Back on June 10 Masslive.com ran an editorial titled Meet the Newest Education Union: Parents which turned out not to be about education or unions at all but about the WalMart-heir front Massachusetts Parents United of Arkansas. Helpful as always I sent an op-ed to Masslive setting the record straight but they paid no attention. Oh well. You can read the op-ed below.
It surprises me how little most media care about writing the basic facts about corporate “education reform” groups like MPU of AK, which would be non-existent without the millions of dollars poured in by the Waltons. The editorial board can take any position on issues they wish but it doesn’t excuse them from not informing their readers about who is funding and thus controlling the privatization fronts. Are they just not curious? I can’t imagine the motto “We don’t ask too many questions” would look good on the masthead. Is “follow the money” an elective in journalism school that got axed due to budget cuts? Is it not news that state education policy is being hijacked by family of billionaires? Is it still not news that the billionaires are from Arkansas?
If you’re from western Massachusetts, ask Masslive yourself, and feel free to pass along my Letter to Massachusetts Education Reporters which has six reasons why reporters should report on who is behind front groups with tantalizing names like Massachusetts Parents United, Educators for Excellence, and Democrats for Education Reform.
“Newest Education Union?” No, a Front for School Privatizers.
MassLive’s editorial “Meet the Newest Education Union: Parents” is on target in urging greater parent involvement in school policy making. Sadly the organization the editorial praises, Massachusetts Parents United, is not a grass roots parents organization but a front for the corporate interests of the Walton family, heirs to the WalMart fortune.
MPU presents a creation story of a handful of fed up parents who gathered at a public library in 2017 and decided to advocate for their children. But the very year it first organized MPU received over $366,000 in funding from the Walton Family Foundation. The Waltons provided another half million in 2018, and who knows how much more this year. How many mom and pop operations have you ever heard of that were drawing nearly a million dollars in donations from one of America’s richest families?
Whenever we try to figure out where political power lies, we should always follow the money. In this case the trail leads right back to the Waltons. They have poured billions of dollars (much of it tax deductible to them, meaning the American taxpayer picks up much of the cost) in their effort to privatize public schools. That includes pushing charter schools and it is no coincidence that as the editorial acknowledges, Massachusetts Parents United also backs charters.
If this is reminding you of the 2016 ballot question to increase the cap on charter schools led by Great Schools Massachusetts ballot committee and Families for Excellent Schools, then you are probably seeing right through Massachusetts Parents United. Families for Excellent Schools funded its losing campaign with “dark money” – huge sums from a handful of wealthy individuals who contributed anonymously. Later, Families for Excellent Schools was forced by the state’s Office of Campaign and Political Finance to disband its Massachusetts operations, disclose the “true source” of its donations, and pay a record $426,000 civil forfeiture for campaign finance violations.
But money never sleeps. Among those 2016 donors were Alice Walton and Jim Walton – over $2 million dollars, much of it in dark money. And now they are back with MPU, whose state director is Keri Rodriguez – who was the state director for Families for Excellent Schools!
The Walton family and other rich backers of Question 2 are also quietly funding other organizations that seek to privatize Massachusetts public schools, operations with inspiring-sounding names like Educators for Excellence and Stand for Children. Don’t be fooled.
Parents – and all citizens – deserve to know who is behind the curtain pulling the strings. When you encounter organizations like Massachusetts Parents United, always demand to know who is funding them – and how much.
Maurice T. Cunningham is an associate professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts Boston and as an educator in the UMass system, a union member.
The Washington Post recently adopted a new slogan: “Democracy dies in darkness.” I agree.
[Full disclosure: as an educator in the UMass system, I am a union member. I write about dark money (and other things)].