Here’s a small exercise I thought of in light of today’s James Vaznis story in the Boston Globe concerning what to do about the Boston public schools. I tried to rank the responses of those interviewed from left (status quo, send more money) to right (state takeover). Out there on the right fringe is the Walton front Massachusetts Parents United.
Off on one side are folks like Jessica Tang of the Boston Teachers Union and Ruby Reyes of Boston Education Justice Alliance, who think the state should keep out but provide more resources. Superintendent Brenda Cassellius seems to fall into that camp too. Harneen Charnow, a former state board of education vice chair now with the parents group Quality Education for Every Student opposes a state takeover. Also, “across the school system, many parents, educators, students, and other invested parties do not want Riley to seize control of the Boston district or any of its schools.” Tanisha Sullivan, president of the Boston-branch of the NAACP said if stories about the state report are accurate the state will have to take some action with all options on the table. But she expressed doubts about the state’s capacity to take over the district. Paul Reville, former Massachusetts education secretary, noted some areas where takeovers can help (fiscal stability) but others where they have a poor track record (academic success). Reville “warned that the track record of receiverships nationwide is dismal.”
Mayor Marty Walsh is taking no positon thus far.
Moving along there are those advocating for a stronger response. Some state education board members seem willing to push for a state takeover, but they aren’t on the record. A recent Boston Globe editorial (my response to it here) argued that perhaps a takeover should be used as a stick to push Boston toward needed reforms. Oren Sellstrom, litigation director for the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, took a similar position today. One state education board member suggested that the state should take over part of the Boston Public Schools district.
Then there is Massachusetts Parents United. Today’s story is not entirely clear but it certainly seems (recent testimony given by MPU supports this) that MPU is all in for a state takeover. That would mean that the only entity full speed ahead with a takeover is Massachusetts Parents United.
Today’s story does not properly identify Massachusetts Parents United but it is an arm of the Walton family’s political operation in the state. In 2017 and 2018 the Waltons put $866,000 into MPU, whose president Keri Rodrigues Lorenzo is the former state director of Families for Excellent Schools. By now that sum must be well over $1 million. Other contributors to MPU include school privatization advocates Charles and Rebecca Ledley, the Wolcott & Coolidge Trust, Barr Foundation, Longfield Family Foundation, and the Boston Foundation. All of these entities or their principals supported 2016 Question 2 to lift the cap on charter schools.
The conversation about what to do when the state report comes out is being driven by talk of a takeover or responses to the idea of a takeover, and this agenda is being pushed primarily by a front that is answerable to the Walton family of Arkansas and its financial allies.
“One of the most important aspects of power is not to prevail in a struggle but to pre-determine the agenda of struggle, that is, to determine whether certain questions ever reach the competition stage.” (Michael Parenti, Power and Pluralism: A View from the Bottom.”
The Waltons are winning.
“What wealthy people do is rig the discourse.”—Anand Giridharadas
[Full disclosure: as an educator in the UMass system, I am a union member. I write about dark money, not education.]
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