Education Reform Now: Manufacturing Grass Roots Support for La. BESE Candidates Castille and Orange-Jones
DC/New-York-based Education Reform Now (ERN) is a 501c3 nonprofit associated with Democrats for Education Reform (DFER). Both are led by Shavar Jeffries (see here and here).
ERN advertises itself as “a national think tank and advocacy organization.”
The “advocacy” comes from an associated 501c4 (lobbying nonprofit), ERN Advocacy.
“Public school choice” is a major DFER/ERN/ERN Advocacy push, and DFER is open about actively promoting its priorities at the federal and state levels.
In Louisiana’s 2019 state board (BESE) elections, ERN Advocacy is supporting two candidates: Kira Orange-Jones (Dist 2) and Preston Castille (Dist 8) (see here also).
Castille is a Baton Rouge lawyer who also happens to be Immediate Past Chairman of the Board of Directors of New Schools for Baton Rouge (NSBR) and Chairman of the Board for Helix charter schools. (Aside: Another BESE candidate, Ronnie Morris of District 6, is also connected to a recently-approved BASIS charter school in Baton Rouge as its treasurer.)
Castille’s time on NSBR board was shared with Louisiana businessman Lane Grigsby, whose recently-disbanded Empower Louisiana PAC funneled $3M in out-of-state billionaire cash into Louisiana’s 2015 BESE race.
It’s a small corporate ed reform world, after all.
ERN Advocacy’s other BESE prize, Kira Orange-Jones, is a Teach for America CONTINUE READING: Education Reform Now: Manufacturing Grass Roots Support for La. BESE Candidates Castille and Orange-Jones | deutsch29
