I cannot recommend strongly enough that you read this Shirley Leung piece interviewing historian Nancy MacLean about the malign forces attacking higher education, including the Claudine Gay case. Then listen to the entirety of Ms. Leung’s interview with Professor MacLean at the Globe’s Say More. These are the same folks attacking K-12 over CRT and…
Category: Charles Koch
How to Understand Democrats for Education Reform Using Two Quotes from Democrats for Education Reform
Democrats for Education Reform face-planted again in Tuesday’s Boston municipal election and that got me thinking about how to define DFER in two quotes from DFER itself. Here they are. “We’re essentially bundlers”—Joe Williams, DFER president, 2012. (He went on to be director of the Walton Education Coalition and now is political director of Walton…
Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance Brings Koch’s Circus to Town
Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, the Koch-tied operation, held a press event in Boston with other New England Koch allied fronts and I always wonder what milquetoast description the media that cover MFA will hide behind. How about “fiscal watchdogs” (Boston Herald)? Or this one: “Business-minded, small government groups.” Here’s one I’ve seen often: “right-leaning.” MassFiscal is…
“labor is the superior — greatly the superior — of capital”—Abraham Lincoln
On September 30, 1859 Abraham Lincoln gave a speech in Milwaukee in which he repeated his long held position, that “labor is the superior — greatly the superior — of capital.” Lincoln was responding to an 1858 speech by Senator James Henry Hammond of South Carolina, the “mud sill” speech. Hammond stated that: In all…
School Privatization Week: Your National Parents Union and Massachusetts Parents United Readers
I noticed in the Sunday Globe that Governor Baker has proclaimed this “School Choice Week” and I thought, what better time than School Privatization Week to re-up some of my favorite dark money and the politics of school privatization posts? It’s Saturday, we have a blizzard, so I’ve decided to post Your National Parents Union…
School Privatization Week: Charles Koch Buys into National Parents Union
I noticed in the Sunday Globe that Governor Baker has proclaimed this “School Choice Week” and I thought, what better time than School Privatization Week to re-up some of my favorite dark money and the politics of school privatization posts? Today’s classic is on that notable progressive Charles Koch sinking money into National Parents Union….
Trump’s Lawyer Sues Wellesley for Charles Koch’s Phony “Parent” Group
Tuesday the Boston Globe had a story National conservative group files lawsuit against Wellesley public schools and I thought, I could write a headline that is both more clickable and more dead-on balls accurate than that so here it is: Trump’s Lawyer Sues Wellesley for Charles Koch’s Phony “Parent” Group. Do you like it? The…
Your National Parents Union Reader
The Walton Family’s fantasy of what a union should look like, the National Parents Union, is having its Virtual Convening on May 15, so what better time could there be to look back at a year plus of peeling the onion off of this fake progressive group? By popular demand, Your National Parents Union Reader!…
Radical Right Ramps Up War on School Boards, Superintendents, Principals, and Teachers
The following post first appeared on Diane Ravitch’s Blog, link here. A new professedly “grassroots” group called Parents Defending Education has joined the right wing assault on public education. It combines white supremacy with a vicious plan to launch personal attacks on elected officials, administrators, and teachers. Just another day in corporate education reform. This…
Massachusetts Parents United, National Parents Union, and the Christian Right
Two of the important props of the far right in America are Christian conservatives and economic royalists like the Waltons and Charles Koch. Those ties are becoming evident in school privatization including in financial support the Massachusetts Parents United has offered to a Christian right group and in National Parents Union’s funding from a Koch-Walton…