If there was ever any doubt of the importance of the defeat of the charter school ballot question in 2016, Scot Lehigh’s frozen-in-time A Time for Real Education Change column in the Boston Globe today reminds us of its importance: a 62-38% shellacking of the billionaire backers of Question 2 by teachers unions. But the…
Could “New England’s Civic Mythology” Become Reality in Post-COVID MA?
Today’s Boston Globe editorial was about how the use of creative ways to hold public meetings during the pandemic expanded opportunities for the public to participate in local governance in the Bay State. The Globe editors, who want these methods to become permanent, write: “In New England’s civic mythology, public meetings are allegedly the building…
Three Women and a Website? Keri Rodrigues Will Have to Do Better Than That
It’s important to the billionaire-backed front National Parents Union to offer the facade of progressivism so what happens when one of NPU president Keri Rodrigues’s closest friends, Erika Sanzi, helps launch an overtly racist operation in the school privatization universe? Duck and cover is what happens. Let’s take a look at a Twitter exchange between…
Your Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance Reader
Recently the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance’s non-profit lawyer the Koch-funded ($1 million per year) New Civil Liberties Alliance announced it would appeal a Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision against MassFiscal’s allies. The decision upheld Governor Baker’s emergency public health powers during the Covid pandemic. NCLA not only lost the case 6-0 but got laughed out of…
Ten Questions for National Parents Union
The Koch-Walton backed National Parents Union is experiencing turmoil at the top and severe mismanagement with two boards of directors featuring revolving directors and a disappeared co-founder. The organization is holding a convening on May 15 and its members (if there are any) should demand some answers. Here are questions they should be asking 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!…
Recall Elections and Asymmetric Polarization
The Globe’s resident rightwing columnist, Jeff Jacoby, has provided another example of a very tired genre of political commentary in his latest work. Seizing on the present effort to recall California’s Democratic governor, Jacoby is flogging liberals for equating this direct democracy gift of early 20th century progressives with an “attack on democracy.” As usual,…
Your Massachusetts Parents United Reader
This happened April 29. Boston Globe Education published a piece quoting Keri Rodrigues, president of the Walton backed AstroTurf front Massachusetts Parents United. A friend messaged me asking of the Globe “How are they so bad at this?” And my response was the Globe isn’t bad at this: it’s intentional. But just in case the…
Why Don’t the Waltons Like Massachusetts Charter School Students?
Don’t ask me, I don’t know why the Walton family doesn’t like Massachusetts charter school students. Sometimes we hear “we measure what we care about” and the money trail shows that what the Waltons care about is not kids but their political fronts like Massachusetts Parents United. The Waltons pour money into political operations to…
Koch Connections and Sham Grassroots of Parents Defending Education
Parents Defending Education is corporate school privatizers going hard right to attack school boards, superintendents, principals, and teachers. It’s a dirty game and it’s about as grassroots as say, a Koch political operation. Mercedes Schneider has figured out the grassroots angle in Parents Defending Education: Prefab “Grassroots”—PDE needs local connections to claim standing in law…