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Thursday, December 16, 2010

The Frustrated Teacher: DFER: The Real Billionaire Boys Club

The Frustrated Teacher: DFER: The Real Billionaire Boys Club

DFER: The Real Billionaire Boys Club

L to R: David Einhorn, another hedge-funder on DFER’s advisory board, is president of Greenlight Capital, LLC; Board member Whitney Tilson is chief of T2 Partners and Tilson Funds and vice chair of New York’s KIPP Academy Charter Schools; Hedge-fund manager John Petry, a DFER board member, co-founded the Harlem Success Academy Charter School with Eva Moskowitz; DFER advisory board member Joel Greenblatt is a protégé of fallen junk-bond icon Michael Milken; Joe Williams heads Democrats for Education Reform and its sister organization, Education Reform Now.
Who are these people? They don’t sound like Democrats.

If party registration and political donations indicate political allegiance, these DFER deep pockets are blue-blood Democrats. The group’s financial records show board members, advisers and the organization itself contributing heavily to Democratic campaigns as well as to the Democratic National Committee and its Senate and House election committees. However, when it suits their anti-union agenda, DFER leaders are only too happy to cross party lines and endorse Republicans, as DFER’s Whitney Tilson did in