Last year I published The Barr Foundation-Hostetter Political Team to set out non-profit advocacy spending by the foundation of Boston billionaire Amos Hostetter through 2020, then the most recent data available. Today I’m updating that with donations through 2021 and the addition of some additional advocacy groups. And no, uh-uh, fuhgeddabouditt, no way will you ever see any of this in the Boston Globe.
Skip down to the table if you like, I need to do some preliminaries, first from last year’s post:
First, a little political science. In Following the Money: How Foundation Dollars Change Public Schools, Sarah Reckhow argues that major funders (e.g., Gates, Broad, Waltons) have two expectations before committing dollars to a locale: 1. Strong mayoral or state control (hello, receivership vs. elected school committee); and 2. “a strong local nonprofit advocacy sector and a sizable pool of highly educated individuals.”[1] Or she asks “Why Boston but not Detroit?” The need is greater in Detroit but Boston has centralized power in the mayor’s office with no elected school committee, and a deep pocketed philanthropic sector.
Second, research by Tufts’ Jeffrey M. Berry and Duke’s Kristen A. Goff shows that in certain circumstances foundations and wealthy donors act as interest groups. They are investing with nonprofit advocacy organizations “seeking to influence politics and the policy process.”[2] That’s what the Waltons and Barr are doing; they’re interest groups.
This year I added a few advocacy groups because the Globe identified them (but not their funders) in an editorial polishing up something called Voices for Academic Equity. I wrote about it in Boston Globe and Corporate Elites Prop Up Their MCAS and in More on Walton and Barr Stakes in Voices for Academic Equity. The Walton Political Team in Massachusetts and Barr are the largest funders of the “coalition” that calls itself Voices for Academic Equity.
Also read last year’s The Barr Foundation-Hostetter Political Team for the large sums Barr spent on polling with Gallup and MassInc Polling Group. And a final reminder: in 2017 the Office of Campaign and Political Finance revealed that $2,000,000 in dark money to support the 2016 charter school ballot question had come from Hostetter.
And now for the embarrassingly out-of-date (but latest available) information on Barr-Hostetter political spending from 2017-2021.
| Donee | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | Total |
| Education Reform Now, Inc. | 0 | 0 | $125,000 | $150,000 | $115,000 | $390,000 |
| Educators for Excellence | $175,000 | $200,000 | $250,000 | $250,000 | $250,000 | $1,125,000 |
| Latinos for Education | – | $100,000 | $100,000 | $300,000 | $450,000 | $950,000 |
| Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education | $100,000 | $100,000 | $90,000 | $350,000 | $150,000 | $790,000 |
|
Massachusetts Charter Public School Association, Inc.
|
$200,000 | $350,000 | $325,000 | $325,000 | $330,000 | $1,530,000 |
|
Massachusetts Institute for a New Commonwealth, Inc.
|
0 | $90,000 | 0 | $380,000 | 0 | $470,000 |
|
Massachusetts Parents United
|
0 | 0 | $100,000 | $420,000 | $200,000 | $720,000 |
| Teach for America (MA) | $100,000 | $100,000 | $200,000 | $500,000 | $250,000 | $1,150,000 |
| Teach Plus | 0 | 0 | $250,000 | $250,000 | 0 | $500,000 |
| Teachers Lounge | – | – | – | – | $210,000 | $210,000 |
| Boston Schools Fund | 0 | 0 | 0 | $650,000 | $650,000 | $1,300,000 |
| The Education Trust Massachusetts | 0 | 0 | $250,000 | $550,000 | $350,000 | $1,150,000 |
| $575,000 | $940,000 | $1,690,000 | $4,125,000 | $2,955,000 | $10,285,000 |
In 2019 Barr and the Boston Globe announced a two-year $600,000 grant from Barr to the Globe to support its coverage of education. I wrote about it in The Boston Globe-Barr Foundation Marriage and the Rise of Philanthro-Interst Group Journalism. In 2021 Barr gave the Globe another $400,000 for “Education: To Continue to Support ‘The Great Divide.’” I do not know whether that support continued into 2022 or into the present (but if you do, let me know and I’ll update this post). In January of this year the newspaper announced “The Boston Globe has received a $750,000 grant from The Barr Foundation to launch an ambitious initiative to deepen the paper’s coverage of the racial wealth gap in Greater Boston and how to address it.”
To the best of my knowledge the Globe only occasionally includes a disclaimer in its education coverage of the Barr donation to its Great Divide coverage. For instance in an August 2, 2023 story Massachusetts teachers union activists to pursue ballot question to end MCAS graduation requirement the Globe cites opposition from Democrats for Education Reform (in essence Education Reform Now, Inc) and Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education without disclosing that Barr also underwrites those organizations.
This is Part II of Banned in Boston (Globe). The first concerns the lack of coverage of the school privatization lobby’s major out-of-state donors, the Walton family from the Boston suburb of Arkansas. You can read Banned in Boston (Globe): the Walton Family’s 2021 Political Team here.
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 a (now retired) educator in the UMass system, I am a union member. I write about dark money, democracy, and oligarchy. My book, Dark Money and the Politics of School Privatization, is now in print.]
A reminder that the CEO and founder of Latinos for Education, Amanda Fernández, served on the board of MA DESE for nearly five years. Fernández’ qualifications?
Teach For America, Pahara Institute, and seven years at Deloitte.
The infiltration is deep.
Mo, is it possible that the funding is influencing the education coverage or maybe the Globe coverage has always had a slant and the funding is a reward?
My understanding from reading scholarship on philanthropic giving is that foundations tend to seek out organizations that are in alignment with the goals and values of the foundation. On its Our Grant Making Process–Building on Existing Relationships page Barr states “Barr places great value in long-term collaboration with those who share our aspirations and have demonstrated impact.” That is consistent with what researchers on philanthropy have found. And when those goals and values diverge, the foundation may cease support. So in the case of the Globe it would be more realistic to say we are getting more of the kind of coverage the Globe does and Barr prefers.
To take this in a different direction, when a compatible organization does not exist a foundation might invent one itself, as the Walton Family Foundation did with Massachusetts Parents United and National Parents Union.
One more thing, from Page, Seawright, and Lacombe, Billionaires and Stealth Politics, who were writing about billionaires who fund liberal social causes. “Since billionaires (even pro-Democratic billionaires) tend to be economically conservative , they are much less likely to ride to the rescue of ordinary Americans who want help with jobs, wages,health care, public schools, or retirement pensions.” So when the Globe editorial page recently described itself as “proudly liberal” I was very lucky not to be swallowing my morning coffee.