Maurice Cunningham is a retired professor of political science in Massachusetts who specializes in following the trail of Dark Money into school issues. He was a major influence in turning the public against a state referendum to expand charters in 2016; he revealed the Dark Money behind the charter advocacy and that revealed the lies behind the rosy rhetoric.
In this post, he describes the role of Koch money behind “parent groups” harassing educators in Newton, Mass.
He writes:
On Friday Travis Anderson of the Boston Globe reported that two Black principals in Newton had received “racist and confrontational” messages for doing their jobs: to help their students process the verdicts in the Kyle Rittenhouse and Tracy McMichael, Gregory McMichael, and William Bryan Jr. (murderers of Ahmaud Arbery) trials. The hate came rolling in after the educators’ teaching methods were blown up in the right wing media network. Yes it’s terrible but it’s also deliberate.
The Globe reported that the hateful messages came after the radical right Breitbart News ran a heated misrepresentation about the Newton educators. Similar bulldust was published by conservative provocateurs Daily Caller, Washington Examiner, and The Federalist.
The generator of the story to the right wing propaganda network was Parents Defending Education. PDE is run by veteran Koch operative Nicole Neily, who refuses to discuss who funds the outfit (she can’t; it’s bad for business). PDE has ties to the Council for National Policy (CNP) which, as Anne Nelson has shown in Shadow Network, manages and coordinates strategy and tactics for an array of radical billionaire funders and Christian nationalist activists.
PDE is working on a model Koch and CNP have long used to attack college professors. Isaac Kamola explains how it’s done in “Dear Administrators: To Protect Your Faculty from Right Wing Attacks, Follow the Money.” Some information is received (PDE encourages anonymous tipsters) and then twisted or taken out of context. This works best if the educator is a woman, person of color (like the Newton principals), or LGBTQ. Then fringe outlets like Breitbart, Daily Caller, Federalist pick it up and publicize it. (With a little luck and the CNP’s connections, it might get on Fox). Post it online for the lip reading haters who act on this garbage and just sit back. The racist hate mail, phone calls, and social media posts will flow.
It’s depressing right? But it’s also intentional. This is part of a coordinated right wing attack on public schools (Critical Race Theory, anti-vaxxers, anti-maskers, billionaire funded “parent” groups) and an assault on our government and American democracy. Parents Defending Education, Campus Reform, Moms for Liberty, Breitbart, Federalist—they all know what they’re doing and they know the results that eventuate from their tactics.
This is a hard story for daily journalism to tell, but it has to find a way. American democracy doesn’t have much time left.
We all need to stand up for our democracy and our public schools.
Cunningham recently published a new book, Dark Money and the Politics of School Privatization.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“I love the smell of napalm in the morning.” –Lieutenant Colonel William “Bill” Kilgore, Apocalypse Now
Repugnicans can smell victory. Regain the House and a solid majority in the Senate in 2022. Regain the presidency in 2024, this time with a candidate who shares Trump’s ruthlessness, his fascism, but is a LOT smarter and a LOT more knowledgeable. Then, use that COMPLETE control to expand the Court and put in place laws severely restricting voting rights to lock in their control. And, ofc, enact nationalist curricula to indoctrinate the next generation of kids in a fascist nationalist mythology.
And the results in Virginia and various other tests of what will stick with the populace has given them this season’s version of Willy Horton, Monkey Business, Benghazi, Swiftboat, and Caravans of Invading Rapists and Murderers Who Want Your Jobs–the supposed indoctrination of white kids in Socialist hatred of America and of themselves.
Call it “CRT.” The racism card. Tried and true. Especially effective during economic downturns, when people are finding that they don’t have enough money to buy groceries and fuel.
Here we are. We are Germany in 1932.
Bob when you look at the folks behind the CRT panic it’s the same billionaires and activists lurking behind 1/6, anti-mask, anti-vaxx, etc, just as you say. For instance Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA has a Professor’s Watchlist for years, now has a School Board Watchlist. Kirk bragged about sending 80 buses to 1/6. Koch money very tied in, Mercers on Reopening, Waltons behind National Parents Union, etc.
A magnificent piece, Maurice. Ordering a copy of your book! And thank you for this hard work and for your truth-telling!
cx: The results . . . HAVE given. ofc
Thank you Bob. We can beat these frauds and we will.
That’s the spirit! I think that the fascists might find that once they have the reins in hand, the youth of the country will turn out to be far less tamed than they had imagined.
In an attempt to ride on the right wing anti-CRT movement, DeSantis announced new “anti-W.O.K.E” legislation. It would prohibit public institutions in the state from hiring CRT consultants. It would also allow any citizen to sue when there is suspected “indoctrination.” DeSantis wants to be viewed as a leader in the culture war to shore up his position because he has presidential aspirations. He will continue the assault on public schools and inspire witch hunts against any professionals that dare to address the issue of race in this state. DeSantis is the new face of McCarthyism.
Everything he does, now, is with this aim: securing his inheritance of the Orange Mantle.
Trump, but a LOT smarter
Exactly. And he announced it with a Moms for Liberty representative by his side. M4L is Republican dark money.
What have the Koch-funded parents groups accomplished that is positive or beneficial to public school students?
I recognize this is a question that is never asked in ed reform, but it seems important.
Can they point to a single school or student that is better off as a result of their national ideological campaign? For people who pound the table on “accountability!” all the time, accountability is sorely lacking in all these ed reform groups. No one ever asks what they contribute or bring to the table. What are these people paid to do? Are they employed as professional critics of public schools?
Accountability is for the Proles.
Consider, for example, the Ghislaine Maxwell trial, in which no person who was trafficked to a VERY IMPORTANT PERSON and couldname names was invited to testify, or consider Merrick Garland not aggressively going after Trump and his criminal, traitorous spawn.
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded.
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed.
Everybody knows that the war is over.
Everybody knows the that good guys lost.
Everybody knows that the fight was fixed.
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich.
That’s how it goes.
Everybody knows.
–Leonard Cohen
Nice reference to the brilliant Leonard Cohen. I was fortunate to see him perform at Brooklyn’s Barkley Center (also a basketball arena) a couple of years before he died.
Oh, this is wonderful to hear, Diane!!!
Koch got into this hard post-2018 (he was in before, but not to this extent). But when you look at 2021 fronts like Moms 4 Liberty, Parents Defending Education, it has the mark of Koch and Council for National Policy. The aim is to destroy public education
Thank you for including the Council for National Policy which fronts for the two conservative religions in the U.S.
The Koch et. al. target is not limited to destruction of public education. Two articles that Democrats and Republicans who value America should read, Huffpo’s “Chilling: Ex-Generals Warn to Prep for Coup Attempt” (1-18-2021). The Generals’ focus is the potential for a divided military.
The 2nd article is at America Jesuit Review, 1-12-2021, by James Martin S.J., “An alarming number of Catholic clergy contributed to an environment that led to the fateful riots at the U.S. Capitol.” Martin identified clergy across the country, including in Maryland, Wisconsin, Tenn., S.C., N.C.,Texas, etc.
Martin described as follows, “…not isolated incidents. Rather they were part of a pattern of messages from bishops and priests casting the election not only in terms of pure good vs. pure evil but, in apocalyptic language.”
It IS amusing that well-compensated ed reformers who work for billionaires spend so much time attacking the heads of teachers unions for receiving compensation.
What’s the combined payroll in ed reform groups these days? It’s gotta be tens of millions of dollars. If you just take the heads of the billionaire orgs and add that up it must be 5 million, and that’s without the tens of other groups funded as subsidiaries of the billionaire groups.
Nice work if you can get it, full time critic of public schools. Much more lucrative than teaching. And a high growth sector! The ed reform groups multiply like mushrooms.
If Melinda Gates announced that her foundation was wrong about privatization, the U.S. would markedly improve. The Gates’ destruction of the teaching profession, the commercialization of education and, the resulting resegregation of schools is one example of Gates’ villainy that, with hope, will not outlive them.
Hear, hear.
the big “if” — IF they could grasp the idea that their disconnected (and self-interested) interventions and “philanthropic” efforts create more chaos and destruction than aid
Bill Gates believes in predatory capitalism, in unequal, weight class fights and, in regressive taxes. He’ll never change. Whether Melinda is as big a jerk as he is, the years she has left, will tell.
YES!
“….after the radical right Breitbart News ran a heated misrepresentation about the Newton educators. Similar bulldust was published by conservative provocateurs Daily Caller, Washington Examiner, and The Federalist.”
I have seen those kinds of misrepresentations posted here (with links) by one or two regulars – and I have tried to call them out. I think that when these kinds of misrepresentations are ignored — and allowed to be posted without anyone bothering to comment about how misleading they are — then we are doing nothing to combat the amplification of this anti-public school propaganda. And it is important to correct it immediately, instead of giving it legitimacy and credibility by ignoring it as if it was a “very important point”.
Thank you, Maurice Cunningham, for bringing light and facts to help quash the propaganda.
Thank you, I appreciate this
Where do these Koch-funded parent groups come from?
These Koch parents were born in test tubes, grew up in labs, and were taught by emotionless robots that taught these future Koch parents how to fake raw emotions to get their way.
“Beware” Cleta Mitchell, who formerly represented Robert P. George’s National Organization for Marriage. Huffpo reported about Mitchell’s strategizing with ALEC to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election. Political Research Associates updated its research about the National Organization for Marriage (Profiles in the Right’s NOM, 4-10-2018). Phil Attey is quoted about the organization’s funders, he claims there is a “funneling of tax free money from Knights of Columbus, Dioceses and the Council of Bishops.” The extent of politicking done by an organization like NOM, as presented by PRA, is shocking.
John Eastman chairs the NOM board. He is currently in the news in reference to Jan 6. He was on the dais with Rudy Giuliani that day.
Public schools can recognize conservative religion’s leaders have them in the crosshairs and fight back or, they can acquiesce to the religious right.
John Eastman is in the news for more reasons than standing with Trump on the dais on Jan 6. He wrote a legal memo to the Trump team on six ways to overturn the results of the 2020 election. It’s in the hands of the House Committee investigation of the insurrection.
“The term “anti-vax” has expanded so widely that even vaccine advocates, such as Corbyn and trade unions, are now included by virtue of defending bodily autonomy.”
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/led-by-jeremy-corbyn-the-british?r=nn42x&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
Absurd for the mercurial BATCH LOT used to describe the multi-faceted folks, right, left and center, very rich to very poor, from every walk of life, creed, color and education level as “anti-vaxxers & anti-masker”. It’s soooo easy to lump folks together so there’s no person, no story, no fact that needs review. ENLIGHTENMENT or DOGMA?
Trump’s campaign manager in the state of Washington, GOP Sen. Doug Ericksen is no longer an “anti-vaxxer.” He’s dead at 52 years old.
Linda, as Trump would say, “Sad.”
“Ex-CIA QAnoner who called Covid a hoax dies from virus”-
Robert David Steele, no conspiracy too outlandish, dies at age 69.
Clarity,
Anyone unwilling to get vaccinated against a deadly virus is a fool.