Tuesday the Boston Globe had a story National conservative group files lawsuit against Wellesley public schools and I thought, I could write a headline that is both more clickable and more dead-on balls accurate than that so here it is: Trump’s Lawyer Sues Wellesley for Charles Koch’s Phony “Parent” Group. Do you like it? The…
Category: dark money
SuperPACs: Boston Keeps Not Inviting You But You Keep Coming Back
The Boston Globe is doing a pretty good job (I hope the Globe keeps it up) paying attention to SuperPACs in the Boston mayor’s race, the latest example being Danny McDonald’s SuperPAC’s emerge in Boston mayor’s race, with little objection so far. But regular people do object to these vehicles for oligarchic wealth, and they…
A Better Boston for Oligarchs
June 30 Update: The Better Boston for Oligarchs SuperPAC sent in a new filing with OCPF yesterday and boy, is this 2016 and school privatization all over again. here are the salient updates. Ray Stata is in for $25,000. He gave $125,000 to the Great Schools Massachusetts ballot committee in 2016. Hilary Gabrieli is in…
What Scot Lehigh Missed Today: The Waltons of Arkansas
If there was ever any doubt of the importance of the defeat of the charter school ballot question in 2016, Scot Lehigh’s frozen-in-time A Time for Real Education Change column in the Boston Globe today reminds us of its importance: a 62-38% shellacking of the billionaire backers of Question 2 by teachers unions. But the…
Your Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance Reader
Recently the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance’s non-profit lawyer the Koch-funded ($1 million per year) New Civil Liberties Alliance announced it would appeal a Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision against MassFiscal’s allies. The decision upheld Governor Baker’s emergency public health powers during the Covid pandemic. NCLA not only lost the case 6-0 but got laughed out of…
Ten Questions for National Parents Union
The Koch-Walton backed National Parents Union is experiencing turmoil at the top and severe mismanagement with two boards of directors featuring revolving directors and a disappeared co-founder. The organization is holding a convening on May 15 and its members (if there are any) should demand some answers. Here are questions they should be asking the…
Radical Right Ramps Up War on School Boards, Superintendents, Principals, and Teachers
The following post first appeared on Diane Ravitch’s Blog, link here. A new professedly “grassroots” group called Parents Defending Education has joined the right wing assault on public education. It combines white supremacy with a vicious plan to launch personal attacks on elected officials, administrators, and teachers. Just another day in corporate education reform. This…
Mass Fiscal’s Fraudulent Voter Fraud Forum
On Tuesday dark money front Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance will get back into the voter suppression business by hosting a forum featuring Hans von Spakovsky. Could this be the same Hans von Spakovsky found by a federal district court to be not at all credible as an “expert” on voter fraud? Why yes, it is that…
National Parents Union: Turmoil at the Top
National Parents Union, funded by the Waltons, Charles Koch, and other oligarchs has churned its leadership in one year so much that it deepens questions about NPU’s legitimacy. Two sets of boards of directors and the departure of a co-founder and board member will do that. Two boards? Yep. When you visit the National Parents…
Rhode Island: Dark Money Backs “Parents Group” for More Charter Schools
The following was posted first on Diane Ravitch’s Blog, and you can find the original here. I’ll only add that it is not uncommon today to find ostensibly “grassroots parent groups” that suddenly find themselves awash in hundreds of thousands of dollars in dark money. Also, if the Boston Globe can have a Rhode Island…