If there was ever any doubt of the importance of the defeat of the charter school ballot question in 2016, Scot Lehigh’s frozen-in-time A Time for Real Education Change column in the Boston Globe today reminds us of its importance: a 62-38% shellacking of the billionaire backers of Question 2 by teachers unions. But the billionaire backers never went away. The Waltons of Arkansas and other hidden donors (yes, dark money) have been pouring millions into newly constructed fronts.
Can we agree that the Waltons can hardly ride into town and proclaim ‘We’re the WalMart heirs, and we’re here to help?’ No for that, they need front operations with willing and well paid spokespersons Here are some:
Families for Excellent Schools: state director, Keri Rodrigues
Massachusetts Parents United: president, Keri Rodrigues
National Parents Union: president, Keri Rodrigues
Readers will recall that Families for Excellent schools spent a then state record $25 million in the 2016 election. Research for my book Dark Money and the Politics of School Privatization (forthcoming) shows FES spent at least another $10 million from 2014-2016. FES ran almost entirely on dark money. After the campaign it was investigated by Office of Campaign and Political Finance in the biggest case in agency history. OCPF found FES had violated state law by hiding the true source of its donors—the millions of dollars in dark money. OCPF imposed a state record civil forfeiture, required FEC to disband its state operations, and ordered the disclosure of the dark money donors. After the devastating electoral defeat, OCPF enforcement, and a #MeToo scandal involving the New York based CEO, FES collapsed.
After 2016, the Waltons commissioned a study of what happened. The consultants found that voters responded to the grassroots efforts of teachers from their communities, and not to FES’s advertising campaign. In another study, Professor Kyla Walters found that teachers had credibility as “everyday spokespeople.” So what was needed was an operation that could be sold as at least equally likeable as teachers. Parents.
Massachusetts Parents United: president, Keri Rodrigues . . .
National Parents Union: president, Keri Rodrigues . . .
Parents Defending Education . . . (Ms. Rodrigues’s old podcast partner but that’s another story).
Here’s something that hasn’t been emphasized. Parents did speak in 2016—in favor of the teachers. From a Joan Vennochi column in the Globe:
Actually, charter school backers—at least those who poured $24.2 million into “Great Schools Massachusetts,” the pro-Question 2 campaign—are the ones who didn’t have a personal stake in the outcome. Most of that funding came from out of state, from contributors like former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, Walmart heirs Jim and Alice Walton, and a plethora of euphemistically named nonprofits that aren’t required to identify their donors.
Here’s more from a report done by my UMassBoston colleague Lawrence Blum: “Parents and students did a staggering amount of work” running door-to-door canvassing and phone banks throughout the summer and fall. “Organized Black and Latino parents, sometimes working through already existing groups (such as the NAACP, the Black Educators’ Alliance of Massachusetts, and the Union of Minority Neighborhoods) targeted their particular communities.”
You can read all about Massachusetts Parents United in Your Massachusetts Parents United Reader and all you want about Ms. Rodrigues’ other group, sponsored not only by the Waltons but by famous progressive Charles Koch here in Your National Parents Union Reader. I’ll just add that another source for Mr. Lehigh’s column is Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education. Before 2016, the Waltons had never donated to MBAE. Now, the Waltons give hundreds of thousands per year. You can learn more about the Waltons underwriting Massachusetts fronts in The Waltons 2019 Massachusetts Political Team.
How does one argue that Ms.Rodrigues is just a typical parent—FES, MPU, NPU, $189,000 from Walton operation MPU in 2019, who knows how much from the much better endowed NPU since 2020?
One of the biggest stories in American politics is the hidden forces controlling front groups like Massachusetts Parents United. Unless we understand that, we don’t understand politics. If WalMart tried to take over Market Basket, the story would be well-covered. But the WalMart heirs try to take over Massachusetts public schools, and the mainstream press keeps us in the dark. Why?
Money never sleeps. Follow the money.
In the darkness of secrecy, sinister interest and evil in every shape, have full swing. . . . Publicity is the very soul of justice.”—Jeremy Bentham
[Full disclosure: as an educator in the UMass system, I am a union member. I write about dark money, democracy, and oligarchy.]