Daniel S. Katz, a professor of education at Seton Hall University, explains on his blog how to recognize a phony education reform group.
The key is, as always, follow the money. If the group is funded by the Gates Foundation, the Broad Foundation, the Walton Foundation, the John Arnold Foundation, or the Helmsley Foundation (among others), you can bet there are no grassroots. If they not only have said funding but an expensive location and grow rapidly, and if they advocate for charter schools and test-based evaluation of teachers, there are no grassroots, only faux reform roots that are part of the movement to privatize public education. The “reform” movement likes to pretend that it has a broad base so it funds numerous “front” groups. We have not seen so many front groups since the 1930s. Today, as then, they represent no community, no one but the funders and the elites and those with a hidden but anti-democratic agenda.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“Gatestroturf”
Grass roots or glass roots?
Gateways or Gates?
Protests or pro tests?
Franchise or fate?
Can any group be “grassroots” if it receives outside funding? Or is the issue who provides the outside funding?
I’m not sure the term “grassroots” has much meaning. Sierra and our local Coastal Conservation League receive outside, even corporate money. I don’t think that’s a problem.
Finding front groups for foundations and other agencies that are hostile to public education is useful. A good place to start is with the USDE website and the publications of The Reform Support Network, created to propagate the agenda for teacher evaluation in RttT to every state, including pay-for-performance and offering “a solution” to evaluating the estimated 70% of teachers who have job assignments for which there are not statewide tests.
That “solution” is the infamous SLO (student learning objectives) process now required in at least 26 states (most recently Maryland), with not even a smidgen of research to support it as reliable, valid, a means of improving student learning in the subjects for which it is supposed to be most relevant.
The policies of Race to the Top (RttT) are so in-credible that USDE hired marketing experts to sell them via a grant of $43 million. The marketing is directed toward the “winners” of the competition and for “scaling” the agenda to every state.
Of special interest, this “Reform Support Network” issues publications to state and district officials on “messaging strategies” that are needed to secure the compliance of teachers with high stakes evaluations based on the SLO process and increasingly ties to pay-for-performance.
One of the “messaging strategies” (there are at least 40 in multiple publications) is to enlist “teacher swat teams” who are paid in time or money to deliver the message that this new system will improve student learning (no proof, of course).
Another method is to by-pass unions where these exist and function to protect teachers due process. The by-pass, promoted in USDE’s publications, is to enlist is so-called “teacher voice groups” as advocates for the rating systems needed in pay-for-performance plans.
A “teacher voice group” is the Reform Support Network’s name for a non-union advocacy collective funded by private foundations favoring pay-for-performance. Five voice groups are mentioned by name. All have received major funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation: Teach Plus ($9.5 million), Center for Teacher Quality ($6.3 million), Hope Street Group ($4.7 million), Educators for Excellence ($3.9 million), and Teachers United ($942, 000). Other foundations are supporting these groups. For example, Teach Plus receives “partner” grants from eight other foundations including the Broad, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Joyce and several major investment firms.
See the propaganda for yourself, including one of the latest updates.
Reform Support Network (2012, December). Engaging educators: A reform support network guide for states and districts. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved from www2.ed.gov/about/inits/ed/implementation-support-unit/tech-assist/engaging-educators.pdf
Reform Support Network (2014, May). A toolkit for implementing high quality student learning objectives 2.0. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved from http://www2.ed.gov/about/inits/ed/implementationsupportunit/techassist/resources.html
Foundation for Newark’s Future, the group created after Zuckerberg’s gift to Newark Public Schools, has leaders with interesting backgrounds. President/CEO Kimberly McLain was VP Newark Charter Schools Fund; national staff TFA; worked for Credit Suisse & KPMG. Program Officer Kevin Callaghan taught for TFA.
In 2011 their former CEO Greg Taylor was earning $382,000 (per NY Times Nov 1, 2011 article online). That’s more than twice the NJ salary cap for school superintendents.
Here’s praise for the Minnesota state wide teacher’s union, and for Educators for Excellence, which is one of the group’s Dr. Katz criticizes:
http://hometownsource.com/2014/08/14/joe-nathan-column-5-to-1-return-on-taxpayer-dollars-is-encouraging-news/
I’ve met a number of the members of the Minnesota E4E group. They are real live public school teachers. My understanding is that Dr. Katz has not been a public school teacher.
He has every right to criticize anyone he wants. But I think the Minnesota E4E group is doing some good work. I also think Minnesota’s statewide teacher’s union is doing some good work.