This may be the most important post you read today.
Maurice Cunningham, a professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, began investigating the millions of dollars pouring into the state during the referendum on charter schools last fall. He wondered why so many billionaires from other states wanted to expand the number of charter schools in Massachusetts. He continued his investigation after the election and has lifted the curtain on groups like Families for Excellent Schools, Stand for Children, and Educators4Excellence, and Leadership for Educational Excellence (a group connected to TFA).
He began researching the intersection between philanthropy and dark money.
My descent into darkness led me to decipher the hidden funding of Families for Excellent Schools, a New York based organization that poured over $17 million in dark money into the Great Schools Massachusetts ballot committee for 2016’s Question 2 on charter schools. That brought me to the initial funding to get FES up and running in Massachusetts, which came from a Boston based Internal Revenue Code 501(c)(3) charity called Strategic Grant Partners. The investments from SGP are consistent with the practice of wealthy individuals using charitable entities to influence the direction of public policy, a topic I explored in Unmasking the Philanthrocapitalists Who Almost Bought Massachusetts Schools. One way for wealthy individuals to grease the path to their public policy goals is to fund organizations that undermine teachers unions, a topic I took up in Philanthrocapitalists Brandish BEANball at BTU.
In the course of this research I have created a database of all Strategic Grant Partners’ publicly available grants since its inception, from its Form 990PF tax returns. The non-profit has dispensed many grants for family support and educational purposes over that time to about seventy grantees, only five of which I would characterize as engaging in political activities: advocacy/organizing/mobilizing for three of them, adding lobbying activities for two, Stand for Children and Families for Excellent Schools. There were no grants to political activities organizations until Stand for Children in 2009, and then no other such organization received a grant until 2013 when Education Reform Now and Families for Excellent Schools received funding.
He concludes:
The Stand for Children and Families for Excellent Schools initiatives both led toward the ballot box and thus we could look at OCFP reports; but these days the reports only tell us which dark money front is laundering for which elegantly named shell. That’s the tip of the iceberg. But there is much more.
Professor Cunningham, keep up the research. Check out Donors Trust, another group that bundles dark money for school privatization. Add ALEC and its donors.
Dark Money wants to destroy our public schools and our democracy.
The people behind these activities use “civil rights” rhetoric to advance anti-democratic goals. They are thieves of democracy.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Like “free market”, “philanthropy” is a term that should never be used without quotes (and probably “[sic]” as well).
The upshot of your blogpost: Private money equals dark money.
For a real descent into darkness visit your nearest shopping mall.
I hope you didn’t hurt yourself on that leap.
There are still shopping malls around??
Democratic ed reformer in Congress:
“I think that the difference is, is that Betsy DeVos and the Republicans are talking a lot about low-quality options, and options for the sake of options. We want to make sure all of the options are good options. Democrats are supporters of district schools, of charter schools, of independent schools, of magnet schools, of every kind of school — it’s just a question of where best to focus our limited public resources to improve the learning opportunities for every child.”
In other words, the single difference between “Democratic ed reformers” and Trump is federal vouchers.
Democrats don’t, actually, support “district schools”. In fact, under their leadership public schools have taken a hit every single year. Arne Duncan spent 8 years blaming public schools for everything but the weather and lavishing praise and funding on charter schools. That’s what happened. We all saw it. All his nonsense about “plus/and” and kids in public schools took a hit every year from 2010 on. My own district is down to 9% federal funding, that’s with a 10% increase in low income kids and a commensurate increase in ELL, who are welcome as far as I’m concerned but THEY COST MORE. This is reality. The DC fetish for charter schools hasn’t done ONE THING for our kids or our schools. In fact, they have hurt us. Every student took a hit under “ed reform leadership”.
I actually respect conservatives more. At least they don’t bury us in this BS.
Just put in the vouchers and pay for it with public school funding. Get it over with. It’s painful to watch these elaborate political narratives take shape. We get it: Democrats want to privatize with regulation and Republicans want privatization with no regulation and you are SOL if you happen to attend a public school. Got it. Duly noted.
“I actually respect conservatives more. At least they don’t bury us in this BS.”
Thank you. That’s what I’ve been saying for a while now. If someone’s going to stab me, I’d prefer it to be in the front by a known enemy where I have a chance of defending myself. Not in the back by someone who has pretended to be my friend.
I’m old to remember when we were told charters wouldn’t lead to vouchers because Democrats were extremely supportive of public education! That’s where they would draw the line!
Did you see how the Democrat snuck in “independent schools” in that mush he recites? Those are, of course, private schools.
They’re folding on vouchers. It gets better! The “movement” now demand no regulation at all for the private contractors.
This is the newest lurch Right in ed reform:
“But the main thrust of this new volume from the Center on Education Reform is to abolish results-based accountability for charter schools and scrap careful vetting of would-be charter operators. Instead, they would rely on a marketplace free-for-all in which pretty much anyone can start a school and authorizers don’t shut (or non-renew) a school just because nobody is learning anything in it. “Standardized testing” is damned over and over again in these pages as if it were the root of all evil in today’s charter sphere.”
Every year they capitulate and move further toward privatization, and every year public schools take a hit and DC just hums along – business as usual. Seven years PRIOR to Betsy DeVos DC ed reformers were busy cutting public school funding and busy laying the foundation for national vouchers. Public schools have already taken a hit. The newest push is in addition to what they’ve already accomplished without Trump or DeVos.
They are a disaster for public schools. It is ALL downside. It’s why you don’t see public schools mentioned on “liberal” ed reform sites. They offer absolutely nothing of value.
In a way it doesn’t matter. My son’s school will absorb the latest hit like they’ve handled all the hits prior and we’ll shift funds around and cover increased ELL costs but these people shouldn’t be running around thinking they “help” public schools. They harm public schools.
Where’s Putin in all this? Surely, he must have his hackers busy trying to undermine public education…
hmmm. . . wordpress didn’t seem to like my Russian version of “I like”.
I just wonder where it ends. Presidential races now cost in excess of a billion dollars. One House race costs 30 million. When does it just collapse? At 10 billion and 100 million? These are extraordinary sums of money. We’re pumping billions of dollars into a political industry that creates zero added value for the added cost. You’d have the same candidates whether you spent one dollar or a billion dollars- there’s no net increase in value. It’s piling money on the sidewalk and burning it.
If you had said “Trump and Clinton can only spend 100k” you’d still have either Trump or Clinton as President.
They could BUY everyone in the country who needs one a health care voucher for what these races cost. Just skip the middleman. At least then we’d be adding value and a lot of health care jobs are middle class jobs, so it’s a win/win. It would add far more value than tv ads. I don’t even know what we’re buying and either does anyone else, but boy it costs a lot! I hope someone is making money on it. We sure aren’t.
Quite correct, Chiara!
If you trace this money back to its source, you’ll find, I’m afraid, a very small group of plutocrats–Betsy DeVos among them–behind these organizations. I realize I sound like a conspiracy theorist with this comment; at the same time, I point out that I keep up with just about everything Jane Mayer (“Dark Money”) writes, and she is an expert on this. Even her foes like Charles and David Koch passively stipulated to this when they tried to tar her with the brush of plagiarism (it didn’t work).
The plutocrats are winning. They’re running the board. You wonder whether they’ll know what to do with it when they finally reach their goal and run every damn thing.
They’re all excited about cities “tipping” from public schools to charters. Schools are difficult to run and they made big promises. They’ll be in the same situation as public schools in a decade- everyone will blame them for everything. Schools just can’t fix the United States. New Orleans has the same set of problems they had before the privatized all the schools, except now there’s no public schools to act as a punching bag.
With great power comes great responsibility. They may want to run back to their yachts when they get it all. I wonder about private schools. They get no scrutiny now and no one blames for societal ills. That will change when they’re publicly-funded. They’ll be in the same boat public schools are now.
The two party system sucks. Tired of being blamed for the ILLS of Society. We need brave people like Diane and the rest of you who follow her blog.
The NYTimes has a horrifying piece about how billionaires have stepped into the void left by government. They are running public policy in the dark and without the consent of the governed. There are few enough of them so they can be NAMED. We’re talking about 150 unelected people managing 350 million. There’s no other word for that than “plutocracy”.
What I love about it how friendly and nice it all is! It is SUPER that we have just turned public entities over to 150 people because it’s “free”! We don’t even have to pay for their plans! Terrific. We’re all thrilled.
Boy did we sell out cheap. There wasn’t even a war – we just gave it to them. All those dystopian novels my son and his friends like make it very romantic- a struggle. There was no struggle! They handed us 100 dollars each and we gave it to them.
The government void is part of the plan to dominate. These privateers want to absorb as much government responsibility as they can through “partnerships,” in which they socialize the risk by using government funds to privatize profit. It is the 98% that will suffer the consequences because this form of management that builds in profit is rife with abuse and outlandish executive salaries. We have already witnessed all the fraud and racketeering in charters, and it rarely hits the mainstream media. The big beneficiaries are the investors and hedge funds, not the people.
Diane rarely resorts to Bold Face text. That means pay attention.
Maurice Cunningham is doing great work that should be integrated into some national tracking of the political and policy influence being sought by foundations…. and not just the “political action” arms of these foundations.
In addition to Donors Trust and Strategic Grant Partners, there is also “dark gray” money that funds education. For example, some foundations outsource their education projects and investments to Rockefeller Philanthropic Advisors.
Then there are the “light gray” flows of money to education from a group called Grantmakers for Education. http://www.edfunders.org/our-community/members Membership is around $10,000 annually. Membership in the group varies from year to year (about 200-250) depending in part on where the national conferences are held and whether other perks of membership (publications, webinars, regional meet-ups) are attractive.
Conferences have themes. The 2016 theme was: What Can Funders Do to Improve SEL Practices in OST (out of school) and In-School Settings? In 2016, members could also attend special meetings at MIT and participate in a two-day institute at Harvard Graduate School of Education. At Harvard, one session treated “education and workforce development.” Another on ”public will” was devoted to “identifying windows of opportunity and moments of acceleration that have proven critical and explore the unique role of philanthropy in driving this systemic change by leveraging public policy to do so.” The aim is clear, even through the mixed metaphors.
Grantmakers for Education receives information from 30 foundations in the “Education Funders Strategy Group.” The Education Funders Strategy Group aims for “collective impact” on national policies for education. For this reason members of the strategy groups are in regular communication with policy-makers in DC.
The “strategy group” holds meetings four times a year in Washington DC. In the past, many of these foundations have had staff in revolving door positions within USDE. I imagine the strategy group is still working inside-the-beltway, especially on policy “windows” afforded by ESSA, and promoting the edtech interests of some of the foundations created with that source of wealth.
The biggest players in the Education Strategy group buy sponsorships for annual conferences of Grantmakers for Education (top tier cost, $100,000; 2nd tier $75,000). Here are some of the most recent self-promoters at conferences of Grantmakers for Education paying those fees: The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Buell Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Chan/Zuckerberg Initiative, Deutsche Bank, Kauffman Foundation, Great Lakes Foundation, Leona M. And Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, Open Society Foundation, W. K. Kellogg Foundation, Walton Family Foundation.
Among the foundations active in the Education Funders Strategy Group, some are also among the largest 50 foundations in the United States, ranked by assets (not the same as investments in education): 1 Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, 2 Ford Foundation, 5 Lilly Endowment, 6 William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, 7 W. K. Kellogg Foundation, 8 Duke Endowment, 11 Silicon Valley Community Foundation, 12 John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Fund, 14 Leona M. & Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, 18 California Endowment, 20 David and Lucille Packard Foundation, 21 Carnegie Corporation of New York, 27 Annie E. Casey Foundation, 28 Charles Stuart Mott Foundation, 29 Walton Family Foundation, 30 Conrad N. Hilton, 31 New York Community Trust, 37 William Penn Foundation, 41 McKnight Foundation, 42 Casey Family Programs, 44 Atlantic Philanthropies, 46 Kauffman Foundation, 47 Harry & Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, 48 James Irvine Foundation. These rankings come from http://data.foundationcenter.org/#/foundations/all/nationwide/top:assets/list/2014
Maurice Cunningham is doing work that shows major foundations are getting tax benefits from political activity that is technically off limits for them. They are getting away with it by enlisting “education, ‘”civil rights ” and “equity” in mission statements while also functioning much like a “political action” group. Unfortunately, the IRS has neither the resources nor the interest in looking at what the foundations are actually doing.
Citizens that see abuses in the tax code from these so called foundations should be able to file complaints with the IRS. If they get over a certain number of complaints, then the IRS should be compelled to investigate.
Dark Money comes from the Dark Side of Hell. Dark money is malignant cancer.
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé and commented:
Dark money comes from the dark side of the soul and is a malignant stage-four cancer for a democracy.