Here’s a small exercise I thought of in light of today’s James Vaznis story in the Boston Globe concerning what to do about the Boston public schools. I tried to rank the responses of those interviewed from left (status quo, send more money) to right (state takeover). Out there on the right fringe is the…
Category: education
Power Outage: Right Wing Attacks on Black and Latinx Political Power in Massachusetts
Yesterday’s post on the Boston Globe’s suggestion of a future state takeover of the Boston Public Schools discussed Domingo Morel’s Takeover: Race, Education, and American Democracy. Morel’s research shows that state takeovers of school districts usually (not always) bring about the political dis-empowerment of communities of color. Unfortunately we’ve seen several attempts to restrict representation…
The Racial Politics of the Globe’s Proposal for a State Takeover of the Boston Public Schools
On Friday the Boston Globe editorialized in favor of a possible state takeover of the Boston Public Schools, pointing out city-state political obstacles. It isn’t city-state politics at issue though. It’s racial politics. In Takeover: Race, Education, and American Democracy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018), Domingo Morel finds that state takeovers of public school…
National Parents Union, the Anti-union Union
The National Parents Union front for the Walton family’s dive into the Democratic Party’s primaries decided to adopt the name union, though it is not only not a union but is virulently anti-union—a posture that surely satisfies the WalMart heirs. A union is “An organization of workers, formed for the purpose of negotiating with employers…
Education Funding and the Wal-Mart/State Street Axis
As House and Senate members work out their differences on the education funding bill my thoughts are drawn back to Pioneer Institute Introduces the Beamer vs. Beater Theory of Democracy. That concerned a proposal by Pioneer to keep poor and minority communities from having the same say in their schools as wealthier and whiter communities….
The Waltons and the Politics of Education Funding
The three interest groups pushing to undermine the Massachusetts senate’s education funding bill are all Walton funded, two of them essentially full-time agents of the Waltons. They have to solve a problem for the right-wing Wal-Mart heirs: not that funding public education might fail, but that it will succeed. The Waltons, who contributed over $2…
Headline: Arkansas Billionaires Fight to Change Massachusetts Education Policy
“Arkansas Billionaires Fight to Change Massachusetts Education Policy.” Interesting headline, and true. No Walton family of Arkansas, no Massachusetts Parents United. No Walton family of Arkansas, no Democrats for Education Reform of Massachusetts. It’s that simple. But the Boston Globe and MassLive, among others, simply ignore that fact. It’s the politics of pretending. Readers deserve…
Stand Falls: Public School Privatization Front Stand for Children Abandons Massachusetts
In 2011 Stand for Children CEO Jonah Edelman boasted to the Aspen Ideas Festival of a legislative win over unions in Chicago, crowing that Stand had been able to “jam this proposal down their throats.” He won’t be invited back to brag on Boston. Last Friday Edelman announced that Stand for Children would abandon Massachusetts….
Answering that DFER Candidate Questionnaire: Are You for Dark Money, or Are You for Democracy?
Municipal candidates are busy filling out questionnaires from interest groups including one from Democrats for Education Reform Massachusetts. I can help with that one because there’s only one real question: do you stand for dark money in politics, or will you fight for democracy? Dark money is vast sums poured into a front organization from…
Masslive Misfires on Editorial on Massachusetts Parents United of Arkansas
Back on June 10 Masslive.com ran an editorial titled Meet the Newest Education Union: Parents which turned out not to be about education or unions at all but about the WalMart-heir front Massachusetts Parents United of Arkansas. Helpful as always I sent an op-ed to Masslive setting the record straight but they paid no attention….