The latest ploy of the billionaires pushing their version of “reform schools” is to fund faux grassroots parent organizations, like the “National Parents Union.” The media refer to them as “family-led.” Like the Walton family? In Rhode Island, as Massachusetts professor Maurice Cunningham demonstrated, a parent group demanding charter schools suddenly popped up, called “Stop the Wait, Rhode Island.” These moms somehow had the money to commission a statewide poll.
In her latest post, Mercedes Schneider probes the latest “grassroots” group of parents, who somehow have the funding to intervene in litigation. It calls itself “Parents Defending Education.” She refers to this group as “prefab grassroots.”
The post is vintage Mercedes, who utilizes her considerable investigative skills to follow the money behind the facade.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
These moms don’t have the FACTS … OY!
They are well paid to spout the Walton facts.
I don’t think it will fool anyone. The group is aggressively and blatantly ideological. They call themselves “nonpartisan” which I suppose is true because obviously there are a lot of Democratic politicians who follow the Jeb Bush agenda on public education but “nonpartisan” doesn’t mean “not ideological”.
I don’t understand why ed reformers won’t admit it’s a Right wing movement. Are they ashamed or is this ridiculous inability to admit what is clear designed to deceive people?
Just be a Right wing education movement. It’s fine.
“The National Parents Union” is a front for devious dark money underwritten by funds from conservative groups like the Koch family. The objective seems to be to put public schools on the defensive in order to maximize the resultant disruption. Actually, I hope their attack shows that the testing is biased because we know that all standardized testing in biased. If the exams for elite public schools in NYC are eliminated on the grounds of discrimination, maybe the federal government will stop mandating standardized testing because, frankly, all standardized testing is biased.
The war on this is just heating up! The lines are being drawn and the lawyers selected. We have, as a society, become so tribal in our attainment of wealth and status (free market ideology), that we are eating ourselves alive! I can’t keep track of it anymore and wish this would all just settle down and go away.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2021/03/26/tj-high-school-admissions-race-asian-parents-column/6982183002/
I have done several searches on-line over the years on the topic “public schools outperform charter schools.” I used to get a mixed bag of results including those from public ed. bloggers. Now the “pay to play” stink tanks and foundations crowing about charter “success” dominate the search. Now independent bloggers are in the back of the search bus. The deformers are trying to control the messaging that charters are better than public schools.
No studies show that charter schools are better than public schools, unless you ignore cherry-picking, attrition and pushing out kids with low scores.
Admit the goal is to privatize K-12 education systems. Then we can have a real, public debate over whether privatizing public schools is a majority position in the US.
Do they think they can’t compete with this agenda? Is that why they go to such elaborate lengths to dress it up as something else?
I love the “our schools” framing these political operatives use, by the way. How are public schools “our schools” to ed reformers? They contribute absolutely nothing to public schools. They perform no productive work at all on behalf of any public school or public school student. They didn’t and don’t attend public schools and they don’t support public schools. Why are they claiming a mandate to run them? Shouldn’t we have people who value public schools and public school students setting policy for public schools?
“David Osborne
Checker Finn is right. That’s why our foundations should stop funding things like XQ schools (Emerson) or “improvement networks” (Gates) and start funding fundamental redesign of school districts (as in New Orleans) or expansion of strong charter sectors.”
I appreciate this full time professional ed reform lobbyist because he tells the truth about the agenda.
They want to replace public schools with wholly privatized systems. If you hire or elect them that’s what you will get- dismantle existing public school systems and sell of the parts to contractors.
The public should know this and ed reformers have a duty to tell them.
Hire ed reformers, get privatization.
I am concerned that the federal money intended to improve public schools will get diverted in red states to charter schools or other projects. Unless there is a used it for the intended purpose or lose it clause, I can see red state governors using it as a slush fund.
David Osborne hasn’t learned anything new in. 30 years of pushing privatization.
Does he know that half the charters in New Orleans are segregated failing schools?
There is an article, in the LA Times for example, nearly every day conflating this or that astroturf group with actual everyday parents. Biased, dishonest news coverage is a dangerous problem, and it’s not just the lies propagandized on social media feeds.
That was what I was getting at in the comment above. Facts and reality mean nothing to the charter lobby. These privatization groups are using media to disseminate the message that charters are better than public schools. They buy the top slots on internet searches. When the uninformed search, they will see twenty top posts asserting this falsehood.
Posted at https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Mercedes-Schneider-Ed-Def-in-General_News-Billionaires_Create-Havoc_Education-Costs_Educational-Crisis-210404-62.html#comment787817