Thursday, March 26, 2026

NO KINGS 3.0 THIS SATURDAY UP YOURS, BILLIONAIRE EDUCATION OLIGARCHY: HOW REGULAR PEOPLE ARE RECLAIMING AMERICA'S CLASSROOMS #NoKingsMar28 #NoKingsInAmerica #NoKings

NO KINGS 3.0 THIS SATURDAY UP YOURS, BILLIONAIRE EDUCATION OLIGARCHY

HOW REGULAR PEOPLE ARE RECLAIMING AMERICA'S CLASSROOMS

The revolution will not be privatized. And if the 2025–2026 election cycle is any indication, it will be funded by property taxes, staffed by union teachers, and defended by parents wielding non-permission slips like medieval battle axes. From the shadow of Mar-a-Lago to the cornfields of northwest Iowa, a scrappy, furious, and surprisingly well-organized coalition of Democrats, educators, and grassroots activists has decided that enough is enough — and that the best weapon against a billionaire-backed education oligarchy is a school board seat and a really good talking point.

The Elections That Shook the Oligarchy

Let's start with the delicious irony: Donald Trump's own neighbors just voted against everything he stands for in education.

On March 24, 2026, Democrat Emily Gregory flipped Florida's House District 87 — a district that literally contains Mar-a-Lago, a seat Trump carried by 9 points in 2024, and a district that hadn't sent a Democrat to Tallahassee this entire century. Gregory won 51.15% of the vote running on a platform that called out, by name, the Republican legislature's obsession with "culture war" theatrics at the expense of underfunded local classrooms.

DNC Chair Ken Martin put it with characteristic restraint: "Donald Trump's own neighbors just sent a crystal clear message: They are furious and ready for change." DLCC President Heather Williams was even more pointed: "If Mar-a-Lago is vulnerable, imagine what's possible this November."

But Florida wasn't alone. In August 2025, Democrat Catelin Drey won Iowa's Senate District 1 — a deep-red northwest Iowa seat in a district Trump carried by 10 points. Her entire campaign was built on one devastating message: the state's private school voucher program was draining rural public schools dry, leaving teaching positions unfilled and classrooms underfunded. The National Education Association called it a blueprint for how Democrats can win by going toward education issues rather than running from them.

And in Pennsylvania, Democrats ran coordinated "Anti-Privatization" slates in school board races in Central Bucks and Pennridge — flipping boards and, in Central Bucks, achieving a stunning 9-0 Democratic majority. Their secret weapon? Naming names. Specifically, the name Jeffrey Yass — Pennsylvania's wealthiest resident, who funneled over $35 million into state elections through the Commonwealth Leaders Fund and Students First PAC. One viral ad said it plainly: "Our schools belong to our community, not to the $35 million check of one billionaire who doesn't even live here."

Follow the Money (It Leads Somewhere Ugly)

Here's the thing about the billionaire education oligarchy: they're not exactly subtle about it.

The privatization playbook has three main characters, and Democrats in 2025–2026 have gotten very good at introducing them to voters:

The Funder	The Vehicle	The Target	The Democratic Rebuttal
Jeffrey Yass	Commonwealth Leaders Fund / Students First PAC	PA School Boards & Courts	"Stop the Billionaire Takeover"
DeVos / Uihlein Families	Moms for Liberty PAC / Heritage Foundation	FL & National School Boards	"End the Voucher Scam"
Francisco Partners / Veritas Capital	Private EdTech Roll-Ups	District Software Contracts	"Protect Student Data & Public Budgets"

The EdTech angle is particularly insidious — and candidates like Gregory in Florida have started connecting the dots for voters. When private equity firms own the software that tracks your child's performance, attendance, and billing, the student becomes a product. It's a message that lands hard with parents who thought they were just signing a permission slip for a field trip, not consenting to their kid's data being monetized.

Meanwhile, Iowa's voucher program has become a case study in fiscal recklessness. Year after year, the program costs the state millions more than anticipated — and the overwhelming majority of beneficiaries are families who were already sending their kids to private school. As Iowa Senate Democrats have documented, this isn't "school choice." It's a taxpayer-funded subsidy for the wealthy, dressed up in the language of freedom.

The Intellectual Arsenal: Books That Are Making Billionaires Nervous

Every good resistance movement needs its texts, and the pro-public education movement has assembled a genuinely formidable reading list.

Diane Ravitch's Slaying Goliath remains the foundational scripture — a meticulous, passionate takedown of what she calls the "Disrupters": the DeVos, Walton, and Gates families who have spent decades trying to convince Americans that public schools are broken and that the cure is privatization. Spoiler: the cure is worse than the disease.

The newer and arguably more dangerous text (dangerous to privatizers, that is) is Josh Cowen's The Privateers: How Billionaires Created a Culture War and Sold School Vouchers (2024). Cowen, an education policy professor, makes the explosive argument that the entire "culture war" in education — the book bans, the DEI hysteria, the transgender sports panic — is not primarily about culture at all. It's a marketing strategy designed to destabilize public confidence in public schools so that vouchers seem like a reasonable alternative. Candidates in Florida and Iowa have used his research to devastating effect.

And then there's Teacher Tom (Tom Hobson), whose philosophy that "education is not preparation for life; education is life itself" is being adopted by school board candidates who want to pivot from the "workforce readiness" language of private EdTech firms toward something more radical: the idea that children deserve to play, explore, and think — not just produce data points for a private equity dashboard.

The "Non-Permission Slip" Revolution

Perhaps the most brilliantly subversive tactic of the 2025–2026 cycle is the Non-Permission Slip — a document launched by the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools' "Free the Future" movement in March 2026.

Traditional permission slips ask parents to consent to school activities. The Non-Permission Slip flips the script entirely. Parents sign it to formally declare:

No to federal voucher programs that drain local public school budgets
No to ICE cooperation on school grounds (schools as sanctuary spaces)
Yes to honest history and diverse perspectives in the curriculum — directly countering state-level book bans

It's paperwork as protest. Bureaucracy as resistance. And it's working.

The broader "No Kings" movement — which began as a general protest against executive overreach — has been localized into "Kids Not Kings," applying the constitutional principle that no one is above the law to the Department of Education itself. The argument: billionaires and federal officials cannot unilaterally decree the dismantling of public institutions that belong to the people.

This Saturday: No Kings 3.0 — Be There or Be Complicit

On March 28, 2026, the third nationwide "No Kings" mobilization is expected to be the largest single-day protest in U.S. history, with over 3,000 local events planned across all 50 states. The Texas State Teachers Association, Speak Out Socialists, and dozens of other organizations have confirmed participation.

The flagship rallies:

City	Location	Time	Focus
Washington, D.C.	Frederick Douglass Bridge	1:30 PM	Marching toward Fort McNair
San Francisco	Embarcadero Plaza	11:30 AM	Rally at Civic Center 2 PM
Philadelphia	City Hall	12:00 PM	Ben Franklin Parkway March
Los Angeles	City Hall	10:00 AM	320+ events across California
Minneapolis/St. Paul	State Capitol	12:00 PM	Ending "Operation Metro Surge"

Can't make it in person? The Digital Mobilization runs concurrently: flood the #NoKings and #FreeTheFuture hashtags, support businesses signed onto the "Public Defense Pledge," and if you're a parent — print that Non-Permission Slip.

The Toolkit: Run for School Board, Save Democracy

For anyone inspired to actually run for their local school board in 2026, the infrastructure is there:

NEA's "Protect Our Kids" Toolkit (updated March 2026): Ready-to-use social media scripts, SMS organizing templates, and "Billionaire vs. Worker" messaging that frames privatization as a raid on public funds.
Red Wine & Blue's "School Board School": A video series breaking down exactly what school boards do and how to speak at public comment to change policy — specifically designed for suburban parents who are done with extremist takeovers.
Run for Something's "Battle Up" Strategy: For Gen Z and Millennial candidates, complete with digital tools to track how AI models are discussing your race and mobile wallet passes that update supporters with their exact polling place on Election Day.

The Bottom Line

The billionaire education oligarchy has had a very good run. For decades, they've used their fortunes to fund think tanks, back PACs, install friendly school board members, and slowly, methodically redirect public dollars into private pockets — all while keeping parents distracted with arguments about which books are too dangerous for a 10-year-old to read.

But something has shifted. Voters in Trump's own backyard flipped a seat. A working mom in deep-red Iowa broke a Republican supermajority by talking about teacher vacancies. Parents are signing Non-Permission Slips. Candidates are naming billionaires in their ads. And this Saturday, millions of people are taking to the streets.

The message from Iowa to Florida to Pennsylvania is the same: Public schools belong to the public. Not to Jeffrey Yass. Not to Betsy DeVos. Not to whatever private equity firm just acquired your district's student-management software.

To the billionaire education oligarchy: the people have found their playbook. And unlike your voucher programs, it's actually working.

Sources: Florida Politics — Emily Gregory wins HD 87 Special Election, March 25, 2026 | CNN — Democrat flips deep-red Florida House district near Mar-a-Lago, March 24, 2026 | NEA Today — How a Special Election Brought a Big Victory for Public Education (Catelin Drey/Iowa) | Speak Out Socialists — No Kings! No Billionaires! March 28 Mobilization

So bring your pots. Bring your pans. Bring your neighbors, your rage, your hope, and your voice.

March 28. No Kings. Not now. Not ever.

Why This Saturday Matters

This isn't about left or right. It's about up or down — whether power flows from the people upward, or from a single unchecked office downward. The No Kings movement is, at its heart, a love letter to the American founding idea: that no person, no office, no title is above the law or the will of the governed.

From the Boston Tea Party to the March on Washington, Americans have always shown up when democracy needed defending. This Saturday, millions will do it again — some in yellow jackets, some in frog suits, some on their front porches at 8 PM with a wooden spoon and a stockpot.

Find your event at mobilize.us/nokings. Wear yellow. Bring a sign. Bang a pot. Sign the Constitution scroll. And remind the world — and yourselves — that from sea to shining sea, America doesn't do kings.

"No Kings Since 1776. No Kings in 2026. No Kings. Full stop."

For more information on protecting public education funding, visit ProtectPublicEd.org. For No Kings 3.0 rally locations near you, check local listings and national event pages.

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