Dear Mr. Keller,
I noted with interest your interview on WBZ-TV with Keri Rodrigues, whom you described as a “long time Massachusetts activist.” The description does not do her justice. Ms. Rodrigues is a well-compensated communications professional who has worked for a series of interests funded by the Walton family, wealthy Bostonians, and Charles Koch.
By way of introduction, I am a political scientist who studies dark money in school privatization and thus familiar with organizations headed by Ms. Rodrigues including National Parents Union, Massachusetts Parents United, Massachusetts Parent Action, and Families for Excellent Schools Inc. of Massachusetts. I am the author of Dark Money and the Politics of School Privatization.
Ms. Rodrigues employment with Walton backed organizations goes back to November 2014, when she served as Executive Vice President for Strategy and Communications for Democrats for Education Reform in Boston, which is related to Education Reform Now (the Waltons are responsible for about 30 percent of ERN’s donations each year). From there, she became state director of Families for Excellent Schools Inc. (FESI), which was behind the Great Schools Massachusetts ballot committee seeking expansion of charter schools in 2016. After FESI, in December 2016 she became president of Massachusetts Parents United and Massachusetts Parent Action, both Walton operations. In 2019, again with Walton backing, she became president of the National Parents Union. National Parents Union’s largest funder is the Vela Education Fund ($700,000 in 2020), a joint venture of the Waltons and Charles Koch.
As Jeffrey Berry of Tufts has explained, in certain circumstances charitable organizations operate as interest groups. This is such a situation.
The Waltons have put at least $2,216,000 into Massachusetts Parents Union since 2017 (though $400,000 of that, in 2020, was as start-up funds for National Parents Union). That is only about half of MPU’s income though. Much of the rest is supplied by Boston philanthropies such as the Barr Foundation, Boston Foundation, Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston, Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund, Mifflin Fund, etc.
I first became aware of Ms. Rodrigues in 2016 when I was following the dark money awash in the 2016 charter schools ballot initiative in Massachusetts. She was working for the IRS 501(c)(3) Families for Excellent Schools Inc. and I was exposing the millions in dark money flowing through the IRS 501(c)(4) Families for Excellent Schools Advocacy (FESA) into the Great Schools Massachusetts ballot committee. After the 62-38% drubbing GSM received in that contest, the state Office of Campaign and Political Finance investigated and ordered FESA to disclose its true donors, to shut down, and to pay the largest civil forfeiture in OCPF history. It also placed severe restrictions on the political activities of Families for Excellent Schools Inc., which was the largest donor to Families for Excellent Schools Advocacy.
One thing that interests me is what I like to call the “creation story” of privatization fronts. For instance according to a Walton Family Foundation story Ms. Rodrigues professes of Massachusetts Parents United that “I started talking to other parents in my community at coffee shops and libraries and decided we were going to organize.” But the 2016 campaign ended in November, Ms. Rodrigues claims to have started Massachusetts Parents United a month later, and the Waltons poured in several hundred thousand dollars in 2017, mostly through Education Reform Now Inc. (the Walton-funded sister to DFER) as MPU secured its tax status.
National Parents Union has a similar “creation story”: two Latina moms start a National Parents Union (NPU). And then the Waltons jump in with hundreds of thousands of dollars, joined by foundations operating under the bequests of the Gates, Broads, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Schustermans, Michael Dell, Reed Hastings, John Arnold, and the Vela Education Fund. Immediately the two moms hired international communications firm Mercury LLC and top Republican and Walton pollster Echelon Insights. It seems a bit suspicious.
So, in 2020 I examined the “parent” organizations that NPU seemed to be claiming as its members on Twitter (NPU has declined to provide me a member list and has never provided a list of member organizations on its web site). I collected seventy organizations or activists that seemed to be part of an organization. I was able to place 64 organizations into categories and found that many were charter school chains or other privatization organizations. I found only four I could categorize as parent organizations, including MPU and one in Minnesota that had organized at the same time as NPU. I’m not aware of any publicly available evidence that NPU represents parents at all. It represents the Waltons and their billionaire co-investors.
As Ms. Rodrigues’s Linkedin profile indicates, she has a B.S. in communications and that has been her role in professional life. Her career with the Waltons has been lucrative. NPU’s Form 990 tax return for 2020 shows that her reportable compensation from NPU in 2020 was $135,769. Reportable compensation from related organizations was $208,207, and estimated amount of other compensation from the organization and related organizations was $34,322. The related organizations are the Walton-funded Massachusetts Parents United and Massachusetts Parent Action. Total compensation across all related organizations for Ms. Rodrigues in 2020 was $378,298. The Form 990 also disclosed that Ms. Rodrigues and COO Tim Langan are engaged. Mr. Langan’s total compensation across related organizations was $248,479 in 2020. Combined total compensation for the two was $626,777. She has been compensated for State House lobbying by Massachusetts Parent Action. She is a principle of the political consulting firm Estrella Group, LLC.
To describe Ms. Rodrigues as simply an activist is inaccurate. When she speaks, she speaks as an agent of wealthy interests including primarily the Walton family of Arkansas, who have been spending millions to alter Massachusetts education policy going back to 2009, at least. This fact is little understood, and is a story worthy of being told.
Best wishes,
Maurice T. Cunningham
[Full disclosure: as a (now retired) educator in the UMass system, I am a union member. I write about dark money, democracy, and oligarchy.]
