Maurice Cunningham is a political scientist in Massachusetts who follows the trail of Dark Money. “Dark Money” refers to groups that conceal their donors and that use phony front groups that pretend to be grassroots families and parents.

In 2016, the Bay State held a referendum on whether to expand charter schools, and the Dark Money flowed through a NYC group called Families for Excellent Schools. FES was a front for hedge fund managers, mostly from out-of-State. The pro-charter forces vastly outspent the teachers’ unions but the proposal was overwhelmingly defeated. It lost in every part of the state, e crept for a few affluent communities that never expected to see a charter school in their neighborhood. Most towns, especially those that already had charters, knew that the arrival of a charter meant budget cuts for their public schools, and they voted no.

After the election, state campaign finance officials punished Families for Excellent Schools for its lack of transparency. It fined the group nearly $500,000 and banned from Massachusetts for five years. Shortly afterwards, FES closed its doors.

But, Cunningham reports, the Dark Money has returned. 

First, it created a from group called Massachusetts Parents United, only three months after the 2016 election. This was supposed to be regular parents, right? But the money rolled in, more than any group of concerned parents could muster.

“Soon the plucky parents had a website, services of two political communications firms, several thousand members (so-claimed), and projected income of $1,500,000 and expenses of $800,000 for 2017. MPU operated under a sponsorship agreement with Education Reform Now, which bankrolls the millions that enables Democrats for Education Reform Massachusetts to fertilize state politics with dark money. MPU’s state director, who also served in that capacity for Banned-in-Boston Families for Excellent Schools, is on the Advisory Council of DFER Massachusetts.”

Does your local parents’ group have that kind of money? I didn’t think so.

“In the Empty Bottle I spelled out some of the contributions made by MPU’s funders to the 2016 charters campaign. Let’s update that first with contributions from WalMart heirs. Jim Walton gave $1,125,000 into the Campaign for Fair Access to Quality Schools. Alice Walton provided $710,000 to the Yes on 2 Ballot Committee and slipped another $750,000 of dark money into the coffers of the now Banned-in-Boston Families for Excellent Schools Advocacy. Thus the Waltons spent down the inheritance by $2,585,000 for Question 2.

“But the Walton Family Foundation, a tax deductible organ of the Walton family, had been putting upstream money into the Massachusetts charters effort for years. From 2010 through 2016, WFF gave over $12,000,000 to Education Reform Now (the Walton family sustaining the funder of a Democratic front is, uh, what?). WFF gave nearly $14,000,000 to the collapsed-in-corruption Families for Excellent Schools, almost half of that in the 2015 run up to the ballot question. Across those years WFF slid over $900,000 to the Pioneer Institute.

“Then there is the Longfield Family Foundation and its benefactor Chuck Longfield. In Empty Bottle I noted that Chuck Longfield had contributed $125,000 to two pro-charter ballot committees. When OCPF forced the disbanded-in-disgrace Families for Excellent Schools to disclose its donors, it revealed that Longfield had given another $600,000 in dark money. He also contributed to the weird Mekka Smith situation, which was also bound up in charters.

“The Barr Foundation is the charitable foundation of Amos Hostetter, who funneled $2,000,000 in 2016 dark dollars through the invested-in-iniquity Families for Excellent Schools Advocacy.

“The largest giver of dark money to formed-in-fraudulence Families for Excellent Schools Advocacy was its office mate engorged-in-effluvia Families for Excellent Schools Inc., which laundered $3,700,000 through FESA to Great Schools Massachusetts. On May 26, 2016 the Davis Foundation sent $100,000 to FESI and on November 2, 2016 another $10,000, and also invested $20,000 in Pioneer for “Project to Expand Educational Opportunity in MA.”

“Charters were killed off in 2016, you say? In Washington state charters failed at the ballot box in 1996, 2000, and 2004 before squeaking by on a fourth try in 2012, and that was with the help of the Gates family. Privatizers play the long game. Money never sleeps.”

What do they want? Why spend so many millions?

The Dark Money club wants privatization. They want to undermine public schools in the most successful state in the nation.