Dear Chairperson Lewis, Chairperson Gordon, and Committee Members:
My name is Maruice T. Cunningham, and I am a retired professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. In 2016 I became curious about the dark money being spent on Question 2 to expand charter schools in Massachusetts, upward of $20 million in dark money for the Yes on 2 side, which spent over $25 million. I conducted in-depth research and uncovered many of the sources of dark money. The Office of Campaign and Political Finance conducted its own investigation and sanctioned the committees that were behind the dark money explosion. I also became familiar with foundations that had been funding a non-profit called Families for Excellent Schools, which was pushing for charters and morphed into the campaign in 2016. I wrote a book entitled Dark Money and the Politics of School Privatization. Since I believe interest groups answerable to the same funders will testify in support of H. 698 and S. 338, I hope my testimony might be of service.
Several of these funders are major supporters of the advocacy groups supporting so-called “Science of Reading” programs today. The Boston Globe, a staunch supporter of 2016’s Question 2, also champions Science of Reading. Barr Foundation is one of the major funders of the advocacy groups supporting Science of Reading. Barr also funds the Boston Globe’s Great Divide education reporting. That foundation’s benefactor, Amos Hostetter, was revealed by the OCPF investigation to have been a $2 million dark money donor to the 2016 Question 2 effort. I take note of such donors and in a blog post on May 14, 2024, picking up on a Globe news story supportive of Science of Reading, I wrote this
The Barr Foundation Family of K-12 Interest Groups has had a heady two days with a story in the Barr funded Boston Globe touting a poll commissioned by the Barr funded Education Trust from the Barr funded MassInc Polling Group with remarks from Keri Rodrigues of the Barr funded National Parents Union and Lisa Lazare of Barr funded Educators for Excellence, presented at an event held by the Education Trust and moderated by the Globe reporter who wrote the story.
Another news report in the Boston Globe celebrated Science of Reading as a “super power to help . . . young students to read.” What caught my eye was that the super power program is in schools “through grant funding from the Boston-based One8 Foundation” and the results of One8’s program are “according to preliminary results from a study by Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins University funded by the (One8) foundation.”
The One8 is the foundation of Jonathon and Joanna Jacobson, also two million dollar dark money givers to Question 2 of 2016. They were also major donors to a now defunct foundation called Strategic Grant Partners, run by Joanna Jacobson, which donated $1.8 million from 2014-2017 to Families for Excellent Schools in Massachusetts.
In 2024 the Boston Globe did a story on a lawsuit in which two families sued literacy experts whose programs were at use in Massachusetts, hoping to install Science of Reading programs in their stead. I found that nearly the sole underwriter of the legal non-profit that brought the suit is the Boston Foundation. The Boston Foundation donated $2.6 million to Families for Excellent Schools and continues to fund advocacy groups that favor privateering public education. A federal district court judge dismissed the Science of Reading lawsuit. The Complaint made clear that Science of Reading programs might capture literacy programs’ “massive profits.”
Many of the advocacy groups you will likely hear from also receive major funding from the Walton Family Foundation, the foundation of America’s richest family, the WalMart heirs. Two Walton cousins, Jim and Alice, put just shy of $2 million into the 2016 Question 2 campaign.
I am sure you will consult with actual experts in the field. One such expert is Dr. Elena Aydarova, who gave an interview about her skepticism to the National Education Policy Center. She has substantive criticisms of Science of Reading and insights into the backers of Science of Reading, such as “EdTech companies that are leading this movement. But they’re doing primarily, they’re doing this to primarily bolster their profits.”
The interest groups that come before you may portray themselves as representing “parents,” “educators,” and other sympathetic groups with an interest in education. This is actually an example of a formulation from Anand Giridharadas “What wealthy people do is rig the discourse.” I encourage you to consider the true interests behind these interest groups.