Search results for: "Massachusetts ballot"
« Older Entries

Massachusetts Poised to Do the Wrong Thing by Taking Over Boston Public Schools

By dianeravitch
May 22, 2022 //
15

Reader Christine Langhoff sent a warning that the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is poised to take control of the Boston Public Schools. This would be a mistake. No state takeover has ever led to better education. The state is not wiser than the city. If anything, the state education department is far removed from daily practice, as it is simply another bureaucracy. The current board is dominated by advocates of choice. Apparently they are unaware that the root cause of low test scores is poverty. The best the board could do would be to reduce class sizes and to promote the creation of community schools, which makes the school the hub of valuable services for children and families. Such proven strategies are unfamiliar to choice advocates. They prefer a failed approach.

Christine Langhoff wrote:

It seems that MA DESE is poised to place Boston’s public schools under receivership, perhaps by a vote as soon as May 24. Doing so would fulfill the Waltons’ wet dream which has been frustrated since the defeat of ballot Question 2 in 2016, which would have eliminated the charter cap.

The board is appointed by Governor Charlie Baker, whose donors are, of course, the Waltons and the Kochs. Four members of the board have day jobs tied to the Waltons: Amanda Fernández, Latinos for Education; Martin West, Education Next; Paymon Rouhanifard, Propel America; and Jim Peyser, New Schools Venture Fund and the Pioneer Institute. Baker is a lame duck, which may explain the haste to pull this off.

No state takeover has yet been successful, and once a system enters receivership, there is no exit. BESE has pointed to low MCAS scores to say our schools are failures, but Boston’s scores, invalid as they may be during the covid pandemic, are higher that in the three districts the state runs: Lawrence, Holyoke and Southbridge.

The Boston Teachers Union has an action letter if anyone is so inclined to support public education in the city where it originated:

https://actionnetwork.org/letters/our-city-our-schools-boston-public-schools-need-resources-not-receivership/?fbclid=IwAR3FA5vSKSZp5PEGedXad-hHlr58RzLy-yNqmmftQO9zS_UBiuMkxAzatHI
Categories Accountability, Boston, Class size, Closing schools, Community Schools, Corporate Reform, Democracy, Disruption, Education Industry, Failure, Massachusetts, Privatization, School Choice

The Future of Public Education is on the Ballot on November 3! Vote!

By dianeravitch
October 24, 2020 //
3

Derek Black, Jack Schneider, and Jennifer Berkshire wrote in the Philadelphia Inquirer that the future of public education is on the ballot on November 3 (for the record, I got a credit for doing some minor editing).

Should Trump be re-elected, you can count on him and Betsy DeVos to continue their brazen assault on public schools and to continue their demand to transfer public funds to private and religious schools as well as to pour hundreds of millions of federal dollars into charter school expansion. Draining public dollars away from public school has been Betsy DeVos’s life work and she would have four more years to staff the U.S. Department of Education with likeminded ideologues who hate public schools.

The authors write:

When Trump selected Betsy DeVos as secretary of education, many took it as a sign that he wasn’t serious. After all, DeVos seemed to know little about public schools. But that was a product of her extremism. Over the last four years, she has been crystal clear that her primary interest in the public education system lies in dismantling it. For evidence, look no further than her proposed Education Freedom Scholarships plan, which would redirect $5 billion in taxpayer dollars to private schools.

Unmaking public education is a long-standing goal of libertarians and the religious right. Conservative economist Milton Friedman conceived of private school vouchers in 1955, and four decades later was still making the case for “a transition from a government to a market system.” As they see it, public education is a tax burden on the wealthy, an obstacle to religious instruction, and a hotbed for unionism. Rather than a public system controlled by democratic values, they’d prefer a private one governed by the free market. If they had their way, schools would operate like a welfare program for the poor while the rich would get the best education money could buy. The result would be entrenched inequality and even more concentrated segregation than now exists.

This extreme view has never caught on, largely because public education is a bedrock American institution. Many states created public education systems before the nation even existed. Massachusetts, for instance, was educating children in public schools long before tea was dumped in Boston Harbor. In 1787, the federal government explicitly mandated that the center plot of land in every new town in the territories — land that would become states like Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois — be reserved for schools, and that other plots be used to support those schools. After the Civil War, Congress doubled down on that commitment, requiring readmitted Confederate states, and all new states, to guarantee access to public education in their constitutions. In each of these foundational periods, leaders positioned public education at the very center of our democratic project.

The founders and their successors recognized that public education is essential to citizens’ ability to govern themselves, not to mention protect themselves from charlatans and demagogues. Public education is the surest guarantee of individual liberty, the founders understood — no less essential than a well-trained army to the survival of the nation. That’s why they recognized that the education of American citizens couldn’t be left to chance...

We are here to sound an alarm to Republicans and Democrats. The future of our nation’s public schools is at stake. And insofar as that is the case, the democracy envisioned by our founders — one with universal, tax-supported schooling at its core — hangs in the balance.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Elections, Equity, History, Segregation, Supporting public schools, Trump

Massachusetts: A Parent Thanks a State Official Who Exposed Dark Money

By dianeravitch
January 10, 2020 //
18

One of the very exciting episodes in my new book SLAYING GOLIATH describes the struggle in Massachusetts  surrounding a 2016 referendum to expand the number of charter schools in the state. The referendum was called Question 2. Yes on 2 received funding from billionaires (the Waltons and Bloomberg), DFER (hedge fund managers), and out-of-state groups whose donors were unknown. The last group is called “Dark Money” because it hides the names of the donors.

On February 26, I will be at the First UU Church in Cambridge at an event sponsored by Citizens for Public Schools, joined in conversation with two of the prominent figures in that campaign, Barbara Madeloni (who was president of the Massachusetts Teachers Union) and Maurice Cunningham (a professor of political science at the U of Mass whose blogs reported on Dark Money in the campaign),

The groups that fought Question 2 were teachers’ unions, civil rights groups, and local school boards.

The referendum was overwhelmingly defeated.

After the election, the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance investigated the funding of the campaigns. It found that one of the funders of the “Yes on 2” side was a Dark Money front based in New York City. It required the group to disclose the names of its donors and fined the group nearly $500,000, which cleaned out its bank account. Not long after, the Dark Money Group (which had also stacked the deck in New York State without being exposed) collapsed and closed its doors.

Recently, the director of this state office retired, and parents thanked him for upholding the integrity of state elections.

This letter to the editor by a parent activist appeared in the Boston Globe.

 

“Watchdogs have state’s outgoing campaign finance chief to thank
 

What a pleasure to read Matt Stout’s folksy portrait of Michael Sullivan, who retired last month as director of the Office of Campaign and Political Finance (“A career spent helping people ‘do things right,’ ” Business, Dec. 25). I met Sullivan at a “hackathon” sponsored by the New England Center for Investigative Reporting. The center needed volunteers to test computer software. We got pizza, and a little orientation from the state’s campaign finance chief, who trained neophytes to navigate Office of Campaign and Political Finance databases.

Behind the scenes, Sullivan’s staff investigated an unusual pattern of financial transactions. They discovered that Families for Excellent Schools – Advocacy Inc. of New York illegally solicited, received, and funneled funds to the Great Schools Massachusetts ballot question committee to influence the 2016 Massachusetts election and increase charter school market share. Sullivan skillfully negotiated a six-figure fine.

Thanks to Sullivan, citizens can comb campaign finance data for evidence of expenditures that reveal fake-news media events. Remember those rallies with people wearing blue T-shirts demanding “Great Schools Now”? It turns out Great Schools Massachusetts paid for the T-shirts and had people show up at events to give the illusion of massive dissatisfaction with our public schools.

If only I had a “Great Schools Now” campaign T-shirt, I would give it to Sullivan in gratitude for providing me a political education I never received in school.

Peggy A. Wiesenberg

Boston

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Dark Money, Education Industry, Education Reform, Massachusetts, Privatization, Scandal

Massachusetts: Highest Court Says Charter Cap Is Constitutional

By dianeravitch
April 25, 2018 //
17

The highest court in Massachusetts ruled unanimously that the cap on charter schools is constitutional. 

It tossed out an effort by charter advocates to win in the judicial system what they lost at the polls in a state referendum in 2016, when the public voted against expanding the number of charter schools.

In an opinion issued Tuesday, Massachusetts’ Supreme Judicial Court dismissed a complaint that the cap on the number of charter schools allowed to operate in state violates students’ rights under the state’s constitution.

The unanimous opinion, authored by Justice Kimberly Budd, affirmed a lower-court decision made in October 2016. It holds that even when public schools under-serve their students, that doesn’t mean state actors are failing in their constitutional duties — or that opening more charter schools is the only way to make it right.

The decision represents a third and possibly decisive setback for the proposal to lift the longstanding cap. In 2015, legislators decided against advancing Gov. Charlie Baker’s bill for more charter schools, instead leaving the choice to voters — who then voted it down by a 24-point margin in 2016.

It’s cause for disappointment and frustration among supporters of those schools, and for students and families who hoped to get in off their wait lists.

“Watching your own children have to suffer in a school that’s underperforming — and knowing that it’s the result of a political turf war… it’s crushing. It’s devastating.”

Keri Rodrigues

 Keri Rodrigues is one of those people. She’s an education activist who supported Question 2 in 2016. Now, she runs Massachusetts Parents United — an advocacy group supported in part by the pro-charter Walton Foundation. She has two sons who have tried and failed to get seats in a charter school. “Watching your own children have to suffer in a school that’s underperforming — and knowing that it’s the result of a political turf war… it’s crushing. It’s devastating…”

The plaintiffs argued that missed opportunity amounted to a violation of their shared right to an adequate public education, or to equal protection under the laws, as laid out in the state constitution.

The SJC opinion accepts the plaintiffs’ arguments that, under Massachusetts’ constitution, state leaders must provide all students with an “adequate education,” and that “the education provided at their schools is, at the moment, inadequate” based on testing data.

But the court rejected the plaintiffs’ conclusions. The opinion holds that state officials and lawmakers must be allowed to work to improve poorly-performing schools, and that the plaintiffs failed to demonstrate that the state’s current approach — including oversight and takeover of chronically underperforming schools — couldn’t jump-start progress “over a reasonable period of time.”

Rodrigues wasn’t persuaded. “Over what period of time are we talking about? Because parents get roughly 12 years to get their kids an adequate education,” she said. “So are we just supposed to roll the dice and hope the commonwealth is able to figure this out?”

But the SJC opinion goes further. It argues that even if students’ constitutional rights were definitively being violated, it still wouldn’t mean the charter program must be expanded. The opinion states, “There is no constitutional entitlement to attend charter school,” and further, that the court is barred from enforcing any “fundamentally political” remedy of that kind.

The decision, in short, says that the state has an affirmative duty to improve low-performing schools, not an affirmative duty to open privately managed charter schools.

Rodrigues was state director for the now-defunct Families for Excellent Schools (also Walton-funded), which bundled millions of dollars for the failed “Yes on 2” charter expansion referendum; she is now executive director of Massachusetts Parents United, another astroturf group created by Walton and other charter advocacy organizations.

Unlike most parent organizations, Massachusetts Parents United started its life with $1.5 million in projected income and more on the way from the Waltons and other friends. 

The decision affirmed that the charter advocacy groups cannot rely upon the judicial system to overturn the 2016 referendum that said NO to more charter schools.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Dark Money, Education Industry, Massachusetts, Privatization, Walton Foundation

Maurice Cunningham: Dark Money Returns to Massachusetts to Promote Charters (Again)

By dianeravitch
April 6, 2018 //
9

 

Maurice Cunningham is a political scientist in Massachusetts who follows the trail of Dark Money. “Dark Money” refers to groups that conceal their donors and that use phony front groups that pretend to be grassroots families and parents.

In 2016, the Bay State held a referendum on whether to expand charter schools, and the Dark Money flowed through a NYC group called Families for Excellent Schools. FES was a front for hedge fund managers, mostly from out-of-State. The pro-charter forces vastly outspent the teachers’ unions but the proposal was overwhelmingly defeated. It lost in every part of the state, e crept for a few affluent communities that never expected to see a charter school in their neighborhood. Most towns, especially those that already had charters, knew that the arrival of a charter meant budget cuts for their public schools, and they voted no.

After the election, state campaign finance officials punished Families for Excellent Schools for its lack of transparency. It fined the group nearly $500,000 and banned from Massachusetts for five years. Shortly afterwards, FES closed its doors.

But, Cunningham reports, the Dark Money has returned. 

First, it created a from group called Massachusetts Parents United, only three months after the 2016 election. This was supposed to be regular parents, right? But the money rolled in, more than any group of concerned parents could muster.

“Soon the plucky parents had a website, services of two political communications firms, several thousand members (so-claimed), and projected income of $1,500,000 and expenses of $800,000 for 2017. MPU operated under a sponsorship agreement with Education Reform Now, which bankrolls the millions that enables Democrats for Education Reform Massachusetts to fertilize state politics with dark money. MPU’s state director, who also served in that capacity for Banned-in-Boston Families for Excellent Schools, is on the Advisory Council of DFER Massachusetts.”

Does your local parents’ group have that kind of money? I didn’t think so.

“In the Empty Bottle I spelled out some of the contributions made by MPU’s funders to the 2016 charters campaign. Let’s update that first with contributions from WalMart heirs. Jim Walton gave $1,125,000 into the Campaign for Fair Access to Quality Schools. Alice Walton provided $710,000 to the Yes on 2 Ballot Committee and slipped another $750,000 of dark money into the coffers of the now Banned-in-Boston Families for Excellent Schools Advocacy. Thus the Waltons spent down the inheritance by $2,585,000 for Question 2.

“But the Walton Family Foundation, a tax deductible organ of the Walton family, had been putting upstream money into the Massachusetts charters effort for years. From 2010 through 2016, WFF gave over $12,000,000 to Education Reform Now (the Walton family sustaining the funder of a Democratic front is, uh, what?). WFF gave nearly $14,000,000 to the collapsed-in-corruption Families for Excellent Schools, almost half of that in the 2015 run up to the ballot question. Across those years WFF slid over $900,000 to the Pioneer Institute.

“Then there is the Longfield Family Foundation and its benefactor Chuck Longfield. In Empty Bottle I noted that Chuck Longfield had contributed $125,000 to two pro-charter ballot committees. When OCPF forced the disbanded-in-disgrace Families for Excellent Schools to disclose its donors, it revealed that Longfield had given another $600,000 in dark money. He also contributed to the weird Mekka Smith situation, which was also bound up in charters.

“The Barr Foundation is the charitable foundation of Amos Hostetter, who funneled $2,000,000 in 2016 dark dollars through the invested-in-iniquity Families for Excellent Schools Advocacy.

“The largest giver of dark money to formed-in-fraudulence Families for Excellent Schools Advocacy was its office mate engorged-in-effluvia Families for Excellent Schools Inc., which laundered $3,700,000 through FESA to Great Schools Massachusetts. On May 26, 2016 the Davis Foundation sent $100,000 to FESI and on November 2, 2016 another $10,000, and also invested $20,000 in Pioneer for “Project to Expand Educational Opportunity in MA.”

“Charters were killed off in 2016, you say? In Washington state charters failed at the ballot box in 1996, 2000, and 2004 before squeaking by on a fourth try in 2012, and that was with the help of the Gates family. Privatizers play the long game. Money never sleeps.”

What do they want? Why spend so many millions?

The Dark Money club wants privatization. They want to undermine public schools in the most successful state in the nation.

 

Categories Charter Schools, Dark Money, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Industry, Massachusetts, Privatization, Walton Foundation

Maurice Cunningham: Dark Money Targets Malden, Massachusetts, School Board Race

By dianeravitch
November 1, 2017 //
17

Maurice Cunningham, a professor at the University of Massachusetts, has been tracking the movement of out-of-state “dark money” into local elections in Massachusetts. He exposed the source of millions of dollars that flowed into the state to press for passage of Question 2 in November 2016, for the purpose of lifting the limit on charter schools. Once the public understood that the Waltons and Wall Street were trying to buy their public schools to turn them private, dark money lost. Question 2 was overwhelmingly defeated.

After the election, state ethics officials fined the Dark Money conduit “Families for Excellent Schools” almost half a million dollars and directed them to stay out of the state for four years.

But they are back.

Now the privatization industry wants to buy a seat on the Malden school board.

There’s a race for school committee in Ward 3 Malden that is sending a signal about the direction of Massachusetts politics. Candidate Mekka Smith, chief of staff of charter school operator KIPP Massachusetts, is running away in the money race. And she’s doing it with backing from the Dark Money/Privatization Industrial Complex.

The money in this case isn’t hidden although it does involve a few of the reluctant stars of Families for Excellent School’s dark money disclosures from the 2016 charter school ballot question. Andrew Balson of Newton, who invested $100,000 in FES’s scheme, gave $1,000 to the Malden candidate. Charles Longfield, who posted $650,000 to FES’s secret stash, gave $250 to Ms. Smith. In 2016 he also gave $25,000 to Great Schools Massachusetts and $100,000 to the pro-charter Campaign for Fair Access to Quality Public Schools ballot committee. And along with the Walton family, the Longfield family funds Massachusetts Parents United (see here and here), whose state director occupied the same role for Banned-in-Boston Families for Excellent Schools.

The total amount invested by KIPP, including loans Ms. Smith made to herself, is $3,950. Individuals affiliated with Teach for America (backed in Massachusetts by Strategic Grant Partners) have contributed $1,500. Charter school backer and venture capitalist Arthur Rock of San Francisco contributed $500.

Candidate Smith raised $14,966 as of October 20. Excluding funds she has lent to her own campaign, she has raised $425 from Malden. Thus Malden residents have been outspent by investors from San Francisco, New York, Atlanta, Newton, Cambridge, Boston, and Summit, NJ. And also of course by KIPP and TFA.

School committee races, especially ones for a small area like a ward, are usually sleepy little affairs funded by friends and family. But they have become of interest to investors who can tip a race with relatively small sums of money. This has been happening all over the country.

Even worse news. The fake reformers “Stand for Children” are funding races across the state. Keep your eye on “Stand.” They are a front for the big money.

Categories Dark Money, Massachusetts

Andrea Gabor: The Dark Money That Underwrote the Charter Campaign in Massachusetts

By dianeravitch
September 28, 2017 //
13

Andrea Gabor writes here about the dark money campaign to persuade voters in Massachusetts to lift the cap on charter schools last November. The dark money came pouring in, but suffered a crushing defeat when voters weighed in. Andrea worked closely with Peggy Wiesenberg, a Massachusetts attorney and parent of three public-school graduates. Peggy wrote to tell me that KIPP is planning to open two new charters in Lynn, Massachusetts, despite the fact that the people of Lynn don’t want more charter schools. Governor Baker, a Republican, has added two new charter supporters to the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education; one is a board member of KIPP, the other is a Harvard scholar funded by the Walton Family Foundation:

KIPP plans to expand in Massachusetts by adding two schools in Lynn per a pending request to increase enrollment by 1,014 seats (up from 1,586 in Lynn). The Mass. Board of Elementary and Secondary Education will take up that request in Feb 2018.
See”Charter Amendment Requests Pending BESE Action (Grades, or Maximum Enrollment, or Change to Charter Region)” http://www.doe.mass.edu/news/news.aspx?id=24563

One of the two new BESE members appointed by Gov Baker is on the Board of Trustees of KIPP MA; the other Martin West whose scholarly work has been funded by the Walton Family Foundation.

But, back to the new post by Andrea Gabor:

The New York-based Families for Excellent Schools added about a third of the $45 million spent to push charter schools. Pro-public education advocates spent nearly $16 million.

“Voters defeated Question 2 by a stunning 62-to-38 margin–an endorsement of Massachusetts public schools, which are rated number one in the nation. But not for lack of efforts by organizations like FESA, which allowed a slew of wealthy contributors to hide their identities and their sizeable contributions in support of the referendum. In some cases individuals contributed twice: Once through a ballot committee that was required, by law, to publish names of contributors, and a second substantially greater contribution, in some cases millions more, via FESA.

“At the top of the list of FESA’s secret donors were public officials in the Massachusetts government. Governor Charlie Baker was a leading proponent of Question 2 and backed efforts to impose charter schools in towns, like Brockton, where there was widespread local opposition.

“Normally, nonprofits organized under IRS Code 501(3), such as Families for Excellent Schools (FES), don’t have to reveal the names of donors so long as they are not engaging in political activity. And ordinarily, their affiliated social-welfare nonprofits, organized under IRS Code 501(c)(4), such as FESA, can have some political involvement in electoral politics and keep donors secret, so long as this is not their primary activity. However, if the organization is a vehicle for receiving contributions for a ballot campaign, then the voting public is entitled to know the names of each contributor and the amount donated before the election.”

FES was fined more than $400,000, the largest fine ever imposed by the state for a campaign finance violation.

Here are some of the big donors:

“The campaign-finance disposition agreement has revealed other backers of Question 2 who used FESA contributions to hide the full value of their donations in support of the charter-school referendum including:

“Paul Sagan, Chair of the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, who contributed $496,000 on August 4 and 5 in addition to his previously disclosed contribution of $100,000 on August 10, 2016.

“Seth Klarman, Investment Manager of the Baupost Group LLC, contributed $3 million within six months of the election in addition to his previously disclosed contribution of $40,000 in September 2015.

“Jonathan Jacobson, Managing Director Highfields Capital Management LP, contributed $2 million in August and October. That’s in addition to the previously disclosed contribution of $40,000 in September 2015 by his wife Joanna, Managing Partner of Strategic Grant Partners, another dark money vehicle, according to Professor Maurice Cunningham of UMass Boston…

“Josh Bekenstein, a Bain Capital investor, and his wife Anita, a private philanthropist, each contributed $750,000 in August and $500,000 on October 2016 for a combined total of $1.5 million, in addition to Josh’s previously disclosed contribution of $40,000 in September 2015.

“Chuck L. Longfield, Founder of Target Analytics and Chief Scientist at Blackbaud, funneled $650,000 to FESA under the name “Chuck Longfield,” in addition to a previously disclosed contribution of $100,000 under the name “Charles Longfield” on August 2016 and $1,000 in November 2015. [The OCPF filings have a discrepancy in the house number associated with Longfield’s contributions—in all likelihood a typographical error.] Longfield went on WBUR radio on October 31, 2016 to explain why he gave $100,000 in support of raising the cap on charter schools, never mentioning the exponentially larger contribution that he made through FESA to lift the cap.

“Martin Mannion, Managing Director of Summit Partners, contributed $100,000 to FESA between August and October 2016 in addition to a disclosed campaign contribution of $30,000 in October 2016.

“Alice Walton contributed $750,000 to FESA on November 2016 in addition to her previously disclosed contribution of $710,000 to Yes On 2, another campaign committee, in July.

“The Boston Globe reports that in addition to paying the fine, and revealing its donors, the group also “agreed with the IRS to dissolve itself, and Families for Excellent Schools, its umbrella group, agreed not to fund-raise or engage in any election-related activity in Massachusetts for four years.”

Gabor says that New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman may look into the “Families for Excellent Schools,” a political group of millionaires and billionaires with no purpose other than to destroy and privatize public schools.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Dark Money, Massachusetts

Maurice Cunningham: Massachusetts Drove “Families for Excellent Schools” Out of the State

By dianeravitch
September 13, 2017 //
14

When I learned that the phony “Families for Excellent Schools” was forced to pay a hefty fine by state officials in Massachusetts, I invited Maurice T. Cunningham to write about it. New Yorkers are familiar with this billionaire-funded group from the time when it made a $6 million television buy to thwart Mayor de Blasio’s plan to establish accountability for charter schools. FES, pretending to be the voice of poor black and brown families, suddenly appeared with bulging pockets to shower millions on TV advertising and politicians, not what one would expect from “families” who live in poverty. As a result of their efforts, charters in New York City got the right to co-locate in public school buildings with no rent ever, and if they preferred a private space, the city was obliged to pay for it. What was certain was that not a one of the billionaires behind FES was planning to send any of their children to charter schools or public schools in New York City.

During the campaign in Massachusetts last fall, Professor Cunningham wrote about the dark money pouring in to influence the Question 2 referendum. Despite the money, opponents of charter expansion lost.

This is what Professor Cunningham wrote:

Families for Excellent Schools Driven Out of Business in Massachusetts

Maurice T. Cunningham

Associate Professor, University of Massachusetts at Boston

Families for Excellent Schools, the hedge funded bully of school privatization, has not only been exposed but driven out of business in Massachusetts.

Last year FES was leading the campaign, through its ballot committee Great Schools Massachusetts, to pass a referendum that would expand the number of possible charter schools in the state. Not only was GSM overwhelmed at the November election by teachers unions, but FES’s wild spending attracted the attention of the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance. This past week OCPF released a Disposition Agreement with FES that found that the group had violated Massachusetts campaign finance laws. FES acted as a political committee without registering with OCPF, and channeled over $15 million from donors “without disclosing the contributors, and by providing funds to the GSM Committee in a manner intended to disguise the true source of the contributions.” (OCPF press release here).

The consequences for FES: OCPF levied its largest fine in history, over $426,000, being the total amount of cash on hand for FES and its political arm Families for Excellent Schools-Advocacy. FESA agreed to dissolve its social welfare group status with the Internal Revenue Service. FES Inc. agreed to forego political activities in Massachusetts for four years.

Not only did OCPF release its Disposition Agreement it also required OCPF to divulge the donors it had promised to hide, and their contributions. FES’s list of funders was eye-popping. Boston hedge fund titan Seth Klarman of Baupost LLC was in for $3.3 million. Bain’s Joshua Bekenstein and his wife chipped in with $2.5 million. Jonathon Jacobson of Highfields Capital Management was good for $2 million. Other contributors came from Adage Capital Management, Summit Partners, and Par Capital Management. Alice Walton of the WalMart fortune kicked in $750,000.

Each of those powerful individuals was promised by FES that their identities would be kept secret, hidden behind the Internal Revenue Code rules for 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations. Except this time, it didn’t work. OCPF conducted a thorough investigation and exposed FES for what it is: a dark money political operation.

The Disposition Agreement should be studied across the country and state regulatory agencies pressed to follow its teachings. There is absolutely no reason why citizens should not be informed about who is spending millions to influence their vote. It’s shameful and the dark money train must be derailed if we are not to descend into a plutocracy. OCPF’s action is great news for Massachusetts and great news for democracy.

Categories Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Dark Money, Education Industry, Massachusetts, Privatization

Massachusetts: State Fines Dark Money Group $426,000 in Charter Battle

By dianeravitch
September 12, 2017 //
82

In November 2016, the state of Massachusetts held a referendum about whether to expand the number of charters in the state. Millions of dollars were spent on both sides, but the pro-charter groups spent twice as much as the anti-charter groups (mostly funded by teachers’ unions).

Much of the large pro-charter funding was bundled by a group called Families for Excellebt Schools. The names of many individual donors were not released. That’s called “dark money.” It enables the group to pretend to be worried families, eager to enroll their chilren in charter schools, when they are actually billionaires and millionaires who want to promote privatization. One member of the group is billionaire Alice Walton of Arkansas. Another is the chairman of the state board in Massachusetts, who offered nearly $500,000 to undermine public education in a state where he is in control.

FES pulled the same shenanigans in New York, pumping millions into a campaign to persuade the legislature to shower charters with perks and public space and money. But it didn’t work in the Bay State.

Families for Excellent Schools has been ordered to pay a fine of $426,500 for violating campaign finance laws in the state.

“An advocacy organization that gave more than $15 million to a Massachusetts ballot campaign to lift the cap on charter schools has agreed to pay $426,500 to settle allegations of campaign finance violations.

“The Office of Campaign and Political Finance alleged that Families for Excellent Schools contributed money to the ballot campaign in a way that was designed to hide the identity of its donors. The organization denies any wrongdoing.

“This is the largest settlement ever collected by Massachusetts’ Office of Campaign and Political Finance.

“Massachusetts voters deserve to know the identity of all those who attempt to influence them before Election Day,” said Office of Campaign and Political Finance Director Michael Sullivan in a press release. “Complete and accurate disclosure of campaign activity is the goal of OCPF and the cornerstone of the campaign finance law.”

“Families for Excellent Schools is a New York-based advocacy group, which gave $15.3 million to Great Schools Massachusetts, the ballot committee promoting a question in 2016 that would have lifted the cap on charter schools. The question failed at the polls.”

Indeed, the question failed overwhelmingly at the polls.

Families for Excellent Schools agreed not to engage in any election-related activities in the state for four years.

The fine is Penny ante for a group like FES, but it is satisfying to see them get caught hiding the names of donors.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Dark Money, Education Industry, Education Reform, Fraud, Funding, Massachusetts, Privatization

Massachusetts Professor Identifies Dark Money Funding Parent Group, Sets Off Twitter Controversy

By dianeravitch
July 16, 2017 //
45

Maurice Cunningham is a professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts. During the heated battle over a referendum to expand charter schools (Question 2), Cunningham wrote about the funding of both sides. The Massachusetts Teachers Association spent heavily to oppose Question 2, but they were far outspent by the many millions poured into the state to support charter schools. Most of the pro-charter money came from outside Massachusetts, from the Walton family, Michael Bloomberg, and financiers in a group calling itself “Families for Excellent Schools.”

The referendum lost by 62%-38%. The only districts that voted for it were affluent districts that never expected to see a charter school in their backyard. The opposing votes were highest in districts that had charter schools because they realized that a vote for a charter was a vote to defund their local,public schools.

Cunningham continued to follow the money after the election of last November.

Read this dynamite piece about Democrats using Republican money to advance Obama’s legacy on charter schools. He goes right to the dark bipartisan heart of privatization.

He learned of a new group called Massachusetts Parents United, and he discovered that it was funded by the same organizations that funded the pro-charter referendum. He wrote about it and was barraged on Twitter by outraged members of the group, who accused him of “bullying” and “belittling” some dedicated moms. These are the moms funded by the Walton Family Foundation. He challenged them to cite any inaccuracy in his article, but they did not.

Here is the way it begins:

“Mom and pop education organizations in Massachusetts seem to crop up just as fast as billionaires can fund them these days. The latest such entrant is called Massachusetts Parents United, with ties to Families for Excellent Schools and Democrats for Education Reform Massachusetts. It’s old wine in an empty bottle.

“The first tie is personnel – the state director of MPU, Keri Rodriguez Lorenzo, is the former state director of Families for Excellent Schools, which last year poured over $17 million in dark money into the Great Schools Massachusetts ballot committee. She is also on the Advisory Council of Democrats for Education Reform Massachusetts, which pours dark money into legislative races and into the 2013 Boston mayoral race.

“The second tie is financial. One of MPU’s funders is The Walton Family Foundation. In last year’s Question 2 fight, Walton money funded most of the activities of a ballot committee named Advancing Obama’s Legacy on Charter Schools, which was itself a front established by DFER MA. The Walton money – about $1.8 million from cousins Jim and Alice Walton – was funneled through another ballot committee named Campaign for Fair Access to Quality Public Schools. In Democrats Using Republican Money for Education Reform Now to Advance Obama’s Legacy on Charter Schools, I noted the irony of a putative Democratic committee subsisting on funds generated by the notoriously anti-worker WalMart. The rest of the Obama’s Legacy money came from DFER MA’s customary funder and dark money kissin’ cousin, Education Reform Now Advocacy of New York. If you understand all this, you probably own an intuitive grasp of the lyrics to “I’m My Own Grandpa.””

To follow the interesting Twitter exchange, go to Maurice Cunningham’s Twitter feed. @MassPolProfMo

Categories Charter Schools
« Older Entries