Maurice Cunningham: “Three Women and a Website” Plus the Support of Billionaires= National Parents Union

May 26, 2021 //

Maurice Cunningham is perpetually amazed that the mainstream media—and even Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona—take the so-called National Parents Union as an authentic parents’ group. Without the generous funding of Charles Koch, the Waltons, and other rightwing billionaires, there would be no NPU.

Categories Education Reform

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Chiara says:

May 26, 2021 at 10:12 am

That is an amazing story. So the one anti-public school group is denying the existence of the other anti-public school group, although the two paid leaders had a podcast together and they’re both funded by the Kochs to do the exact same thing?

One more ed reform group! Full employment for anti-public school lobbyists!

I love how INSULAR it is. They go from paid positions in one group to all but identical paid positions in another group. Lifetime employment. The revolving door to government is also interesting. From the Obama US Department of Education directly into employment lobbying against public schools. When we said the anti-public school lobby were running the Obama Dept of Ed we didn’t know how right we were.

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Chiara says:

May 26, 2021 at 10:31 am

“From what we have been able to see, this is three women and a website . . .” Ms. Rodrigues can see much more, but she didn’t share it. She can see that one of the three women is her friend and former podcast and radio venture partner, Erika Sanzi. Ms. Sanzi is Director of Outreach for PDE. The two women once co-occupied a land known as Planet Mom.”

Just amazing. The connections don’t end there, either. The promotion and marketing of Planet Mom was conducted by yet another ed reform entity they all work for- Ed Post.

Echo. Chamber. Literally.

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- Linda says:
  
  May 26, 2021 at 7:26 pm
  
  Internet search of Keri Rodrigues – “retweet It’s official we’re putting our 12 year old in a private Catholic school”.
  
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Jennifer says:

May 26, 2021 at 10:33 am

Keri Rodrigues, the Walton-paid head of NPU, sure doesn’t represent me as a public school parent, in fact she has me blocked on Twitter for calling her out since she likes to pretend she’s authentic and not on the payroll

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- ciedie aech says:
  
  May 26, 2021 at 2:12 pm
  
  “Walton-paid” — an essential way to find actual intentions, follow the money
  
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Chiara says:

May 26, 2021 at 10:34 am

I was looking at the (very slick) marketing website for The Parents Union and in true ed reform fashion there is not a single person listed who has a kid in a public school.

They’re “the parents union” but there are no public school parents and all their “advocacy” consists of bashing public schools and promoting charters and vouchers.

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Chiara says:

May 26, 2021 at 10:38 am

I encourage everyone to go read any ed reformer on school closures. There’s a glaring omission. Charter schools.
In may of these urban areas half the students attend charters. Charters were closed in those areas just like public schools were closed.
The ed reform lobby omitted that fact. Just – poof!- disappeared.
So even in cities where they succeed in privatizing HALF the public schools all criticism is leveled exclusively at the remaining public schools.
How long can they keep this up? Are they still going to be blaming public schools when they close the last one?

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Ohio Algebra II Teacher says:

May 26, 2021 at 11:23 am

Being amazed at the media’s gullibility towards Ed Reform is like being amazed at the missed calls by referees of professional wrestling.

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- ciedie aech says:
  
  May 26, 2021 at 2:13 pm
  
  🙂
  
  Reply
- SomeDAM Poet says:
  
  May 26, 2021 at 9:37 pm
  
  Excellent analogy.
  
  Tag teams of deformers have been body slamming teachers and hitting them over the head with chairs for over two decades now.
  
  I doubt even the Undertaker would have survived what teachers have been put through.
  
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  - Ohio Algebra II Teacher says:
    
    May 26, 2021 at 10:43 pm
    
    LOL! You always have me laughing, SDP!
    
    (Congrats on making it through another year.)
- Bob Shepherd says:
  
  May 27, 2021 at 7:45 am
  
  It’s as though at the annual oligarch’s coven, they divide up ownership: you take the media, and I’ll take the charter schools and virtual schools and testing and educational software businesses.
  
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Chiara says:

May 26, 2021 at 11:27 am

Secretary Cardona takes the National Parents Union as an authentic group because the national parents union has former US Department of Education officials on the board and they’re better connected than any ordinary person.
The ed reform echo chamber members move seamlessly from public employment as ed reform promoters to private employment, and back again.
If you were to list these peoples’ names and start drawing lines between them and ed reform lobbying groups and government you would end up with a solid block of ink.
Look what happened when the blogger took a tiny piece of the echo chamber and drew lines. Crossed immediately and repeatedly. You can do the same with any of them.

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- retired teacher says:
  
  May 26, 2021 at 1:21 pm
  
  Privatizers play “musical jobs” as they exchange affiliations from one astroturf group to another in the echo chamber. It is unfortunate that Dr. Cardona gives National Parents Union any sense of legitimacy. A real public education advocate would not play that game. Only an unctuous politician would embrace the deceit.
  
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Chiara says:

May 26, 2021 at 11:36 am

Here’s an example:

“From 2009-2013, she served in the U.S. Department of Education, first as director of the Race to the Top Program, then as chief of staff to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Prior to joining the Obama Administration, Joanne was a partner and chief operating officer at NewSchools Venture Fund, where she focused on investing in and supporting a variety of charter management organizations, human capital solutions providers, and academic tools and systems designers. Prior to NewSchools, Joanne spent twenty years pioneering ways to increase the effectiveness of teaching and learning—as VP of curriculum R&D, then as CEO—for companies providing technology-based products and services to underserved students in K-12 and higher education”

These are the people who direct public education policy. They all come out of ed reform orgs. It’s not a mystery why it’s an echo chamber. It’s a pipeline and no one outside it is hired. It’s not like anyone is hiding it.

She’s now on the board of a national charter lobby, because of course she is. A completely closed system, musical chairs.

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NoBrick says:

May 26, 2021 at 1:47 pm

Are they still going to be blaming public schools?

Would a bull-frog bump his ass less if he had wings?

BLAME BLAME BLAME Blame “others” for a poor job
of cultivating individuals with true vision,
as if true vision was the objective.

Placing faith in the statements of professional liars
has yet to hold the demons of inequality at bay.

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Chiara says:

May 26, 2021 at 4:55 pm

So can public schools go their own way? Obviously I mean within the limits of following laws and regulations- or working to change them- but what if public schools stopped relying on an ed reform echo chamber that is mostly hostile to them and seeks only to replace them and instead went in a positive direction with advice from people who value public schools?

Are we stuck with this agenda forever? It doesn’t grow our schools, it doesn’t “improve” our schools and it offers nothing positive to our students. We have twenty years of experience with it- we know what ed reform and ed reformers offer. Not much for public school students and a lot of downside.

AT BEST ed reform allows that public schools may continue to exist. Can’t we do better than that?

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Linda says:

May 26, 2021 at 7:47 pm

For those who discount or ignore the influence of conservative religious, there’s must-read research, “The new official contents of sex education in Mexico: laicism in the crosshairs”, by Armando Javier Diaz Camarena (Epub 3-3-2021 at the scielo.org website) The research is much broader than the title implies.

An excerpt- “In 2016, the organizations with Catholic views allied with Evangelical groups and formed the National Front for the Family, a group of organizations from all over the country articulated with analogous groups and networks in the continent and world.” They organized mass demonstrations. “The strategy was to accuse the state of violating the ‘right of parents’ to educate their children.”
In his summary, Camarena warned of the risk of setbacks in the recognition of sexual and reproductive rights, gender identity and equal marriage.” The motivation of the conservative religious was described as the fear of promotion of behaviors that endanger society.

The fear is more likely, fear that the religious leaders will be rendered powerless and that the wealthy will be thwarted in their goal to cower the poor and exploit them.

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SomeDAM Poet says:

May 26, 2021 at 9:39 pm

Amazing as if may seem even billionaires have parents, you know.

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SomeDAM Poet says:

May 26, 2021 at 9:40 pm

And even more amazing is that some of them even have wives.

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- SomeDAM Poet says:
  
  May 26, 2021 at 9:41 pm
  
  And husbands
  
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- SomeDAM Poet says:
  
  May 26, 2021 at 9:44 pm
  
  And most amazing of all is that they gave dogs.
  
  What self respecting dog would be loyal to a billionaire?
  
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  - Bob Shepherd says:
    
    May 27, 2021 at 7:42 am
    
    “a robotic dog that is data driven”–Oh my Lord, that is perfect, SomeDAM!
    
    Doubtless Bill’s robot dog behaves as though it thinks he’s just peachy,
    
    the way his numerous human sycophants have done for so long.
- SomeDAM Poet says:
  
  May 26, 2021 at 9:47 pm
  
  Bill Gates undoubtedly has a robotic dog that is data driven.
  
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Bob Shepherd says:

May 27, 2021 at 7:36 am

Have you ever noticed that there are tons of left-wing comedy shows but no right-wing ones? The closest right-wingers get to a joke is being the butt of one, and in many cases, that term is appropriate in more than one way.

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Chiara says:

May 27, 2021 at 8:04 am

“It should be positive,” Gingrich said. “School choice, teaching American history for real, abolishing the ‘1619 Project,’ eliminating critical race theory and what the Texas legislature is doing. We should say, ‘Bring it on.’”

There is no difference between the ed reform agenda and Newt Gingrich’s and Donald Trump’s education plank in their “contract for America”.

They’ve united in bipartisan opposition to the continued existence of public schools. You can vote for the Democratic charter/voucher promoter and public school basher or you can choose the Republican charter/voucher promoter and public school basher, but you’ll get the same agenda either way.

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Chiara says:

May 27, 2021 at 8:09 am

“Recently, the Christensen Institute’s cofounder, Michael B. Horn, along with Summit Public Schools founder Diane Tavenner, interviewed school finance expert Marguerite Roza on their Class Disrupted podcast. Their topic: the biggest federal investment in K–12 public education in our country’s history. ”

The echo chamber carefully exclude public schools and public school advocates and supporters from all discussions on what public schools “should” do.

This is completely accepted in ed reform- the norm- no one even contemplates that they might want to include a public school in public school planning.

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- Linda says:
  
  May 27, 2021 at 8:54 am
  
  The Christiansen Institute wrote an article about a prototype for Cristo Rey (a chain of religious schools in 17 states). The prototype has 60 students per class. Both Gates and Walton heirs provided funding for Cristo Rey.
  
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Linda says:

May 27, 2021 at 9:01 am

Accusing the state of violating the right of parents to educate their kids is an orchestrated, worldwide campaign. It was documented in Mexico in 2016. A university researcher posted about it in March 2021.

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- Linda says:
  
  May 27, 2021 at 2:26 pm
  
  Why is the category of public education enemy limited to just billionaires and those they fund?
  Not my answer but one, proffered – public school teachers /supporters are, in general terms, church goers. They want prayer in school. That situation makes them incapable of accepting an enemy that comes from churches despite growth in vouchers in many states outpacing growth in charter schools. The tarring of evangelicals is a ready-at-hand response, while the Catholic part of the alliance is ignored because public school supporters interact with more individual Catholics. Public ed supporters conflate the apolitical or left leaning individuals they know with the church hierarchy, a leadership that uses church resources in many ways detrimental to an advanced society. And, they conflate those they know with the right wing activists who cite church affiliation in order to exercise greater power.
  
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