Over the years the Boston Globe has routinely turned to Democrats for Education Reform Massachusetts for commentary on privateering efforts aimed at public schools. So, it is notable that the Globe has paid no attention to the apparent demise of DFER. The coverage blackout is even more significant since DFER’s struggles were revealed in a…
Category: Democrats for Education Reform
Democrats for Education Reform Brings Dark Money Back to Massachusetts Politics
So it begins: Democrats for Education Reform is pouring dark money back into Massachusetts politics. That is apparent from today’s Matt Stout story in the Boston Globe: So it begins: Business-backed group opposing MCAS ballot question rolling out $250,000 ad campaign. One of the donors for a digital media buy from the Protect Our Kids…
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…
Democrats for Education Reform: Let’s Meet the Funders
I often point out Democrats for Education Reform ’s far-right patrons like Rupert Murdoch and the Waltons but I haven’t given DFER MA’s Boston patrons enough attention. Let’s try. First, DFER is really at least three different legal structures under one roof. There’s the DFER PAC and DFER SuperPAC which have to report contributions and…
New “Ed Reform” Coalition Shows How Media Allows Billionaires to Control Narrative
According to a State House News Service report picked up at WWLP a coalition called “Voices for Academic Equity” has formed to oppose teachers’ unions efforts to amend the MCAS law. The story doesn’t say whom the coalition members represent. Simple: it’s the familiar story of capital vs. labor. But you wouldn’t know it because…
DFER, a Campaign Finance Bundler, Scores Op-ed in Boston Globe
A recent commentary in the Boston Globe by Mary Tamer, state director of Democrats for Education Reform Massachusetts, was notable in that you don’t see a newspaper cede op-ed space to political money “bundlers” every day. Note the quotation marks. I’m not calling DFER a bundler I’m quoting DFER’s former president calling DFER a bundler….
The Privatization Cabal and Agenda Setting by Poll–Primary Day Edition
Really, do voters need a “tracking” poll released on Primary Day eve telling them a candidates is in the lead? Someone explain the public value to me. OK there is none—except the third poll in a series backed by school privatizers and designed to bolster the campaign of Andrea Campbell for Attorney General. While an…
“labor is the superior — greatly the superior — of capital”—Abraham Lincoln
On September 30, 1859 Abraham Lincoln gave a speech in Milwaukee in which he repeated his long held position, that “labor is the superior — greatly the superior — of capital.” Lincoln was responding to an 1858 speech by Senator James Henry Hammond of South Carolina, the “mud sill” speech. Hammond stated that: In all…
New York Times Covers AG’s Race and Misses the Story
Last week as the Massachusetts Democrats gathered in convention the New York Times rolled out Inside the Audition for Democrats’ Next Crusading Attorney General projecting the race for the party’s nominee as a signal of where the national party is headed. Then the Times just went for the usual horse race stuff. Too bad because…
New Revelations from the World of Dark Money
Two recently released documents offer insight into dark money sources that reach into Massachusetts. Let’s take a look at the donor list from the Koch Brothers’ Americans for Job Security and to the program from the annual meeting of the right wing State Policy Network. After years of legal battles the Center for Responsibility and…