Education Advocacy Group Brings In Bill Cosby To Speak About Improving Education

What year is this?

Bill Cosby was scheduled to visit Alabama on Thursday and Friday, for events aimed at highlighting schools in one of the poorest areas of the state. 

Cosby, whose record of educational philanthropy has been overshadowed in recent months by sexual assault allegations from more than 25 women and two pending lawsuits, will speak in several cities across Alabama’s rural Black Belt, a region named for its fertile black soil but stifled by low income and high unemployment. 

Cosby will speak with high-school students as part of a new campaign by the nonprofit Black Belt Community Foundation to improve education in the south-central part of the state. 

Foundation president Felecia Lucky said Cosby was volunteering his time to bring exposure to schools in the area.

It's like the 25 sexual assault allegations and two pending lawsuits never happened.

I don't understand why any education group would have Cosby speak at one of its events.

Is Bill Cosby Still On The StudentsFirst Board? (UPDATED - 10:40 AM)

StudentsFirst seems to have scrubbed their website a bit.

When I put in a Google search for Bill Cosby + Board of Directors + StudentsFirst, here's what comes up:

StudentsFirst Board of Directors | StudentsFirst.org

https://www.studentsfirst.org/board-directors

StudentsFirst

One of America's most beloved comedians of all time, Bill Cosby has captivated generations of fans with his comedy routines, iconic albums and best-selling ...

And yet, when you click on that link, you don't find the page with the Board of Directors listed or the page with Cosby listed as sitting on the board.

Instead, you just get the StudentsFirst.Org page.

I looked around the StudentsFirst website, including under the "Who We Are" tab.

The Board of Directors page seems to have disappeared from the site.

Now I see plenty of stories about Cosby joining StudentsFirst back in September 2012.

I even see a video of him talking about StudentsFirst and education reform.

But I don't see any stories about him stepping down.

Strange that StudentsFirst.org has lots of information about "Meeting Their Team" - including Michelle Rhee - and learning about their "Mission," but alas, no information about their board.

You'd think they want to publicize information about their board, especially since there are some real luminaries sitting on it, including Roland Martin, Joel Klein, Connie Chung and Bill Cosby.

It's as if something happened recently that made them decide to scrub their Board of Directors page, but rather than own up to it, they did it in the dark and hoped nobody noticed.

Now it's possible I've gotten this all wrong here and I'm just missing the information about the Board of Directors at StudentsFirst and all the wonderful members on it.

It's possible that I'm just missing the information about Cosby and his commitment to education reform and children on the Studentsfirst website.

Or it's possible that Cosby stepped down and I'm missing the notice for that on the World Wide Web.

Though I don't think this is the case - Valerie Strauss has a Washington Post piece dated August 13, 2014 about Michelle Rhee stepping down from StudentsFirst and joining Miracle Gro and Cosby is said to still be a member of the StudentsFirst board as of that date.

So it seems likely Cosby was still a member of the StudentsFirst Board of Directors when the sexual assault allegations against Cosby that have long been in the public domain went viral the past few weeks.

It seems that StudentsFirst wanted to distance themselves from the sexual assault (including statutory rape) allegations against Cosby as quickly and as quietly as they could.

If they did want to distance themselves from Cosby and the growing scandal around him, it's a shame they didn't go public and explain EXACTLY why they wanted to do that.

Berklee College of Music did just that with a scholarship Cosby sponsored at the school.

Alas, it seems the "students first" people at StudentsFirst haven't take that same route.

That's a shame - this could have been a teachable moment for us all, as the "Blame Teachers First" crowd turned on one of their own who looks to be a serial sexual assaulter.

You can bet if this was a teacher alleged to have committed these egregious acts, the StudentsFirst crowd wouldn't have gone quietly.

But they seem to have taken the coward's route out instead and scrubbed him away in the middle of the night.

If I've gotten any of this wrong, I will publicly apologize to StudentsFirst and Michelle Rhee herself  for vilifying them for secretly scrubbing their ties away to a man alleged to have committed at least 18 acts of sexual assault and more coming out every day.

Just let me know, StudentsFirst folks.

Is Bill Cosby still a member of your board or not?

UPDATED - 10:40 AM: Patrick Sullivan left the following comment on the post:

 Looks like they took their board page down. Google has a cached copy as of 10/31 that includes Cosby. This link should bring it up:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:mWnrmFEAN-QJ:https://www.studentsfirst.org/board-directors

It seems Michelle Rhee and StudentsFirst did not have the guts to go public with their cutting Cosby loose.

Too bad, but not unexpected.

After all, Rhee helped sexual misconduct allegations against her husband, Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, go away.

It seems Ms. Rhee and her fellow ed deformers are only looking for accountability against people who are accused of sexual misconduct when they're teachers.

13 Rape Allegations (Including One Statutory) Against Bill Cosby, But Whoopi Goldberg Still Defends Him

From the Daily News:

A shrill, backstage brawl at “The View” Wednesday left co-host Rosie Perez in tears while panelists Whoopi Goldberg and Rosie O’Donnell battled over how to cover the latest allegations against Bill Cosby and the racially charged upheaval in Ferguson, Mo., sources said.

O’Donnell believed the show — now overseen by ABC News — needed to delve deeper into both controversial subjects, while Goldberg wanted to steer clear of the topics altogether.

Ultimately, both news stories were discussed at length on the air by the panel.

“There’s terrible frustration and there are problems,” a source close to the show told the Daily News. “Whoopi didn’t want to talk about Cosby and Ferguson, Rosie (O’Donnell) did — how could you not? These are topics that are uncomfortable for everyone, but it’s ‘The View’ and it’s their job to talk about topics that might make some people tense.”

Whoopi was happy to bash "bad teachers" not once but twice over the summer, claiming teacher tenure protects them.

Yet she defends her pal Cosby - now with 13 public rape allegations against him including one with an underage girl of 15 - by trying to ensure "The View" steers clear of the topic.

This comes after she defended him earlier in the week and attacked one of his accusers, saying she had "lots of questions" for her.

Apparently Whoopi doesn't want to address any of those questions publicly on "The View" anymore.

Another teacher-basher exposed as a hypocrite and a phony.

Hey, Whoopi - if you have such concern for the kids, why not let "The View" cover the Cosby story, including the allegation that your friend Bill Cosby repeatedly had sex with an underage girl?

Good God - the show is supposed to cover the news.

The public implosion of the iconic Bill Cosby into sexual predator and statutory rapist certainly is news.

And like I said in an earlier post - you can bet if this was a teacher accused of these crimes, you'd be one of the first throwing stones.

Awaiting The Campbell Brown Denouncement Of Bill Cosby

Here's where education reformer Campbell Brown denounced the teachers unions for defending 97 teachers or school employees accused of sexual misconduct over a five year period in NYC.

97 teachers and staff accused (not convicted, btw - just accused) is slightly more than 0.001% of the teaching and school staff overall.

Still, Brown says this is a major problem and the system needs major reforms.

She has gone on TV and written about this repeatedly to educate the public about the need for reform.

Meanwhile fellow education reformer Bill Cosby has been accused of raping 16 women over the course of his career.

Every day now a new allegation against Cosby surfaces - there were two just yesterday (including a TMZ story in which an actress alleges Cosby assaulted her in the dressing room of the Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.)

One commenter at Perdido Street School writes:

Where is Campbell Brown when you need her? Oh, she is only interested in alleged teacher predators.

Indeed, here's the silence we have from Brown on Cosby.

Another teacher-basher, Whoopi Goldberg, actually defended Cosby earlier this week, saying that she has many questions for one of Cosby's accusers.

I wonder what teacher bashers like Brown or Goldberg would be saying were there a teacher out there who had 16 allegations of sexual assault lodged against him, with a new one surfacing every day?

I bet silence (in Brown's case) and defense (in Goldberg's case) would not be the response.

Funny how that goes.

Brown's been silent on her another education reformer's alleged sexual misconduct.

Her husband, neo-con Dan Senor, sits on the board of Michelle Rhee's StudentsFirst even though Rhee is alleged to have helped cover up her husband, Kevin Johnson's, sexual misconduct with employees of his charter school.

The hypocrisy of education reformers like Campbell Brown and teacher bashers like Whoopi Goldberg knows no bounds.

It seems any teacher accused of anything is guilty automatically and ought to be fired.

But fellow education reformers and celebrities like Cosby and KJ - they're entitled to a stonewall defense.

Bill Cosby And Kevin Johnson - Brothers In Education Reform AND Sexual Predation

When Diane Ravitch blogged in 2012 that Bill Cosby was joining Michelle Rhee's StudentsFirst board, I left the following comment on her post, comparing Cosby to Rhee's husband, Kevin Johnson:

reality-based educator

September 17, 2012 at 6:13 pm

Actually Bill Cosby was accused of drugging and sexually assaulting a 32 year old woman in 2004. She tried to bring a criminal case against him in 2005, but police declined to file charges. She brought civil charges against him. Her attorneys found 10 other women who also claimed to have been drugged and sexually assaulted by Cosby in the past. Nine were listed anonymously in the court documents, one made the accusations publicly. The court documents are here:

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/crime/bill-cosbys-prior-bad-acts

The LA Times covered the story, including the settlement Cosby reached with the woman, here:

http://articles.latimes.com/2006/nov/09/news/wk-cosby9

Cosby settled the 2005 case for an undisclosed amount, the alleged victim of the assault signed a non-disclosure agreement, so no other details of the case emerged. But People magazine covered the aftermath and interviewed three other women who claimed they had been drugged by Cosby and assaulted. People also reported that Cosby had paid off several women who had made these accusations in the past against Cosby.

http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20059561,00.html

I have two things to say about this:

First, Cosby fits right in with Kevin Johnson, Rhee’s husband, who himself has at least two accusations of sexual misconduct lodged against him (one by a minor.)

Second, how dare anybody with so many accusations leveled against him in the past lecture people about bad behavior, as Cosby has been known to do?

I stand by that comment tonight- both the Cosby part and the KJ part.

Cosby still fits in at StudentsFirst, which was founded by a woman who made sexual misconduct allegations against her boyfriend (now husband) go away.

Cosby lost his Netflix special, NBC canceled a sitcom they were developing with him and TVLand has stopped running The Cosby Show reruns.

While Cosby is free from the criminal justice system since all of the reported acts happened long ago, his career and reputation are in tatters.

His fellow ed deformer Kevin Johnson, however, remains free and clear tonight, still in power as mayor of Sacramento, even though he's got at least two accusations against him for sexual misconduct.

Isn't it time somebody revisits the Michelle Rhee/Kevin Johnson sexual misconduct case and cover-up again?

Hosts On "The View" Give Bill Cosby More Leeway Than "Bad Teachers"

The View in August (via Ed Week):

Goldberg, the host of ABC's "The View," led her co-hosts in a heated discussion on tenure on Monday's and Tuesday's show.

The discussion started during Monday's "hot topics" segment with a mention of one of the two lawsuits challenging New York state's teacher-tenure laws.

"This is for all the teachers in the audience," said Goldberg, suggesting the New York state lawsuit and similar attacks on tenure "will most likely become a big issue in the 2016 presidential elections."
"Now, no one wants a teacher in the classroom who is not a good teacher," Goldberg said.

Regular (and soon departing) co-host Jenny McCarthy cited some of the lawsuit's examples of bad teacher behavior and said: "Who's protecting the students?

Guest co-host Nicolle Wallace, a former communications adviser to President George W. Bush and now a frequent commentator on cable news shows, paraphrased an unspecified op-ed from that morning, saying, "The teachers have a union. The kids don't have a union."

Guest co-host Kayleigh McEnany, another conservative commentator, added some backstage context. "Whoopi, you were sounding a little conservative back in the green room on this one."

Goldberg, the Oscar-winning actress who comes off as liberal on most issues, said: "I'm a thinker. I think about what's best for us. To me, bad teachers don't do anybody any good. So the unions need to recognize that parents are not going to stand for it anymore. And teachers, in your union, you need to say these bad teachers are making us look bad, and we don't want it."

The View this week (via Daily Beast):

In a notably ill-informed (and that’s really saying something) segment on Monday, the ladies of The View took on the resurfacing Cosby allegations with poise, nuance, and sensitivity. Just kidding—they were real big d-bags about it. Whoopi Goldberg led the crusade by boldly saying what absolutely nobody is thinking: “I hope there is justice for this lady, I hope somebody gets to the bottom of this, but I'm going to reserve my judgment because I have a lot of questions.”

The lady who Goldberg is referring to is Barbara Bowman, one of the victims who agreed to testify in the 2006 case. According to Bowman, “Cosby won my trust as a 17-year-old aspiring actress in 1985, brainwashed me into viewing him as a father figure, and then assaulted me multiple times.”

Apparently, despite 30 years of publicly telling her story, Whoopi Goldberg still thinks Bowman has “a lot of questions” to answer to. What those questions are, and why a survivor ought to face an inquisition for sharing her traumatic experience while her alleged rapist pursues his illustrious career in peace for decades, is a question I would like to ask Whoopi Goldberg.

As you can probably guess, Goldberg did not demonstrate a similar distrust towards Cosby himself, instead suggesting that “you say, this is a friend of mine and I don’t know.” While Goldberg was too busy not blaming anyone (except the victim), Rosie Perez dared to reveal the true culprit: the world wide web. She explained, “You know what's crazy for me though, is whether the allegations are true or not, is the fact that the venom that the public has when they go on social media…And if these are true, I hope these women have their day in court and he gets the punishment—but if it's not true, a lot of people have rushed to judgment.”

Because nothing screams “rushing to justice” like decades of not being held accountable for your crimes, followed by another decade of public amnesia post allegations. 

I wonder if a teacher with 16 allegations of rape against him would get a similar defense from Whoopi Goldberg and her View co-hosts?

I'm going to say, uh, probably not.

The next time Whoopi Goldberg says anything about "bad teachers," make sure you confront her on social media about her defense of Cosby.

Because she's full of shit.

In fact, confront her anyway about it.

Here and here.