Today in Frustrated with Home Schooling, Parents Declare: Class Dismissed the Boston Globe transmits the story of a typical parent struggling with educating kids at home. But the parent is actually a highly paid privatization advocate on the Walton family’s political payroll. How does this happen? Obviously it’s a real story. Parents are stressed, especially…
Category: Keri Rodriguez
Got Democracy? National Parents Union Doesn’t
One interesting thing about privatization fronts like the Walton family’s National Parents Union is that of membership and governance. Who gets to be members, what are the powers of members, how is leadership chosen? In the world of privatization organizations these components are rarely, if ever, democratic. National Parents Union is a union, right? It…
National Parents Union, the Anti-union Union
The National Parents Union front for the Walton family’s dive into the Democratic Party’s primaries decided to adopt the name union, though it is not only not a union but is virulently anti-union—a posture that surely satisfies the WalMart heirs. A union is “An organization of workers, formed for the purpose of negotiating with employers…
Waltons Dive into Democratic Primaries Behind National Parents Union
The Walton family, heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune, are trying to deal themselves in to Democratic primary politics. It isn’t any mystery why. Conservative billionaires feel gravely threatened by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Their vehicle is yet another new privatization front posing as a parents group, National Parents Union. National Parents Union appears to…
The Walton Family’s Massachusetts Political Team, 2019
The Wednesday vote in the House on the Education Funding bill is a crucial test for interest groups opposing the Senate version, and all of them are influenced or controlled by the Walton Family of Arkansas. Let’s meet The Walton Family’s Massachusetts Political Team, 2019. The selected groups all have some political purpose and all…
Headline: Arkansas Billionaires Fight to Change Massachusetts Education Policy
“Arkansas Billionaires Fight to Change Massachusetts Education Policy.” Interesting headline, and true. No Walton family of Arkansas, no Massachusetts Parents United. No Walton family of Arkansas, no Democrats for Education Reform of Massachusetts. It’s that simple. But the Boston Globe and MassLive, among others, simply ignore that fact. It’s the politics of pretending. Readers deserve…
Massachusetts Parents United: Old Wine in an Expensive Bottle
Massachusetts Parents United claims to be “the independent voice of parents.” But it’s entirely dependent on funding from the Walton Family’s (tax deductible) political operations. When I wrote Massachusetts Parents United: Old Wine in an Empty Bottle in July 2017 there were some clues about its funding but not much detail, and what detail there…
Keri Rodrigues Goes Coastal with Plans for National Parents Union
Keri Rodrigues of Massachusetts Parents United, the highly subsidized-by-the-Walton-family front in the education privatization business, is pitching a new organization called the National Parents Union. It’s got elements that should appeal to the WalMart heirs – hidden money, infiltration of the Democratic Party, pro-charters, privatization of public goods, and virulently anti-union. But there are problems….