A mysterious group called “Families for Excellent Schools” has been f.ooding the airwaves in New York with multimillion dollar ad buys on television, touting the wonders of charter schools and the horror of the “143,000” children trapped in failing schools. The ads show minority children and families, giving the impression that these are the “families for excellent schools.”
In a tour de force of investigative reporting, Mercedes Schneider followed the money. There she is, in Louisiana, stripping away the mask of the millionaires and billionaires pretending to be “families for excellent schools” in New York City. Guess who they are? Not the families in the ads.
Some are named Broad; some are named Walton; some are named Moskowitz.
What a surprise.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I have seen the ads and they are horrible. Thanks for the edification!
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Nice work. I was curious who was pushing the CPB snd PBS American Graduate series. Crawling web sites, About links, Boards, and the paths led to the usual – Gates et al and a sprinkling of the Chamber’s roster.
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For profit, of course.
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Good job, Mercedes!! And thanks for sharing, Diane!
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I echo, Patricia.
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I’ve seen the latest commercial which tugs at your heart strings: dozens of what the organization refers to as “black and brown children” taking turns to tell the camera what they want to be when they grow up. It’s endearing to the untrained. Then they make the statement that “only two out of the every class” will actually grow up to be realize their dream and be successful because of the “failing” schools they attend.
Time to make a commercial calling these folks out for their lies by exposing their affiliations with hedge-funds and their political ties. It’s time to fight fire with fire. There are plenty of grassroots organizations that can counter this propaganda along with the AFT. I’m tired of the softballs–maybe it’s time to throw something hard and fast: the facts. De Blasio needs more help and support. There is power among the public school parents and teachers–sheer numbers. Why not immobilize and run these creeps out of town once and for all?
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What a money trail. And look how the average Joe is deceived every single day. Truly disgusting.
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Please contribute to a yearly subscription for Mercedes to access CitizenAudit.org. gofundme.com/g0ehic
Dr. Mercedes Schneider is one of the best investigative researchers uncovering the corruption of the corporate privatization movement that is destroying public education. Today she uncovered the mystery of Families for Excellent Schools true funding sources
by using a tool called CitizenAudit.org. She used up all of her free 40 pages. Her findings were also reported by Dr. Diane Ravitch.
For all of us who rely on Mercedes for the truth (and deciphering of tax forms), we can pay for a one year subscription ($350 for 12,000 page views for one year https://www.citizenaudit.org/). Mercedes is a public school teacher and author, but certainly is not rolling in excess cash. I know if all of us just put in a few dollars, we can give this worthwhile weapon to one of the best warriors for public education we have!
School privatization is being funded by deep pockets and hedge fund investors. But we outnumber them! Small donations can help us to stand up to the organizations who want to kick educators out of education.
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Sorry the link did not work- http://www.gofundme.com/g0ehic
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Reblogged this on edwin mayorga and commented:
Mercedes Schneider just follows the money here. This is great!
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“Families for Excellent
SchoolsWiles ”“Families for Excellent Wiles”
Moskowitz, Walton, Broad
Going the extra miles
Down the dirty road
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Thanks for the contributions. We are up to $245 out of 4350 to give Mercedes a year subscription to CitizenAudit.org. If you can help out please do! http://www.gofundme.com/g0ehic
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whoops out of $350.
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Now up to $325. Thanks!
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Fully funded- thanks everyone!
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If they were really interested in helping those children they’d use the money for them instead of tv ads.
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Thank you, all, for funding a year’s subscription to citizenaudit for me. And thank you to Linda’s friend Mary, who is trying to get a copy of the Capital New York article I mentioned in my post.
You guys are great. 🙂
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They have recently formed a chapter in Bridgeport, CT. They circulated a generic petition calling for better schools and opportunities in Bridgeport. Their t-shirts, petition and flier makes no mention of charter schools. The petition asked for name, address, email and telephone number. The petition is so generic that any average citizen would sign it not realizing that the petition is utilized to formulate a mass data base.
They stood in front of Bridgeport public schools, grocery stores and national retailers. They were also standing in front of our high schools soliciting all this personal information from 13,14,15,16,17 year old students.
The filed with the CT Secretary of State’s office and the chair, vice-president and treasurer are all Wall Street executives. The chair listed his residence on Central Park West, NYC, NY. When I checked the New York City Tax Assessor’s website his address was valued at $22,600,500 as of July 1, 2014.. The treasurer is fairly young and attended a private high school in NJ with an annual tuition of over $30,000.
When Families for Ex$ellent Shysters was first formed, each officer contributed $33,000 each as a “loan” for start-up operating costs. FES defaulted on the original loan agreement and the BOD voted on new terms.
I approached paid FES canvassers at three different locations and successfully recorded them. The lies I recorded these canvassers sharing with residents and parents were just incredible.One of the canvassers physically assaulted me and I have an attorney that is assisting me with a Citizen’s Complaint against two officers that refused to assist me and refused to arrest her.
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Here is my first recording with a paid Families for Ex$ellent Shysters canvasser.
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Absolutely amazing. She claims that she doesn’t know the statistics, but she cannot fathom that her bosses could be telling her lies about the public schools. Excellent work, Maria.
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Here is the last group of canvassers I recorded. The female canvasser on the right assaulted me and I have not released Part IV because I am working with my attorney. You can hear them claim I sent my “children” to private schools which is completely false. I have one child that graduated from the Bridgeport public schools in June. They also claim that I have a blog and compensated for my videos. I have never had a blog and I have never been compensated $1 for the advocacy work I do.
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Here is Part III.
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