Wake up, parents and teachers in New Jersey! The billionaires and Dark Money are launching a sneak attack on your children and students.

When he ran for office, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy promised to scrap the Common Core-aligned PARCC and end the state’s high-stakes exit exams.

But billionaires and hedge fund managers don’t want to stop high-stakes testing. They love PARCC because it makes public schools look bad. Making public schools look bad helps the privatization movement.

Dark money and billionaires are dumping money into the bank accounts of key legislators to keep the testing machine alive. Find out which billionaire education reformers are behind the push to keep high-stakes standardized testing alive in New Jersey, and which legislators are doing their bidding. #HijackedByBillionaires

PARCC is a ridiculous exam whose standards were set so high that most students were certain to “fail” to reach proficiency. Half the states in the nation adopted it when it was unveiled in 2010, but almost all have abandoned it. Today only 5 or 6 states still use PARCC, and New Mexico recently announced it was dropping PARCC.
Legislator Theresa Ruiz is leading the fight to keep high-stakes testing. The Bill to save PARCC passed by one vote in the State Senate yesterday and goes to the Assembly for a vote on Monday.

Here is an infographic that shows the reach of Dark Money, Wall Street, hedge funds, and assorted billionaires in the effort to preserve high-stakes testing in New Jersey.

“New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy campaigned on a promise to end PARCC and eliminate exit testing. Following his lead, the New Jersey Department of Education toured the state to get feedback on standardized assessments, wrote a report summarizing their findings, and proposed new regulations to replace ones passed during the Christie administration.

“But on September 12, 2018, before the Board’s discussion began, Senator Teresa Ruiz crashed the New Jersey State Board of Education meeting and suddenly regulations that seemed like a slam dunk were tabled.”

In Ruiz’s latest election, the largest contribution ($5,377) to her campaign came from Education Reform Now Advocacy (ERNA), a dark money 501(c)(4) advocacy organization associated with Democrats for Education Reform (DFER), a PAC started by billionaire education reformers.
As a 501(c)(4), ERNA is not required to disclose their donors. This means the people of NJ have no right to know who the money behind Ruiz’s largest campaign contribution came from.Ruiz also received maximum contributions of $2,600 from New Jersey billionaires Alan Fournier and David Tepper, the founders of Better Education for Kids (B4K). They are hedge fund managers who meddle in New Jersey education on behalf of testing and privatization.

B4K, Inc. gave Ruiz a direct contribution of $1,000.

B4K has been the bullhorn for Tepper and Fournier’s reform agenda for close to a decade.

Senate President Steve Sweeney, a Ruiz ally, has fast tracked the bill to be voted on by the full Senate.

Sweeney is no stranger to education reform billionaires either. In fact, in his last election, millions of dollars were spent to support Sweeney and fend off an attempt by the New Jersey Education Association to unseat him.

The New Jerseyans for a Better Tomorrow PAC, which is run by a former Sweeney aide, received over 2 and a half million dollars from General Majority PAC which is “widely seen” as being controlled by New Jersey political boss, George Norcross.

General Majority PAC brought in contributions from three of the nation’s biggest education reform champions.

The largest contribution of $500,000 came from Walmart heiress Alice Walton, followed by $200,000 from Texas billionaire and former Enron trader John Arnold, and $100,000 from California billionaire and Netflix founder Reed Hastings.

ERNA, the dark money 501 (c)(4) that was Ruiz’s largest campaign contributor, contributed $25,000 to General Majority PAC.

Sweeney also received direct maximum contributions of $2,600 from Alan and Jennifer Fournier, David Tepper and B4K, Inc..

Here is an infographic that shows the reach of Dark Money, Wall Street, hedge funds, and assorted billionaires into the effortto preserve high-stakes testing in New Jersey.