First, a little political science. In Following the Money: How Foundation Dollars Change Public Schools, Sarah Reckhow argues that major funders (e.g., Gates, Broad, Waltons) have two expectations before committing dollars to a locale: 1. Strong mayoral or state control (hello, receivership vs. elected school committee); and 2. “a strong local nonprofit advocacy sector and a sizable pool of highly educated individuals.”[1] Or she asks “Why Boston but not Detroit?” The need is greater in Detroit but Boston has centralized power in the mayor’s office with no elected school committee, and a deep pocketed philanthropic sector.
Second, research by Tufts’ Jeffrey M. Berry and Duke’s Kristen A. Goff shows that in certain circumstances foundations and wealthy donors act as interest groups. They are investing with nonprofit advocacy organizations “seeking to influence politics and the policy process.”[2] That’s what the Waltons and Barr are doing; they’re interest groups.
After Families for Excellent Schools, the hedge fund front that ran the 2016 failed charter school ballot campaign collapsed in corruption the Waltons shifted their spending to new covers and so did Boston interest group philanthropies. Here is Barr Foundation privatization spending for 2017-2020, from Form 990 tax returns.
| Donee | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | Total |
| Education Reform Now | $0 | $0 | $125,000 | $150,000 | $275,000 |
| Educators for Excellence | $175,000 | $200,000 | $250,000 | $250,000 | $875,000 |
| Latinos for Education | NA | $100,000 | $100,000 | $300,000 | $500,000 |
| Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education | $100,000 | $100,000 | $190,000 | $350,000 | $740,000 |
| Massachusetts Charter Public School Association | $200,000 | $350,000 | $325,000 | $325,000 | $1,200,000 |
| Massachusetts Institute for a New Commonwealth Inc. | $0 | $0 | $0 | $380,000 | $380,000 |
| Massachusetts Parents United | $0 | $0 | $100,000 | $420,000 | $520,000 |
| Teach for America (MA) | $100,000 | $100,000 | $250,000 | $500,000 | $950,000 |
| The Education Trust | $0 | $0 | $250,000 | $630,000 | $800,000 |
| $575,000 | $850,000 | $1,590,000 | $3,305,000 | $6,320,000 |
I’m not going to go into detail about each organization, use MassPoliticsProfs handy search window if you want.
But feast your eyes on the Massachusetts Parents Union, fabricated in 2017 by the Waltons after the voters and Office of Campaign and Political Finance put Families for Excellent Schools out of business: Barr invested $100,000 in 2019 and $420,000 (in three separate bestowments) in 2020. The Waltons duked MPU $450,000 in 2020. Close. (But the Waltons have put $2,216,000 into MPU from 2017-2020).
If you’re going to do politics, wouldn’t you want some polling? And Barr paid for it. In 2020 $75,000 of the $150,000 Barr bestowed on Education Reform Now went “to support a Massachusetts public opinion polling project related to deepening policymakers’ and the media’s understanding of education issues during COVID-19.” Barr gave $100,000 to The Education Trust “To support public opinion survey development and communications in the 2020-21 school year.” It also sent $380,000 to the Massachusetts Institute for a New Commonwealth in two payments. The first for $80,000 was “To conduct a survey of K-12 parents in Massachusetts on issues related to educational challenges during the coronavirus outbreak” and the second for $300,000 “To support public opinion research in the 2020-2021 school year.” That’s $555,000 in polling in 2020.
Barr paid Gallup $310,250 for “Consulting” (not as a grant but as a contractor) but the Form 990 has no other information about what the consulting was.
Oh yes, and $300,000 to The Boston Globe “To support The Boston Globe’s ‘Education Project’ coverage.” This was apparently the second part of an overall $600,000 grant to the Globe. I wrote about it in The Boston Globe—Barr Foundation Marriage and the Rise of Philanthro-Interest Group Journalism.
In the four years from 2013-2016 Barr spent only $1,025,000 on education politics, $400,00 of that on Stand for Children, which was pushed out of Massachusetts in 2019.
The only donors to the Barr Foundation are Amos and Barbara Hostetter, $27,398,623 in 2020. In 2017, when the Office of Campaign and Political Finance concluded its investigation of the illegal activities of Families for Excellent Schools in hiding the true sources of its contributions, it ordered the real check writers names to be disclosed. Amos Hostetter turned up as the fifth largest dark money giver at $2,025,000.
Voters have an absolute right to that information, to know who is trying to influence their votes. Dark money undermines democracy.
The Globe recently printed an op-ed by Jim Canales, president of Barr Foundation, Reimagining Philanthropy’s Commitment to Racial Equality. I’ll just deal with a bit, the parts you shouldn’t read while drinking your morning coffee (ask me how I know). (Bold in original):
“First, foster authentic relationships with leaders and organizations closest to the challenges we aim to address.” And that means “investing in leaders on the front lines in our communities, as they are trusted resources and agents of change.” …
“Second, work in partnership with others given the immense challenges before us” including “investing in those who challenge power and question the status quo.”
First, invest in authentic leaders? You picked the leaders! Or at least your partner the Waltons did as with Massachusetts Parents United, where the WalMart heirs assigned former Families for Excellent Schools Inc. state director Keri Rodrigues to be “mom-in-chief”. This is authentic? And the best you can conjure is ersatz teachers’ façade Educators for Excellence? Diane Ravitch explains E4E here: “It is funded by the reactionary anti-union Walton Family Foundation, the Rightwing William E. Simon Foundation, the anti-union Bodman Foundation, and the Arnold Foundation, which wants to eliminate pensions.”
Second, let’s partner up to challenge power. OK, I get it, you think unions get in your way. But challenge power, question the status quo? You’re a billionaire in partnership with the Waltons, for God’s sake. This reminds me of the Sprint television ad where a sycophantic aide is in the skyscraper corner office listening to his boss whine about “the man” and finally responds “But you are The Man!”
I’ll post on other “philanthropic” interest groups soon, and on Massachusetts Parents Union’s lavish funding. But not until after my morning coffee.
Full disclosure: as a (now retired) educator in the UMass system, I am a union member. I write about dark money, democracy, and oligarchy.]
[1] Sarah Reckhow, Following the Money: How Foundation Dollars Change Public Schools (New York, Oxford: 2013), 36-37.
[2] Jeffrey M. Berry and Kristin A. Goss, “Donors for Democracy? Philanthropy and the Challenges Facing America in the Twenty-first Century,” Interest Groups & Advocacy 7:3 (October 2018).
To be fair – “Boston but not Detroit” – may be due to Detroit’s superintendent, Dr. Nikolai P. Vitti, who is both an outspoken proponent of public education and a fierce defender of the traditionally trained teachers he hires and keeps in his district. No TFA or other folderol for Dr. Vitti. He’s the real deal!
“Prior to the pandemic, we were well on our way to showing another year of academic improvement. Our students were moving in the direction to improving their grade level performance in literacy and math and being more college ready on the PSAT and SAT. COVID-19 will not stop our progress. This school year we will have fully staffed schools, smaller class sizes, more technology for your child, expanded art and music programs, more sport programs, and additional programming for careers and college credit at the high school level. We are also expanding our literacy support as we did at the K-8 level last year in high schools with more small group and one-to-one support for students who are below grade level. In addition, we are continuing to invest in more counselors and social workers to support your children to overcome any social-emotional challenges that all of our children experience from time to time, especially during these unprecedented COVID-19 times.”
https://www.detroitk12.org/site/default.aspx?PageType=3&DomainID=4&ModuleInstanceID=4585&ViewID=6446EE88-D30C-497E-9316-3F8874B3E108&RenderLoc=0&FlexDataID=37019&PageID=1