This happened April 29. Boston Globe Education published a piece quoting Keri Rodrigues, president of the Walton backed AstroTurf front Massachusetts Parents United. A friend messaged me asking of the Globe “How are they so bad at this?” And my response was the Globe isn’t bad at this: it’s intentional. But just in case the…
Category: Keri Rodrigues
The Marketing of National Parents Union
National Parents Union isn’t national, isn’t about parents, and isn’t a union—so what is it? It’s a corporate-type marketing front, and a successful one at that. Let’s take a look at the backgrounds of the leadership touted on NPU’s website from about January 2020 through sometime late in August when co-founder Alma Marquez vanished amidst…
Massachusetts Parents United, National Parents Union, and the Christian Right
Two of the important props of the far right in America are Christian conservatives and economic royalists like the Waltons and Charles Koch. Those ties are becoming evident in school privatization including in financial support the Massachusetts Parents United has offered to a Christian right group and in National Parents Union’s funding from a Koch-Walton…
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…
Let’s Try to Help Massachusetts Parents United with “Transparency”
Last week I was mentioned in a news story as leading the charge to scrutinize the funding behind politically active “foundation-backed groups, particularly Massachusetts Parents United.” I need to live up to my press clippings because there is more to the story of Massachusetts Parents United. The mention came in Shira Schoenberg’s excellent Getting a…
Gov. Baker’s School Reopening Panel–Waltons Win Again?
With the national coronavirus situation grim Massachusetts is doing better and is preparing to reopen—including schools. Governor Charlie Baker’s reopening panels (No Place for Heroes) have been long on C-suite types (Zoom!) and short on front line workers. In the case of the school reopening panels, a solid five of the five “parent” members are…
A Response to Keri Rodrigues’s Accusation of Inaccurate Information
Since I got into following the dark money business with the 2016 school privatization ballot question in Massachusetts, I try to stay up on newly arising organizations that serve as fronts for the plans of billionaires. One such group is the National Parents Union, which is not national, not parents, and not a union. I…