As I wrote yesterday in Latest on the Barr Foundation K-12 Interest Group Team, 2022, from 2017-2022 the Barr Foundation spent over $14,000,000 to support K-12 interest groups in Massachusetts. The twist is, Barr also helps fund the Globe’s K-12 interest group coverage. So, we have the unique situation in which Barr funds K-12 interest…
Author: Maurice Cunningham
Professor Cunningham Ph.D., J.D., is author of Dark Money and the Politics of School Privatization. He retired in 2021 as associate professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Boston but he continues his research into dark money in politics. His two reports on the dark money threat to public education are available on the Network for Public Education website: Merchants of Deception: Parent Props and their Funders, and “A Citizen’s Guide to the School Privatization Movement” (forthcoming). His work has been distributed through the Independent Media Institute and has appeared in The Bucks County Beacon (PA), Shepherd Express (WI), Alternet, Tampa Bay Times, The Daily Progress (VA), Idaho Education News, New Hampshire Bulletin, The Detroit Free Press, and The Portland Press-Herald (ME), and at Diane Ravitch’s Blog, dianeravitch.net.. His work on dark money in Massachusetts has earned him the 2017 Distinguished Public Service Award from the Massachusetts Association of School Committees and the 2018 MTA President’s Award from the Massachusetts Teachers Association. Education historian Diane Ravitch has named Professor Cunningham to her "Honor Roll" on her education blog. He can be reached at maurice.cunningham153@gmail.com.
Publications that focus upon Massachusetts Politics include two co-written chapters in the edited volume The Politics of Massachusetts Exceptionalism: Reputation Meets Reality. He has also written “Defeating ‘Death with Dignity’: Morality and Message in a Massachusetts Referendum” in American Catholic Studies (2014); “Massachusetts Politics 2012” in New England Journal of Political Science (2012); “A Christian Coalition for Catholics?: The Massachusetts Model,” Review of Religious Research (2009); and “Massachusetts Republicans: the 2004 Challenge to Democratic Legislative Hegemony,” in New England Journal of Political Science (2008).
Latest on The Barr Foundation K-12 Interest Group Team, 2022
Billionaires pour millions of dollars into K-12 interest groups in Massachusetts with almost no public accountability. The interests have upbeat sounding names like “Democrats for Education Reform,” “Educators for Excellence,” and “National Parents Union” but make no mistake, they exist to promote the policy preferences of oligarchs. The public deserves a full accounting of who…
Banned in Boston: Coverage of Walton Family Spending on K-12 Interest Groups, 2022 Edition
“So far as I can tell, in a period in which the Waltons poured more than $10,000,000 into K-12 interest groups in Massachusetts, no Boston Globe staffer has ever reported that fact.” In Just Giving: Why Philanthropy Is Failing Democracy and How It Can Do Better, Professor Rob Reich argues that “Big philanthropy is often…
Why Is The Boston Globe’s Sports Coverage So Much Better Than Its K-12 Political Coverage?
When we read an article in the Boston Globe sports page about the Boston Red Sox, we frequently see a critique not just of the performers on the field but also of manager Alex Cora, the coaches, team president Craig Breslow, the geeks in “baseball ops,” the minor league staff, and owner John Henry, who…
Newton Public Education Faces Right-wing Assaults
Newton public education is the target of a coordinated right-wing extremist assault. The latest is a frivolous attack on Newton Teachers Association but that follows attacks on diversity programs and racist attacks on two superintendents. Wake up, folks. I wrote about Christian Nationalists Attack on Newton Teachers Association just the other day. That post featured…
What the Globe Left Out of “MTA Exerts More Power”
The Boston Globe is messing with my Golden Years and I don’t appreciate it one bit. I really want just want to play some Sudoko and rest up for the blue plate special but then the Globe goes and prints something like MTA exerts more power amid a wave of teacher strikes, generating praise and…
Christian Nationalists Attack Newton Teachers Association
The Boston Globe is reporting Some Newton parents join lawsuit seeking damages for 11-day teachers strike. This has nothing to do with parents. It’s a meritless frolic to attack public education engineered by out of state Christian nationalists. The immediate target is the Newton Teachers Association and if you don’t like them you should still…
“A political hit job”: The Boston Globe’s Shirley Leung Interviews Nancy MacLean on Claudine Gay Case
I cannot recommend strongly enough that you read this Shirley Leung piece interviewing historian Nancy MacLean about the malign forces attacking higher education, including the Claudine Gay case. Then listen to the entirety of Ms. Leung’s interview with Professor MacLean at the Globe’s Say More. These are the same folks attacking K-12 over CRT and…
Moms for Liberty Cuddles Up to Proud Boys . . . Again
Moms for Liberty got caught canoodling with the Proud Boy. Again. In stage horror, Moms for Liberty issued a press release stating “Moms for Liberty is in no way affiliated with the Proud Boys…”. Again. So let’s revisit some of the coverage of the Moms for Liberty-Proud Boys coupling—the one we know the Moms would…
How to Understand Democrats for Education Reform Using Two Quotes from Democrats for Education Reform
Democrats for Education Reform face-planted again in Tuesday’s Boston municipal election and that got me thinking about how to define DFER in two quotes from DFER itself. Here they are. “We’re essentially bundlers”—Joe Williams, DFER president, 2012. (He went on to be director of the Walton Education Coalition and now is political director of Walton…