I dragged myself down this rabbit hole by responding to a Globe story titled MCAS ballot question pits Massachusetts Association against business community – again. As a critique I wrote Why Is the Boston Globe’s Sports Coverage So Much Better Than Its K-12 Interest Group Coverage? It’s true. You can regularly see Globe sports reporters and columnists critiquing the Red Sox management’s unwillingness to pay talented players while then reminding readers that John Henry owns both the Red Sox and the Globe!
But the true powers behind AstroTurf “Parents” and “Educators” and “Democrats” operations like National Parents Union, Educators for Excellence, and Democrats for Education Reform? The Globe policy seems to be, take the (highly) paid help at their word!
Here is how MCAS ballot question pits Massachusetts Teachers Association against business community—again reports on National Parents Union president Keri Rodrigues:
Many parents are lining up on the other side. National Parents Union president Keri Rodrigues, a former labor organizer who lives in Woburn, says her group has a presence in 22 cities and towns in Massachusetts and can get its message to more than 250,000 families to vote against the union’s MCAS question.
Former labor organizer? Many parents? Can “get its message” to 250,000 parents to vote against the union’s MCAS question? And just a typical parent?
An analogy would be the sports page writing “former Boston Red Sox Hall of Famer Babe Ruth.” That is completely accurate: Ruth did play for the Red Sox, and he is in the Hall of Fame. But he is in the Hall of Fame for his great playing after the Red Sox traded him to the New York Yankees.
Keri Rodrigues did work for the SEIU from 2008-2014 but not as an organizer. According to her Linkedin page she was a Senior Communications Coordinator. For the past decade she has worked for Democrats for Education Reform, Families for Excellent Schools, Inc., Massachusetts Parents United, and National Parents Union—all anti-union fronts funded by the Walton family of Arkansas and other oligarchic interests.
Where did the claim, accepted by the Globe, that NPU might influence 250,000 parents to vote against MCAS come from? From Rodrigues. The sports page would not report that ‘the Red Sox have acquired veteran right-handed pitcher Mo Cunningham, who should win 20 games in 2024.’ It would report that ‘the Red Sox have acquired aged right-handed pitcher Mo Cunningham, who has never played in a major league game and can’t pitch at all.’
Ms. Rodrigues has an actual record the Globe could report. In 2016 she was statewide director for Families for Excellent Schools, Inc., which backed the charter school ballot campaign. (She has scrubbed FES from her Linkedin page). FES may have been able to “get its message” to parents, but it lost 62%-38%. Subsequently, due to numerous dark money campaign finance violations, the Office of Campaign and Political Finance barred Families for Excellent Schools, Inc. from fundraising or soliciting, and banned it from engaging in any ballot question or other campaign activity in Massachusetts for four years. It’s all right there in the record book!
The Globe sports page, but not the education reporters, routinely report on what the players are making. The sports page reported it when Red Sox ownership would not meet the fair-market salary demands of Mookie Betts. In 2022, the last year for which information is available, Rodrigues paid herself and her husband $661,775. There are your typical parents!
I love sports, but it is the toys and games page. Why do readers get higher quality information there than from hard news coverage?
To paraphrase the great Bob Lobel, why can’t we get reporting like that?
“On the warning track for the ceremony near the Red Sox dugout were Red Sox and Fenway Sports Group principal owner John Henry, chairman Tom Werner, president Mike Gordon, CEO Sam Kennedy, and Henry’s wife and FSG partner, Linda Henry. John Henry owns the Globe; Linda Henry is its CEO.” –Michael Silverman, “In an emotional display at Fenway Park, 2004 champs celebrate their anniversary while honoring those they’ve lost,’ Boston Globe, April 9, 2024.
“When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”—1 Corinthians 13:11.
[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.]