Once upon a time, long ago, a man named Jonah Edelman founded a group called Stand for Children. Edelman had instant credibility because he was the son of civil rights leader Marion Wright Edelman.
Somewhere, somehow, around 2009, Stand for Children decided to change its focus. So it became a grantee of the Gates Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation, and an advocate for charter schools, high-stakes testing and test-based teacher evaluation. Gates and other billionaires gave millions to Stand to act as a pass-through.
Stand was active in Illinois, fighting against the Chicago Teachers Union. It funded pro-charter candidates in local elections such as Nashville. It was active in Massachusetts, trying to pass a referendum in 2016 to lift the state limit on charter school expansion. That referendum failed.
But, reports U Mass professor Maurice Cunningham, the money people in Massachusetts shut off the spigot, and Stand for Children is leaving, perhaps for another assignment.
Cunningham is a specialist in tracking Dark Money and the ways that the elites are undermining democracy.
What we learn from this tale is that there is no “reform movement.” It has no grassroots. It is a phenomenon of wealthy elites trying to buy public policy.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Hallelujah!
49 more states (& DC) to go!
Similar to BAEO. One positive- minorities got cash from billionaires. Tragic that it was in those circumstances.
I have to admit I have trolled Stand’s Facebook page. Good riddance from MA!!!
Stand for Children sits back down – for children. Astroturf doesn’t grow.
YAY!
I find it unbelievable that so many people believe those “MARKETERS” in the first place.
From what I understand, this was even more slippery than it sounds. A friend who’s a longtime children’s advocate was among the grassroots group that co-founded Stand for Children, and they were delighted to have the son of civil rights and children’s rights icon Marian Wright Edelman as its leader. But Jonah Edelman went bad (or maybe he was always corrupt — it happens). Some of the founders didn’t realize that the organization had sold out to corporate billionaires until that notorious video of Edelman gleefully explaining at the Aspen Ideas billionairefest how he had cunningly conspired to cut the legs off the Chicago Teachers Union. (Also, it turned out he had failed, so he wasn’t just a sellout but an incompetent sellout.) Marian Wright Edelman’s other son also sold out and sold children down the river to conniving education “reformers,” from what I understand, so it’s really heartbreaking.
The other Edelman son worked for Michelle Rhee in D.C.
Oy. Poor Marian.
Peter and Marian are devoted parents. Both support charter schools to please their errant sons.
Diane, I am so sorry to hear that. I thought that I had read that Marian was originally on the Board of Stand on Children, then quit when she realized what it was all about.
I had thought that Peter, a liberal writer, journalist &, later, professor, was with Marian on this. I saw this family much as the Keatons, of the tv show Family Ties, where the parents were the ’60s protesters & liberals, & their son, Alex (Michael J. Fox), was a WSJ reader & stock market watcher.
What a disappointment to hear this!