If you believe that any genuine parent organization is funded by the Waltons, Eli Broad, and the City Fund (which was funded by the Reed Hastings, John Arnold, and other billionaires), please contact me at once, as I have a bridge in Brooklyn that I can sell you for a reasonable fee. Really! I’ll even print up a gen-u-wine bill of sale!
One of the leaders of the National Parents Union, Keri Rodrigues, runs the Massachusetts Parents Union, which was also bankrolled by the Waltons. Her group was one of the prominent voices demanding more charters in a state referendum in 2016, which was overwhelmingly defeated. The Waltons invested a few million in that referendum. Keri’s MPU reported revenues of $957,683 in 2018, half from the Waltons. Her salary at MPU, that grassroots parent group, is $172,500, according to Dark Money specialist Maurice Cunningham, a political science professor at U Mass. Just an average parent.
Many grassroots parents groups belong to the Network for Public Education. None of them have bank accounts with six figures or nearly seven figures. All are powered by volunteers.
New Orleans is an apt place for the big launch of NPU. It is the first (and thus far the only) school district that has eliminated all public schools and the teachers’ union. According to the latest reports, 49% of its highly segregated schools received a D or an F from the state. The selection of NOLA suggests the goal of this faux “parent union”: the elimination of public schools.
Here is an announcement of the organizing event of the new Walton-funded NPU:
NPU is launching on the streets of New Orleans (1/16-/18) with delegates from all 50 states with parents of color, low-income parents, special needs parents, single moms and dads, grandparents, formerly incarcerated parents, and parents in recovery. Led by Alma Marquez and Keri Rodrigues, National Parents Union co-founders, Ilyasah Shabazz, Community Organizer and daughter of Malcolm X and Sharif El Mekki, Black Male Educators for Social Justice.
Keri is an education activist (and a Democrat) who is launching a new organization, the National Parents Union, which will heed the call to organize otherwise independent and uncoordinated parent organizing efforts into a national voice and movement to ensure teacher unions no longer have a stranglehold on the education system in America. She’s a former labor activist who plans to use the tactics that make unions so powerful and apply them to this movement led by parents.
MEDIA ADVISORY
FOR PLANNING PURPOSES ONLY
Contact: NPU@mercuryllc.com
THE REVOLUTION IS COMING… NATIONAL PARENTS UNION TO OFFICIALLY LAUNCH AT PARENT POWER 2020 IN NEW ORLEANS
Kick-off summit will bring parent activists and organizations to New Orleans to define a national K-12 agenda and make education equity a reality for all children
New Orleans, LA – The National Parents Union (NPU), an intersectional, parent-led organization, will hold its inaugural summit in New Orleans to advance education reform and define a new K-12 national agenda.
Parent Power 2020 (January 16-18) will bring over 100 delegates and organizations from all 50 states for a series of skills-building workshops, campaign clinics and activations designed to provide parents with the tools and infrastructure to effect change in their own communities and exert greater influence on the national conservation around education reform. Parent Power 2020 will feature several notable speakers, including keynotes from journalist and activist Felipe Luciano, and author and activistIlyasah Shabazz, the daughter of the late Malcom X.
The summit will also include a Jazz Funeral through the French Quarter in New Orleans on January 17, to officially bury the status quo that has been plaguing education in America for decades and commemorate the dawn of a new day in our schools.
The convening will conclude with a vote and ratification of NPU’s Statement of Values that lays out the goals and objectives of parent activists ahead of the 2020 Presidential election. At the conclusion of the summit, delegates will vote in a straw poll assessing the education proposals and policies of the 2020 Presidential Candidates.
Parent Power 2020 is open to press. Please contact Dan Bank npu@mercuryllc.com to register for credentials.
Click here to learn more about NPU’s mission.
WHO:
Featured speakers at Parent Power 2020 will include:
· Alma Marquez and Keri Rodrigues, National Parents Union co-founders
· Ilyasah Shabazz, Community Organizer and daughter of Malcolm X
· Antonio Villaraigosa, Former Mayor of Los Angeles
· Felipe Luciano, The Young Lords
· Colleen Cook, National Coalition for Public School Options
· Gerard Robinson, Center for Advancing Opportunity
· Sharif El Mekki, Black Male Educators for Social Justice
WHEN:
Parent Power 2020
January 16 –January 18, 2020
Jazz Funeral
Friday, January 17
6:30pm-7:00pm local time
Additional details will be provided
WHERE:
Parent Power 2020 will be held in New Orleans. The exact location will be shared during the registration process.
About National Parents Union:
The National Parents Union is a network of parent organizations and grassroots activists across the country committed to improving the quality of life for children and families in the United States. NPU unites these organizations behind a common set of principles that put children and families at the center of education politics and policy. With delegates representing each of the 50 states, NPU disrupts the traditional role of parent voice in policy spaces and develops a new narrative that is inclusive of families from a wide variety of intersectional perspectives.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Ah, yes. . . .
QUESTION: How many ways can a wolf dress up in sheep’s clothing?
ANSWER: It’s endless. CBK
I looked at the website and leaders there. Almost everyone has a connection to the Democratic party, Obama administration, or prior work in dealing with teacher unions–and condemnting them. https://www.nationalparentsunion.org/#keri-rodrigues
Although this post does not mention the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, in the last two years it has thrown $7,044,062 in support of organizing parent groups and supporting parent groups who are organizers.
You can be sure the this group is not the only one that will target Democrats in the forthcoming elections and not just the at the presidential level.
One of the speakers, Gerard Robinson, was Secretary of Education in Virginia for a Republican Governor, then in Florida for Jeb Bush.
Diane and Laura When Obama was in office, I was just beginning to understand how huge the difference was between public schools (or anything public) and charters and their (by whatever name) self-dealing private systems and anti-democratic entities.
Earlier, I had bought the “bad public schools” argument, at least in part; and when I heard of the earlier Texas charter movement, I thought that was a great idea. I sensed a deeper problem, but couldn’t understand WHY anyone would object to a charter school if it meant their children were getting a good/better education.
Of course, that was then, and this is now.
However, from my “this is now” situation (and perhaps I am still a bit biased towards Obama) . . . but I have to wonder this: IF Obama understood fully what WE understand now (and what some understood earlier–YOU, Diane, in particular), would he have been supportive of all of the charter (Arne, etc.) “stuff” that went down during his administration about education.
On the general theme, however, as long as concerned people think only about educating specific children, and as long as they DON’T understand the money-and-politics of the situation (and sometimes religious aspects, as in Betsy), they will tend to remain, like I was–wondering: What’s wrong with private entities education students?
I doubt many supporters who are truly democratic have thought it through; and perhaps are blocked by all of the bells and whistles, and the horrendous spin and din; and the fact that, indeed, there is always room for improvement (true reform) in public education; but that the spin-and-din is not the reality; and that the FOUNDATIONS of public education is the very democracy that is on attack by the so-called reformers; whereas, charters’ foundations are the range of corporate need coupled with owners’ fiat, rather than, again, the public good.
In brief, I wonder, in at least some cases of those who really are democrats (like my thoughts about Obama), if they knew the whole story, IF they would still be “on board” the fake-reformer train.
Let’s keep touting your book. CBK
Are any of them public school parents?
Another ed reform group that completely excludes public school students and families yet claims to be about “public education”.
“Peter Cunningham is the founder of Education Post. He served as assistant secretary for communications and outreach in the U.S. Department of Education during the Obama administration’s first term.”
Heading up another anti-public schools group.
If you want to know how completely the Obama Administration was captured by the ed reform echo chamber, look at the jobs they all took when they left- not a one of them works in any capacity to support public schools.
100% echo chamber members – no dissenters allowed.
Is there a single source (paper or book) where one can read at least a summary of Cunningham’s research in these grassroots parent organizations for school choice?
I meant Maurice Cunningham.
FYI, this post about the “grassroots” parent group called the National Parents Union brought out the Walton allies on Twitter, calling me a racist for daring to question this group that attacks public schools, their teachers, and their unions and advocates for non-union charter schools.
Apparently if your group gets millions from the Waltons, that means you are concerned with the neediest children of color.
I tweeted that if the Waltons cared about the neediest children, they should start by paying their one million workers a living wage. If I had more space, I would have added that they should stop filing lawsuits to cut their property taxes, which fund local schools.
The Waltons collectively have a net worth of more than $150 billion. Billions.
Walton allies, if there are ones who are decent, rationalize away the obvious.
The others are using the usual playbook- the one that calls for defense of oligarchs by claiming billionaires are redressing the discrimination of race…religion, etc. After democracy and the communities’ assets have been legally stolen, colonialists will employ only the most ruthless with the backing of the theocracy.
My book SLAYING GOLIATH cites lots of Maurice Cunningham posts. He is quite the investigator.
“AOC is taking steps to mount an independent political operation capable of rivaling the establishment party organs”. Presumably one of the establishment organs is the charter-loving CAP which reportedly provides talking points for Pete Buttigieg.
The expectation that CAP will submit an amicus brief in the Espinosa case is a fool’s errand just like the expectation that Harvard’s Larry Summers will be out of his position as a Senior Fellow at CAP. Summers’ name appears in the media’s Epstein articles.
AOC is right to cut off the DCCC from her fund raising, if only, she could cut off funds to DGA, while Raimondo runs it
To aid the Waltons with a “social justice scheme”, a decent person would likely rationalize. Defending, in one’s own mind, the taking of a community’s assets and democracy is easier if a religious hierarchy exists too justify it. Koch and Walton hires who are Catholic can turn to the web post of the Massachusetts Catholic Conference for justification. The view that public schools can be sources for promiscuity’s promotion, for tolerance of homosexuality and can cause a wedge in control of reproduction can be inferred from the paragraphs.
For greater detail about Catholic positions, the Manhattan Declaration is on-line. It was signed by bishops/archbishops of 11 major cities. Catholic state conferences describe at their sites, legislative alerts and other political activities. Many of the 11 cities on the Declaration have been ground zero for privatization.