The Boston Globe wrote about the activities of a Dark Money group called Parents Defending Education, which has filed lawsuits against the public schools in Wellesley and Newton in their quest to ban books and cleanse the schools of teaching about racism and gender.
Maurice Cunningham wrote a letter to the Globe explaining the reason for the harassment. He thinks their goal is intimidation. He’s right. But there is more. I think their goal is to undermine confidence in public schools and build support for privatization.
He wrote:
LETTERS
In its challenges to schools, group’s object lesson is intimidation
Updated November 18, 2022, 2:30 a.m.
Re “Schools wary as nonprofit targets teaching: Right-leaning group’s complaints cite bias in lessons on gender, race, sexuality” (Page A1, Nov. 15): Parents Defending Education is an obedient franchise of right-wing interests, including Charles Koch and the Council for National Policy, that are working to destroy public education.
Legal actions such as Parents Defending Education’s civil rights complaint against the Newton Public Schools and its lawsuit against Wellesley Public Schools are meant to generate publicity and foster intimidation. As the Globe has reported previously, the group’s civil rights “complaints likely will go nowhere.” The lawsuit settled on terms favorable to Wellesley.
However, Parents Defending Education isn’t after legal recourse; it’s after harassment. Wellesley School Superintendent David Lussier said he has received “obscene” and “awful” e-mails from people connected to the group. In December 2021, the Globe reported that two Black school principals in Newton had received “racist and confrontational” messages after the right-wing publisher Breitbart published an article misrepresenting how the principals’ schools were handling lessons about the verdicts in the trials of Kyle Rittenhouse and the men convicted of killing Ahmaud Arbery. Breitbart’s story was framed by Parents Defending Education.
Racist and obscene messages menacing educators are not an unfortunate consequence of Parents Defending Education’s machinations; they are entirely foreseeable.
Maurice T. Cunningham
Cambridge
The writer is the author of “Dark Money and the Politics of School Privatization.” He is a retired associate professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston and a former state assistant attorney general in Massachusetts.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“Racist and obscene messages menacing educators are not an unfortunate consequence of Parents Defending Education’s machinations; they are entirely foreseeable.”
Moreover, they are arguably the objective of this group’s activities. As a character on “The Wire” said, “This is some shameful s**t right here.”
Their objective is right.
The whole point of these groups is to stir up trouble for and harassment of teachers.
And it’s not “parents” behind the harassment.
It’s billionaires.
They are asstroturf groups, with the emphasis on ass.
Camp Philos (self-appointed privatization advocates) held their meeting yesterday. The schedule shows Kerri Rodrigues and Mass. state Rep. Chyna
Tyler were honored as well as U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres (New York).
Dems, Tyler and Torres, attended private universities.
Hakeem Jeffries, possibly Nancy Pelosi’s replacement is described on the internet as “…darling of Wall Street, the real estate industry and charter school profiteers.”
Hakeem went to an expensive, private university.
The headlines about Jeffries should read, “Oldest Establishment Dems Select Hakeem Jeffries.”
Camp Philos is Education Reform Now (Bill Gates- Lumina (the former head of Lumina is now at CAP) and New Schools Venture Fund (a co-founder of NSVF said the goal of charters was “brands on a large scale”).
Public Education is a BACKBONE of DEMOCRACY and this is WHY Public Education is being attacked by BIG $$$$$ and fascists who hate democracy.
Wish those who attack Public Education would just MOVE to Russia.
In other news, choir boy Mike Pence is STILL lying about Donald Trump. What weird pathology is this?
Sycophant.
Mike obviously does not appreciate that be will not be admitted into Heaven until he repence.
lol
So, Holmes got 11 years. She made a huge mistake. She ripped off rich and powerful people. That gets JUST US. Unlike Trump, who has spent a lifetime preying on the simple minded and gullible (not to mention the hardworking blue-collar folks whom he simply didn’t pay).
Not to mention the widows and veterans who signed up for Trump University to learn the secrets of his success
There’s a weird experience that one has sometimes of being embarrassed for someone else. I think I felt that most strongly in my life watching a Trump cabinet meeting. Each person, before the meeting proper started, had to spend a few minutes talking about how great Trump was. And the one who did this most abjectly, most enthusiastically, most sickeningly, was Mike Pence. No courtier to an ancient Middle Eastern potentate ever so completely abased himself, kow towed so completely. Quite the spectacle. He was so REVERENT. Is it Jesus or Trump or Memorex? LOL.
It was utterly disgusting. And then I remembered how Mother didn’t want Mikey to take the job with Jabba the Trump and wondered what she must think, watching this disgusting, Masochistic spectacle.
I think I remember that same cabinet meeting. It reminded me of a movie mafia boss. The only difference these sycophants didn’t have to kiss the ring.
Didn’t have to kiss the ring.
Just the ass.
Much more like Scotch than Memorex.
These folks can never remember anything when asked under oath.
Or maybe Duck.
I must say that Holmes deserved every second and more.
She put people’s lives at risk with her bogus “analysis”.
But you are right that the really big fish usually walk — or flop — away unscathed, to con other unsuspecting folks.
The fellow who was just appointed Special Counsel (Jack Black…I mean Smith) to “investigate” Trump (how much investigation do you need when the guy is holding the smoking gun and admits he committed the murder?) actually “investigated” Trump decades ago and let him off the hook He apparently had bigger fish to fry. The homeless fellow illegally selling cigarettes on the street, perhaps?
Are we really supposed to believe there was insufficient evidence back then to indict Trump? Imagine how different things would have turned out if Smith had done his job back then. And now Garland an others want to believe that Smith will behave differently? People of habit rarely change.
Mother didn’t want Mikey to take the job with Jabba the Trump”
Well, “Mother” didn’t want Norman even talking to pretty women at the Bates Motel, but we all know how that turned out.
Lying about what? In other news, Biden continues to cover up for his corrupt son.
And all they could find to complain about was something they imagined that his son did, with a little help from Russian intelligence’s planting stuff on a laptop.
The ALEC leaders of the theofascist, kleptocratic extreme right have been working in the dark (when they can which is most of the time), mostly for decades, to subvert the United States. They hate labor unions, see workers as wage slaves to benefit them and then to be tossed aside without medical care or benefits, once we are no longer useful to them. They hate Social Security and Medicare (because it doesn’t benefit them since the members of ALEC don’t have any need for those two Social Safety Net programs that the working class paid into for 45 years on average. They resent elected representatives in state and federal governments that have the power to hold them accountable when they commit crimes of any kind. These monsters see themselves as superior to everyone below them on the economic ladder.
But, they (ALEC) LOVE FASCISTS and Fascism.
The projected election of Hakeem Jeffries to replace Pelosi cancels out all of the talk about democracy from the Democrats in the midterms. Salon described one of Jeffries’ backers, Steny Hoyer, as corporate-backed, neoliberal party elite.
Kevin McCarthy had to acquiesce to the freedom caucus to get votes. It pulls the GOP to the right. No one in media is mentioning any opposition to Wall Street’s darling, Jeffries, which positions the left in outfield and America without democracy.
Yeah, I got sick to my stomach when I saw that Jeffries will be the leader. We in education know what he’s like, but the media is so fawning over him. They should ask some of us
I wrote to a journalist at Talking Points Memo about the fawning. His return explanation didn’t hold water.
I’m surprised you even got a response.
Most journalists these days are insulated by an impenetrable wall of editors, publishers and ombuttsmen (and women) who don’t even allow criticism through.
I used to write to “journalists” (and I use the term very loosely) at NPR with criticisms (and civil ones if you can imagine that) but never once got more than a generic “thank you, we will pass it along to the journalist” response.
I gave up writing to NPR when they removed their comment section because it told me they simply did not want any sort of criticism. At about the same time, they also added a warning in their terms of use that effectively says criticism of their people is off limits . Those who violate terms of use can actually be prosecuted. NPR has millions of dollars and high powered lawyers and it’s just not worth taking a chance of having them go after me.
Poet
I would feel the same as you if my experiences were the same as yours.
In addition to journalists, I write to professors who have articles published in media and whose research is cited by media. ( I wrote to one professor whose work Diane praised. He wrote back that he wouldn’t have known about the wider audience for his work without my letting him know. Given Diane’s stature, he likely added her post to his RPT folder.)
Generalizing about the most common reply I receive, it is an expression that the info. is new to them.
Since you are more intelligent than I am and far better at expressing insightful observations, please consider writing to the professors, either with praise or to question them about their public policy advocacy that harms communities.
Side note- I write to think tanks like the “policy experts” at CAP and never get a reply. It doesn’t stop me. Who knows, my view may be new to personnel at billionaire-funded think tanks.
In light of Hakeem’s ascendancy- whose side has been winning over the past 20 years?
Huffpo attempted to spin some favorable points in addition to ACA for Pelosi’s leadership. Readers can form their own opinions. “How Nancy Shaped History.”
One of the GOP talking points that resonates with voters in red states is the Democrats’ “elitism.” The optics of having grads from expensive coastal private universities in the top three (prospective for 2023) leadership roles in the US House leadership are terrible. Katherine Clark- Harvard Kennedy school, Hakeem Jeffries- NYU and Pete Aguilar- University of Redlands. Each of the schools charge about $60,000 a year in tuition (approx. a quarter of a million for 4 years). Ohio State’s tuition is about $12,000.
Hakeem Jeffries will steer House Democrats to the right, meaning the progress that we need – from Single Payer to family leave to strong public schools – will stall.
His leadership will please the Lords of Wall Street and those who prize identity politics over meaningful policies to improve the lives of ordinary Americans.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he acquiesces to the Republicans demands to slash Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security in exchange for the raising the debt limit.
The 3 top slots for Democrats in the House will be filled with private university grads (schools with tuition of about $60,000 a year). Evidently, establishment Dems like the image of elitism, Jeffries, Katherine Clark and Pete Aguilar, while pretending to be the party of the working class.