Since I got into following the dark money business with the 2016 school privatization ballot question in Massachusetts, I try to stay up on newly arising organizations that serve as fronts for the plans of billionaires. One such group is the National Parents Union, which is not national, not parents, and not a union. I am guessing it is that post that inspired NPU’s president to accuse me of posting inaccurate info about the organization.
Generally speaking, contacting a university (even by Twitter hashtag) to allege a professor is publishing inaccurate information (even on a blog) is serious business. Or at least it would be if the accuser could articulate where the writing is inaccurate.
So let’s go back to that piece and I’ll explain how I went about writing it. I wondered about the name, National Parents Union? I’d already dealt with it not being a union, but was it national, and was it about parents? Here is how NPU has described itself on its website:
And, after its January founding convention, NPU tweeted out:
The74 is an education news site which, like NPU, has funding from the Waltons, Gates, and the City Fund. It has written about National Parents Union twice. In a January 27, 2020 piece on the launch of NPU it reported that “The parents, guardians and grandparents they invited to found the union represented 100 organizations in 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.” In a May 11, 2020 piece The74 identified the organization as “The National Parents Union launched in January with affiliates in every state, plus Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico.”
I decided to key on the term “parent organizations.” I posited that organizations are far more effective than any individual activists. So I decided I’d try to find out If NPU has parent organizations as members in the fifty states, or at least enough to claim a national profile. The standard for parent organization was simply that an organization had to claim to represent parents.
Unfortunately though, NPU does not list member (my term) organizations on its website. But it did tweet out a number of welcomes to organizations joining NPU, from early January through the end of February. I collected all that seemed to relate to organizations of any kind. For instance:
In all I collected seventy organizations or activists that seemed to be part of an organization. When a tweet went out to an activist and that individual’s Twitter profile identified an organization, I credited that organization. Then using Twitter, websites, Google, and some Form 990 tax returns, I set out to answer two questions. First, could I categorize the organizations in some way? And second, in which states did the organizations primarily reside?
I could place 64 of the 70 organizations into categories.
I found that there are fifteen charter school organizations (like KIPP and Rocketship) and nine charter school trade organizations (Like the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools). That makes 24 of the 64 “parent organizations.” There were another fifteen organizations I categorized as education options/choice, groups which present as helping navigate among different schools but which are designed to funnel students to charter schools. That makes 39 organizations tied in to the charter schools industry.
There are nineteen organizations I identified as “civic” and some I could further identify, for instance civic/Latinx, civic/civil rights, civic/autism, etc. Within the civic groups that could be identified, there were four I identified as civic/parents. The parent groups are Connecticut Parents Union, Minnesota Parents Union, New Jersey Youth Justice Initiative at newjerseyparentscaucus.org, and Massachusetts Parents United.
That’s it, four parent organizations. Most of NPU’s organizations are in the charter school industry.
I was able to locate primary state locations for 53 of the 70 organizations. Most others were multi-state, a few I could not locate. Some states had multiple member organizations, the most coming from California.
Of those I could place in states, there are 22 states represented plus the District of Columbia. Puerto Rico is not included.
After that, Ms. Rodrigues tweeted that there is a member in Puerto Rico. That member did not appear in the tweets I found from January through February and in any case, I am concerned with organizations, not individuals.
I’ll copy a table with the organizations below for those who care to examine.
Here are some objections I can think of to this research. There is no official list of National Parents Union organizational members. It is possible that in trying to follow NPU’s Twitter history I’ve missed some organizations. Perhaps other categories could have been constructed. I have termed these organizations “members” whereas NPU often refers to delegates or parent activists. Maybe NPU hasn’t disclosed its parent organizations. Perhaps NPU has activists in 50 states but they are untethered from any organization.
Nonetheless, I believe this is accurate information. It is the best publicly available accounting of NPU’s claim to be national and to be a parents organization.
Media stories that have identified National Parents Union as having representatives from 50 states include The Washington Examiner, Fox News, and The74. These media and others may wish to ask National Parents Union for additional evidence of its claims.
In response to an inquiry from someone else on twitter regarding my posts, the NPU president responded:
I have written numerous times about National Parents Union and Massachusetts Parents United, another Walton funded operation for which Ms. Rodrigues serves as president. (Parenthetically, I don’t have much interest in speaking but I’d be happy to review documents like grant applications and terms, etc.). While Ms. Rodrigues has occasionally complained of inaccuracies on Twitter, I am unaware of any specific aspect of my research that she has claimed to be inaccurate. I stand by it.
[Full disclosure: as an educator in the UMass system, I am a union member. I write about dark money, not education.]
Below are the organizations I’ve been able to identify. If you think I’ve wrongly characterized any of them or know of any additional member organizations, be in touch.
Organization State Status
| RootED Northwest Arkansas | AK | Education options choice |
| Blackal4edu | AL | education options choice |
| Promise AZ | AZ | political |
| aspire | CA | charter schools |
| Extera Public Schools | CA | charter schools |
| Para Los Niños | CA | charter schools |
| First 5 LA | CA | civic |
| ShePowerGlobal | CA | civic |
| United Parents and Students | CA | civic |
| Watts/Century Latino Organization | CA | civic |
| SW-Riverside NAACP | CA | civic/civil rights |
| Parent Institute for Quality Education | CA | education options choice |
| Parent Revolution | CA | Education options choice |
| La Comadre | CA | education options choice |
| CTEchLA | CA | UKnown |
| Colorado League of Charter Schools | CO | charters/trade |
| Transformeducationow of CO | CO | Education options choice |
| Connecticut Parents Union | CT | civic/parents |
| ConnCAN | CT | education options choice |
| Friendship Public Charter School | DC | charter schools |
| The Latin American Community Center | DE | civic |
| DelawareCAN | DE | education options choice |
| Florida Voices for Choice | FL | charter/trade |
| Hispanic Services Council | FL | civic/service |
| Institute for Quality Education | IN | Education options choice |
| Louisiana Assn of Public Charter Schools | LA | charter/trade |
| Our Voice Nuestra Voz | LA | civic/choice |
| The Education Trust in Louisiana | LA | education options choice |
| Autism Sprinter | MA | civic/autism |
| Massachusetts Parents United | MA | civic/parents |
| Maryland Alliance of Public Charter Schools | MD | charter/trade |
| Reinventing America’s Schools at PPI | MD | UKnown |
| Parent Advocates for Choice in Education | MI | education options choice |
| Minnesota Parents Union | MN | civic/parents |
| Missouri Charter Public School Assn | MO | charter/trade |
| NC School Choice | NC | education options choice |
| Great Oaks Legacy charter School | NJ | charter schools |
| iLearn Schools | NJ | charter schools |
| KIPP NJ | NJ | charter schools |
| North Star Academy | NJ | charter schools |
| Parent Impact (also KIPP NJ) | NJ | charter schools |
| New Jersey Charter Schools Assn | NJ | charters/trade |
| New Jersey Youth Justice Initiative | NJ | civic/parents |
| Opportunity180 | NV | charter schools |
| Dominico American Society | NY | civic/service |
| Ohio Hispanic coalition | OH | civic/Latino |
| AdelanteMujeres | OR | civic/ women |
| Concilio | PA | civic |
| Speakup | PA | civic |
| City Education Partners | TX | charter schools |
| Texas Public Charter Schools Assn. | TX | charters/trade |
| My Child My Voice | TX | civic/education |
| Bryan ISD | TX | ISD |
| Richmond Urban Collective | VA | charter schools |
| KIPP | charter schools | |
| Rocketship Public Schools | charter schools | |
| Uncommon Schools | charter schools | |
| National Alliance for Public Charter Schools | charters/trade | |
| National Coalition for Public School Options | charters/trade | |
| Mom for Free Appropriate Public Education | civic | |
| Surge Institute | civic leadership | |
| Opportunity180 | Education options choice | |
| The Education Trust | education options choice | |
| D.V.S.C. | education options choice | |
| DFER | political | |
| Results in Education (Edu_post) | privatization media | |
| Center for Black Educator Development | teacher diversity | |
| 1in5advocacy | UKnown | |
| Alley Girl | UKnown | |
| Fundamentals of Learning | UKnown | |
| Speakyatruth | UKnown |