Maurice Cunningham, a dogged investigator of Dark Money, has discovered a shell operation funded by the multibillionaire Walton family.
It is called the “National Patents Union,” and its goal is to defund public schools and transfer public money to private hands.
Its leader Keri Rodriguez led the effort in Massachusetts to raise the cap on charter schools in 2016. The referendum would have allowed a dozen new charters every year forever, located wherever they chose. The vote went overwhelmingly against the charter proposition.
But wherever there is money, there are people ready to pick up the banner of privatization. And the Waltons, whose fortune exceeds $150 Billion, have plenty to spend in their quest to destroy public schools.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The Walton heirs are a smug, deceitful, stupid blight on the U.S. Stupid because they threw $100,000,000 away on Theranos. Deceitful because they selected the word, “union” for their privatizing organization. And, smug because they think they are better than the citizens who built and build this nation.
Don’t buy at Walmart. If no local retailers remain in the community, order from other on-line stores and have the products delivered.
The Waltons want to have taxpayers subsidize private schools. They feel entitled to determine state and national policies on education, and that is the tip of the iceberg.
Great! Another echo chamber lobbying group.
The US Department of Education excluding public schools from public education events is the norm in ed reform, not the exception.
This is the University of Washington, Reinventing Education, who get 10s of millions in federal grants:
“Cody James – Named to the Forbes 30 under 30 list and founder of Open X Education, a company designed to enable individuals to succeed and grow their careers in advanced technologies by creating a next generation online learning platform.
Kristen McCaw – Chief Financial Officer, Chief Operating Officer, & Co-founder of Impact Public Schools
Liv Finne – Director of the Center for Education at Washington Policy Center
Georgia Heyward – Research Analyst at Center on Reinventing Public Education
Bree Dusseault – Executive Director of Green Dot Public Schools Washington
Moderator:
Adam Tabor – Worked with Hon. Rob McKenna on the key legal victory before the State Supreme Court that saved Charter Schools.”
Not a single representative from public schools, in a “public education” forum.
It seems ludicrous to those outside the echo chamber, excluding 90% of students and families, but it’s standard practice in ed reform.
They simply do not work for public school students. They don’t even them include them in policy plans. Yet they’re all publicly funded.
DeVos is holding another roundtable today. Once again public schools are excluded. Charters only need apply.
If you’re wondering why public schools do so poorly when ed reformers are in power, it’s not a big mystery. They don’t work for public schools. It’s rare to even find a mention of a public school, public school students, or a public school family, other than when used as a negative comparison to charter or private school students and families.
It’s such an echo chamber they don’t even notice the omission.
“List of roundtable participants:
Secretary Betsy DeVos
Gov. Matt Bevin
Wayne Lewis, Kentucky education commissioner
Derrick Ramsey, secretary, Kentucky Education and Workforce Development Cabinet
Linda Hampton, Governor’s Office of Early Childhood
Hal Heiner, chairman, Kentucky Board of Education
Milton Seymore, vice chairman, Kentucky Board of Education
Dr. Gary Houchens, Kentucky Board of Education
Kristina Slattery, Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development”
Why is it okay in ed reform to invite four voucher lobbying groups to forums, but not public school lobbyists?
Are their lobbyists purer and better than ours? Just intrinsically better people? Why are people who lobby for my son’s school “self interested” but the huge, paid ed reform lobbying contingent not self-interested?
We’re somehow lesser people? Public school students should not have ANY advocates at the table? They should be denied a voice at a government event where education policy is decided? How is that fair and also- how is it a “debate”?
“In the same manner that teacher strikes and mobilization are commanding headlines, we have a vision of having parent rallies and mobilizations in the spotlight, redirecting the conversation from one about adults to one about students. The teacher unions currently have no countervailing force. We envision the National Parents Union as being able to take on the unions in the national and regional media, and eventually on the ground in advocacy fights.”
It is simply amazing that ed reform completely omits public school students and families when they smear public schools.
Wow. That is some echo chamber effect. They look at a public school and see “teachers union”- they don’t see public school students at all.
So they basically want charter lobbyists at the table, they want voucher lobbyists at the table, but anyone who advocates on behalf of public schools should be barred.
How will this work out for public school students, I wonder? Who will look after their interests in these national ed reform schemes? No one is, which is why the teachers are striking in the first place.
Thank goodness for teachers unions. They are our only advocates. They go away and public school students and families won’t have anyone at the table at all, which means 90% of US students and families won’t be considered in “public education policy”
They look at a public school and see “teachers union”- they don’t see public school students at all.
Exactly. They don’t see public school students at all.
On another note:
The time is ripe in the US for the Teachers’ Unions to give the Deformers what they fear and hate most–activist unions that provide a model to other workers of how to take back the country from the billionaires.
Exiting times
Exciting times
RIGHT!! I am forced to repeat & expound further on this outrageous quote: “In the same manner that teacher strikes and mobilization are commanding headlines, we have a vision of having parent rallies and mobilizations in the spotlight, redirecting the conversation from one about adults to one about students.” So teachers striking for more funding for real public schools with real students are “about adults” not children— and a faux-copycat-named “parents’ group” that has to bankrolled by Walton DFER etc in order to even get members (as opposed to the actual National Parents Union staffed by volunteer parents) is “about children” not adults.
“The teachers unions currently have no countervailing force” except US Dept of Ed, all the red governors, DFER, and umpty-ump other ed-deform astro-turf organizations.
Yep, that’s how Keri rolls.
The state is going to put a charter school in New Bedford, MA, over the objections of the community, based on metrics which show the schools to be “failing”- test scores. In a move reminiscent of New Orleans, kids will be assigned to the charter as if it were a neighborhood school and parents will have to opt out of that assignment – if they are even aware they may do so. This is a first in MA, and of course, New Bedford is a poor town, with lots of kids learning English as a second language.
There’s a community coalition pushing back, and in support, I posted a Twitter thread showing that teacher and administrator educational background, experience, and turnover were worse at the charter, as well as there weren’t much differences in test scores. Here’s a couple of links:
And here’s MPU’s (Keri’s) response:
“You are looking at inputs to protect adults. Looks out the outcomes for children. The numbers speak for themselves. And frankly, parents have been voting with their feet. We stand with them.”
I feel you, Christine. Looks like the usual dialog: facts-maven points out “failing schools” = based solely on test scores = merely identifying a poor community [in need of extra funds to improve local public schools] ; ed-deformers make usual response along the lines of, oh you must be racist/ classist like the admins of public schools in poor areas who suffer from soft bigotry of low expectations: we’ve got your silver bullet publicly-funded private alternative. [& thanks to state actors made pliant by our deep-pockets lobby, you’re going to like it or lump it.]
Here’s the US Department of Education twitter. Try to find a public school:
Another term to add to the Reformish Lexicon. Whenever oligarchs create a shill and shell group to push their privatization agenda, they always create a name like this (Students First, Parent Revolution) to make it appear that theirs is a democratic, grassroots movement originating with actual stakeholders–with parents and students and teachers–rather than an astroturf outfit with paid employees doing their masters’ bidding.
In other words, they create names like these:
VHS: Vegans for Hunting and Slaughterhouses
AVF-DTD: Accident Victims for Freedom to Drink and Text While Driving
DARCE: Democrats for Republican Control. of Everything
PEIP:Physicians for the Expansion of Insurance Paperwork
MCALC: Migrant Children Actually Love Cages
And so on.
Hey, Deformers, Orwell’s 1984 was not meant to be a public policy manual. Stop with the Newspeak!
Deformers are masters of the deceitful “euphemism.”
Deceit is the key word.
Lots of other examples of this from the right-wing in the United States:
“right-to-work” laws
“death panels”
“death taxes”
“higher standards”
“data-driven”
“school choice”
The right is quite adept at reframing issues around these Newspeak terms.
selling snake oil requires so much flash and smoke
If the tax structure were reformed so that large corporations would incur financial liabilities, billionaires would have less cash available to engage in foolishness.
Julian Vazquez Helig left a comment on Professor Cunningham’s blog linking his own article. Here an excerpt, which everyone in Massachusetts is familiar with, after our fight to keep a cap on charters:
“The president is supposed to be Keri Rodrigues Lorenzo, a White woman from Boston. She is not Latina although she purposely misleads everyone to think she is. Rodrigues Lorenzo is founder of Mass Parents United, that was created in 2017. She is the former Massachusetts state director for the defunct, AstroTurf, Families for Excellent Schools. The ones responsible for the biggest, most expensive, education reform defeat in history. It was epic. Not only did the parents and people of Massachusetts see through and reject their hypocrisy, but the chicanery, corrupt, unethical and illegal actions of the education reformers resulted in historic huge fines and banishment from Massachusetts.”
See his post for links.
https://cloakinginequity.com/2019/04/22/waltons-funded-reformers-stealing-union-from-black-parents/
There are Parents Unions and Parent Unions. I was looking around the internet and tripped on this.
Parent Union is a California-Based organization financially connected with the California Policy Center, an anti-union organization. Parent Union has four chapters: San Diego, Orange County, and Los Angeles and Island Empire (an urban/metro area around the cities of Riverside and San Bernardino, east of Los Angeles County).
This is from the Parent Union Website: “Your generous donation to the California Policy Center goes directly towards securing a more prosperous future for all Californians. It’s because of our supporters that we are able to conduct research studies and investigative reports, wage aggressive media campaigns, and educate policymakers and voters alike.
We are the only Institute in California exclusively focused on showing how government unions are destroying our public schools and bankrupting our cities.”
The Center includes education among other issues it addresses, through publicity (including roadside signs) and anti-union litigation. https://californiapolicycenter.org/issue-education/
The Center is also an affiliate of the State Policy Network noteworthy for lobbying similar to and sometimes directly connected to ALEC, The American Legislative Exchange Council. https://parentunion.org
See also https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/03/07/23parentunions_ep.h31.html
Perhaps that is the Parent Union founded by Ben Austin, who prides himself on having served in the Clinton Administration but has taken funding from the Waltons and other billionaires to promote charter schools.
MA is awash in dark money from State Policy Network. They fund the Pioneer Institute, together with the Waltons. Professor Cunningham has more details on his blog and Twitter account.