Maurice Cunningham, a retired professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, is a specialist on the subject of Dark Money. That’s money given to a group or campaign where the donor’s name is hidden. His most recent book is Dark Money and the Politics of School Privatization.
Cunningham was instrumental in the defeat of a referendum in Massachusetts in 2016 to expand the number of charter schools. Early polling showed it would pass easily. But Cunningham dug into the funders and discovered that the proposition was funded by billionaires, including the Waltons and Bloomberg. He learned of an astroturf parent group called the National Parents Union, funded by the Waltons to promote charters and pretend there was a huge parent demand for them. The proposition was overwhelmingly defeated.
Imagine his surprise when he learned recently that the U.S. Department of Education was creating a Nation Parents & Families Council, and the National Parents Union was a member. He wrote to Secretary Miguel Cardona to express his concern that NPU was a Walton-funded astroturf group whose goal was to discredit public schools and promote charter schools.
He received a boilerplate response from the U.S. Department of Education’s communications office, dismissing his concerns.
Maurice T. Cunningham Maurice.Cunningham153@gmail.com
Dear Mr. Cunningham,
August 1, 2022
Thank you for your email to Secretary Miguel Cardona regarding National Parents Union (NPU) representation on the Department of Education’s (the Department) National Parents & Families Engagement Council (the Council). Your letter has been forwarded to the Office of Communications and Outreach and I am pleased to respond.
The Department acknowledges your concern and appreciates the in-depth information shared from your research regarding NPU. The Council is an opportunity for the Department to listen, learn and engage families and caregivers and will be a channel for parents and families to constructively participate in their children’s education. The goal of the Council is to be reflective of the diversity of the country and our public schools and the Department is open and accepting of all parent voices.
Again, thank you for your concern regarding organizations participating on the Council. Please know that the Department’s commitment to all parents, and their crucial role in their children’s education, is unwavering. The Secretary and staff here at the Department will continue to not just listen to parents but seek out their counsel and feedback because a school community works best when parents and educators are working together.
Sincerely,
/S/
Kelly Leon
Press Secretary, Office of Communications and Outreach, Delegated the Authority to Perform the
Functions and Duties of the Assistant Secretary for the Office of Communications and Outreach
Undeterred, Cunningham wrote another letter, going into greater detail.
MAURICE T. CUNNINGHAM, PhD, JD
August 16, 2022
The Honorable Miguel Cardona
Secretary of Education
U.S. Department of Education
400 Maryland Avenue SW
Washington, DC 20202
Ms. Kelly Leon, Press Secretary, Office of Communications and Outreach
U.S. Department of Education
400 Maryland Avenue SW
Washington, DC 20202
Dear Secretary Cardona and Ms. Leon:
I am in receipt of Ms. Leon’s August 1, 2022 reply to my letter to Secretary Cardona of June 28, 2022 in which I detail some of my research showing that National Parents Union does not belong on the Department of Education’s National Parents and Families Engagement Council. Ms. Leon’s response, which simply recites boilerplate about the council seeking to solicit the views of parent, is disappointing and inadequate. National Parents Union is not a parents’ organization at all. That’s the point.
I would have thought that an organization like NPU that was founded in 2020 and almost immediately received $700,000 in funding from the Vela Education Fund, a joint venture of the Charles Koch Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation, might elicit DOE’s curiosity as to NPU’s authenticity. The WFF and individual Walton family members have been involved in school privatization efforts for years. WalMart, the company inherited by the family, is one of the most virulently anti-labor corporations in the world. As the labor historian Nelson Lichtenstein writes, WFF is “the single largest source of funding for the ‘school choice’ movement and a powerful advocate of charter schools and voucher initiatives.” The Waltons’ support for privatization is an entirely ideological project, based on a desire to enhance the social and cultural value of a free market in which government is weak while public goods like . . . education . . . are the fodder for entrepreneurial transformation. . . . Since public schools are by far the most pervasive of public institutions, and highly unionized to boot, this “$700-plus-billion-a-year industry”—John Walton’s phrase—has been a good place to start.
Charles Koch came to K-12 privatization only in recent years, announcing his intentions in a 2018 Koch Seminar in which another Koch network member ($100,000 required simply to attend) called K-12 privatization “low-hanging fruit.” As reported by the Washington Post’s James Hohmann, “Making a long-term play, the billionaire industrialist Charles Koch and his like-minded friends on the right are increasingly focused on melding the minds of the next generation by making massive, targeted investments in both K-12 and higher education.” The Koch network “dreamed . . . of breaking the teachers unions.” Charles Koch, skeptical for years about impacting K-12, had a Koch Industries vice-president named Meredith Olson investigate, and her strategic scheme spurred him on.
Meredith Olson is also important because by June 2019 Koch and WFF (both members of Stand Together) were announcing matching $5 million investments in a joint venture named “4.0”to “transform America’s education system” in their corporate image. Ms. Olson was K-12 Initiative Vice President at Stand Together. More importantly for considering the legitimacy of NPU, Ms. Olson is CEO and a board member of Vela Education Foundation. As her LinkedIn page shows, Ms. Olson is an oil and gas executive. She has no background in or understanding of education. She would have been responsible for the $700,000grant Vela made in August 2020 to NPU—an eight month old organization with no track record in grants administration.
Charles Koch’s “interest” in education was discussed on the podcast “Have You Heard” by Christopher Leonard, author of the best-selling Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America. Leonard described Charles Koch, like the Waltons, as an ideological libertarian. Leonard confirmed Koch’s intense anti-unionism and continued: “when you have public education … one of the biggest problems for the libertarians is that it’s funded through taxes. . . they see taxation truly as a form of of (sic) theft and robbery.” An extensive remark by Leonard is worth your careful consideration:
Know what the blueprint is. The Koch influence machine is multifaceted and complex and I am just telling you in a very honest way, there’s a huge difference between the marketing materials produced by Americans for Prosperity (Koch’s political organization, a parallel to NPU) and the behind the scenes actual politicalphilosophy. There’s a huge difference. And here’s the actual political philosophy. Government is bad. Public education must be destroyed for the good of all American citizens in this view.
So the ultimate goal is to dismantle the public education system entirely and replace it with a privately run education system, which the operatives in this group believe in a sincere way is better for everybody. Now, whether you agree with that or not as the big question, but we cannot have any doubt, there’s going to be a lot of glossy marketing materials about opportunity, innovation, efficiency. At its core though the the (sic) network seeks to dismantle the public education system because they see it as destructive. So that is what’s the actual aim of this group. And don’t let them tell you anything different.
One person who is not fooled by the Koch network’s PR machine is Charles Siler and that is because he was once part of it as a lobbyist and communications expert for the Goldwater Institute and Foundation for Government Accountability. Siler describes his former bosses: “Their ideal is a world with as minimal public infrastructure and investment as possible. They want the weakest and leanest government possible in order to protect the interests of a few wealthy individuals and families . . .” Siler describes one public relations technique as the “human shield.” Privatizers front a vulnerable and politically sympathetic population to protect them from progressive criticisms. They also understand that public schools are enormously popular. Thus, their proxies employ a steady drumbeat of messaging about “failing schools.” The goals are the same: destroy unions, strangle public schools, and privatizeeducation.
National Parents Union is a vehicle for the plans of the Waltons and Charles Koch. It presents as representing parents of color in search of a better life for their children, right out of the playbook Siler describes. The NPU team is drawn from alumni of the failed Families for Excellent Schools/Great Schools Massachusetts operations in New York and Massachusetts and as I explain in Dark Money and the Politics of School Privatization FES was in reality the surrogate for Boston hedge funders and yes, the Waltons. NPU has used the Vela money to fund homeschooling pods that weaken public schools. At nearly every media opportunity, NPU spokespersons parrot the “failing schools” script.
Is there any conceivable reason to believe that National Parents Union is the blessed exception to the Waltons’ and Charles Koch’s laser-like focus on destroying public education? As Siler and Leonard teach us, DOE must ignore the elaborate marketing blitz that NPU can deploy and recognize NPU for what it is: an agent of wealthy libertarians with a wildly different and unpopular prescription for what is good for parents and children.
I understand that the council is on hold pending litigation brought by among others Parents Defending Education. As I explained in my letter of June 28, PDE is also a franchise in Charles Koch’s attack on public education. It is in alliance with Moms for Liberty, created by the right wing directorate Council for National Policy; and with Fight for Schools and Families, also a plaintiff in the litigation and headed by a former Trump administration and Republican Party communications executive. Should PDE prevail in its lawsuit and gain a seat on the council that would give Koch two seats on it. Even Betsy DeVos would blush.
The Department of Education should rescind its offer to National Parents Union to join the National Parents and Families Engagement Council.
Respectfully submitted,
Maurice T. Cunningham
Associate Professor (retired)
Department of Political Science
University of Massachusetts at Boston
cc: The Honorable Martin J. Walsh
Secretary of Labor
You can see the writing on the wall. All the astroturf parent groups will demand a place at the table. They fought masking, they fought vaccines, now they fight teaching about racism and gender, and they demand gag orders and book banning.
Will Secretary Cardona invite them to join his Council?
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He might do that, in the name of “inclusivity.” I would also bet that the staffer who read the (excellent) letter stopped reading after the third paragraph. The education department needs a lesson in realpolitik.
He will soon have to include other fake parents groups to be consistent.
Dept of Ed to Koch & Waltons: “Hey, no need to stand outside just sniffing under the edges– come right into the tent!”
Here is the list of participants from the announcement in June. How many will protest and even resign when they read what Professor Cunningham has revealed? (and where’s the Boys and Girls’ Club? National Parents as Teachers Association?)
The Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates (COPAA)
Fathers Incorporated
Generations United
Girls Inc.
League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC)
Mocha Moms
National Association for Family, School, and Community Engagement (NAFSCE)
National Action Network
National Military Family Association (NMFA)
National Parent Teacher Association (PTA)
National Parents Union (NPU)
The National Center for Parent Leadership, Advocacy, and Community Empowerment (PLACE)
United Parent Leaders Action Network (UPLAN)
UnidosUS
May I please ask where this list is posted? I’ve been researching some of the parent groups funded in part by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: https://unitedparentleaders.org/who-we-are/
I’m curious to know if Koch or Waltons also fund these groups. Did Professor Cunningham write an article where he included some of the above-mentioned groups? Or was this list located in a book? Thanks for any info you can provide.
I will ask Maurice Cunningham
Prof Cunningham is preparing a list for NPE
Great! There is at least one school board candidate in California that is an executive director for one of the parent groups. It might be too late to change minds, but it would be good to have more information. Thanks.
A quote from someone who works high up in the DoE when pressed in conversation with me about the fact that the Parents Union has nothing to do with actual parents: “There are powerful people—” and she cut herself off and turned her Zoom camera off.
Who is that “someone who works high up in the DoE? Please let us know.
I had to go along with an NDA.
Damn straight they are powerful people. And for one reason: M-O-N-E-Y.
Isn’t a significant part of the reformers’ story, it’s inclusion of religious goals?
A 2018 Conference, sponsored by Catholic University (located in D.C.) and Napa Institute (on a prior occasion Napa raised funds for Trump) scheduled Liz Koch on a panel moderated by Meredith Olson. Liz Koch is the director of the Fred and Mary Koch Foundation. Her panel was titled, “Inspiring and Changing the Mindset of Youth.” The implications of the Conference titled, “Principled Leadership…,” were described by Commonweal in an article (Oct. 4, 2018, “High-Priced Conference at Catholic University”).
One of the Conference’s prominent speakers was Jay W. Richards. He is associated with the Heritage’s DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society and the Discovery Center (Wikipedia describes it as an offshoot of the Hudson Institute and as a group advocating for the pseudoscientific concept of intelligent design). Richards is an adjunct at Catholic University and a convert to Catholicism. He is author of the book, The Human Advantage: Money, Greed and God. He is also linked to the Wedge Strategy. The Wikipedia entry states, “critics view the Wedge Strategy as having the ultimate goal to create a theocratic state.”
Another speaker at the Conference was the Director of the Yuma Center in D.C. (Georgetown University grad). Yuma’s site states its “programs are inspired by Saint Josemaria Escriva, founder of Opus Dei, and the teachings of the Catholic Church.”
Before writing Power Worshippers, Katherine Stewart wrote, “There is more religion in America’s public schools today than in the past 100 years.”
By ignoring the religious goals of the reformers, public school defenders deny themselves a compelling and important argument – separation of church and state.
Another thought on this comment. Because “There are powerful people”–DOE has to pretend that NPU is actually parents. That is a powerful endorsement and others will follow. Powerful but not unique. Important reporters at mainstream news organizations have willingly accepted what NPU says about itself, without question and passed that along. E.g., there is no evidence that NPU has parent member organizations in 50 states or even more than a handful. When I looked at it in 2000 I found the members I could identify were mostly from charter school organizations. DOE, willful blindness. Major Media, willful blindness. Emphasis on the willful.
NPU is also part of Cardona’s National Partnership for Student Success. As far as I can tell they are the only “parent voice” in that group, which oddly consists of the national professional organizations and reformy groups like Relay, NPU, TFA, etc.
I’m in NJ, and they are targeting Camden schools for “wrap around services.” (Which weirdly runs counter to Cardona’s push for expansion of community schools.) It’s interesting to note that Camden’s EA president knew nothing about it. It’s also a district under state control and has historically run roughshod over parents and community members.