National Parents Union is tweeting out its participation in a South by Southwest panel and this caught my eye: “The heart of advocacy is the belief that those closest to problems should have the biggest stake in solving them. Vote to put @PIENetwork leaders @EvanRStone @MMartinCadogan @radiokeri & Emma Bloomberg on stage at #SXSWEDU.”
Boy Scout helpful as I always am I thought I’d show how “close to the problem” these folks are. (All information from Form 990 tax filings)
@radiokeri is Keri Rodrigues. In 2022 she paid herself and NPU’s chief operating officer Tim Langan, who happens to be her husband, $661,775:
@EvanRStone is Evan Stone, a former Teach for America teacher and Co-CEO of Educators for Excellence, a faux teachers operation. In 2022 he paid himself $261,399:
@MMartinCadogan is Maya Martin Cadogan, founder and executive director of PAVE. In 2020 she paid herself $245,740:
It will surprise no one that these three organizations are bought and paid for by the foundation of America’s wealthiest (and virulently anti-union family) the Waltons.
Emma Bloomberg is the daughter of billionaire Michael Bloomberg.
But I’m curious. What exactly are the “problems” these four seek to solve? Tax planning for high-income individuals?
“One thing big money typically lacks is credibility, which is why those who deploy it work so hard to cover their tracks.”—Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson
[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 in print.]