National Parents Union, a Unit of the Billionaire Boys Club
Last week I explained how the National Parents Union is not a union, not national, and not about parents. Today we’ll go into more detail about what NPU is: a political unit of the Billionaire Boys Club.Education scholar Diane Ravitch popularized the term Billionaire Boys Club in her 2010 book The Death and Life of the Great American School System, describing the school privatization funding of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation.
Oftentimes it is hard to know who is funding a political interest group hiding under the legal banner of a Internal Revenue Code 501(c)(3) organization, but a story in the pro-privatization The 74 was a big help in identifying NPU’s underwriters. Here’s an excerpt:
Alma Marquez and Keri Rodrigues Lorenzo are the public faces of NPU. Let’s take a look at the net worth of their donors, from Forbes Magazine’s Real Time Billionaire’s List that tracks the daily ups and downs of billionaires.
Billionaire Net Worth in Billions
| Gates, Bill | $106.50 |
| Zuckerberg, Mark | $78.80 |
| Ballmer, Steve | $65.80 |
| Walton, Jim | $56.50 |
| Walton, Alice | $56.30 |
| Walton, Rob | $56.10 |
| Walton, Lukas | $19.20 |
| Walton, Christy | $9.20 |
| Kroenke, Ann Walton | $7.90 |
| Laurie, Nancy Walton | $7.30 |
| Dell, Michael | $28.60 |
| Broad, Eli | $6.80 |
| Hoffman, Reed | $1.90 |
| Arnold, John | $3.30 |
| Koch, Charles* | $44.40 |
| Total | $548.60 |
Charles Koch isn’t in The 74’s story but he and Koch Industries have a proxy on the board of National CONTINUE READING: National Parents Union, a Unit of the Billionaire Boys Club