal ticket Charlie Kirk on “Turning Point Academy.” Until recently, Kirk & McCoy (& Eddy, in that podcast with Schneider) claimed they were merely developing curricula for homeschoolers… /22 washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/…

…but it was clear from the gitgo that their White Nationalist take could handily replace curricula in states that ban “CRT” & other woke ideologies—not to mention microschools like those now funded publicly in AZ (which would fit perfectly in McNamee’s learning centers). /23

Well, GUESS WHAT? Just in time for that new AZ law, Kirk announced that Turning Point “has launched a collaboration that will establish a network of private academies across the nation”—beginning with Dream City Christian School in Glendale…AZ. /24

Side note: How far has Newsweek fallen since it was bought by pastor David Jang, leader of the wacky Christian sect called "the Community"? /25
newsweek.com/charlie-kirk-l…

The fact that we can count on the @TOAcornNews & @vcstar to wimp out of covering these ideologically infused issues is maddening. It means most members of our community will never know the shenanigans of Rob McCoy, Kevin McNamee, Joelle Mancuso, etc., or their real goals... /26

…until, potentially, it’s too late. /end, thank goodness