Parents whose children are enrolled in public schools across in the United States have traditionally joined the PTA—affiliated with the national Parent Teacher Association—or an unaffiliated PTO—a Parent Teacher Organization, but few would have had the opportunity to join the National Parents Union. PTAs and PTOs embody the principle that parents and teachers are together responsible for the well-being of the school’s students.
On first glance, you might notice how the name of the National Parents Union is different from the names of the more traditional parents’ organizations. First, “teachers” are not named as collaborators. And the National Parents Union is called a “union.” Those two features of the organization’s name might make you suspicious that this is some sort of parents’ group against teachers unions. And, it seems you might be correct.
The National Parents Union is an Astroturf organization founded in 2020. Astroturf organizations pretend to represent the grassroots, but instead they advocate for the interests of their big funders. It is helpful to know who these groups are, so that you can keep straight about what they stand for and who they really represent.
Maurice Cunningham, a professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, has thoroughly researched and exposed the abuses by Astroturf organizations in the past, most notably the New York dark money group, Families for Excellent Schools Action, CONTINUE READING: Why Is Cardona’s Department of Education Partnering with an Astroturf Parent Organization? | janresseger
Maurice Cunningham is a political science professor at U of Mass who specializes in following the money, especially Dark Money, where the donors are anonymous.
The Koch-Walton backed National Parents Union is experiencing turmoil at the top and severe mismanagement with two boards of directors featuring revolving directors and a disappeared co-founder..
The organization is holding a convening on May 15 and its members should demand some answers.
Here are questions they should be asking the leadership. Any media member who would like to learn about who is pulling the strings at NPU, feel free.
1. National Parents Union has two boards of directors, one board listed on the NPU webpage, and another on record with the Massachusetts Secretary of State’s Corporations Division. The website board CONTINUE READING: Maurice Cunningham: Questions for the “National Parents Union” | Diane Ravitch's blog
Maurice Cunningham is a professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts. His specialty is following the gobs of money poured into “education reform.” His exposes of Dark Money in the 2016 charter expansion referendum was a crucial element in turning the public against the referendum (you can read more about him in his blogs and in my book Slaying Goliath.)
In this post, published here for the first time, Professor Cunningham writes about the innocence or naïveté of Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, who met with a billionaire astroturf group and thought he was reaching out to ordinary parents and families.
Cunningham writes:
Who Got Suckered, Secretary Cardona or Readers of The74?
“The Pro-privatization education blog The74 recently published To Rebuild Trust with Families, Ed. Dept. Seeks Input from Outspoken Parents Group. The story purports to be about how Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona “seeks” the advice of parents and thus turns to the National Parents Union. But the CONTINUE READING: Maurice Cunningham: Who Got Suckered? Secretary Cardona or Readers of The74? | Diane Ravitch's blog
Maurice Cunningham watches the flow of “Dark Money” into the privatization of public funding for schools. A professor of political science, he has recently followed the money trail of the “National Parents Union,” which he points out is neither “national,” nor “parents,” nor a “union.”
NPU markets itself as if it were a “grassroots” group, but it is funded by the Walton Family Foundation and Charles Koch and enjoys the high-priced assistance of Mercury Communications LLP to get its anti-public school, anti-union message into the national media. Mercury currently represents Teach for America and at one time represented Eva Moskowitz (who fired them).
With this expensive marketing, NPU presents itself as an authentic voice of parents.
Cunningham writes:
Here’s an example of the coverage from the New York Times: “National Parents Union, a collection of 200 advocacy organizations across 50 states representing parents from communities of color.” But there is no CONTINUE READING: Maurice Cunningham: The Marketing of the “National Parents Union” | Diane Ravitch's blog
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 joint venture that partners with a far right Christian home schooling network.
Here’s the Massachusetts Parents United $1,000 “sponsorship” from its Form 990 tax return for 2017:
Here are some headlines about National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference and its leader Pastor Samuel Rodriguez from Right Wing Watch:
Samuel Rodriguez: New General in Global Anti-Gay Culture War
Samuel Rodriguez: Getting Conservative SCOTUS Trumps Immigration Reform
The Preachers on Trump’s Inaugural Podium (Pastor Rodriguez prayed at Trump’s inaugural).
Samuel Rodriguez Says Trump’s Supreme Court Will Save Religious Liberty
Sam Rodriguez Has ‘Disagreements’ With Harsh Anti-Immigrant Bill but Calls It a ‘Positive Development’ (also identifying Rodriguez as a “promoter of the Libre Initiative,” the Koch political outreach program to Latinos).
Samuel Rodriguez Joins Bid to Rebuild GOP Power in California
In short, Samuel Rodriguez and his National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference are cogs in the religious right’s alliance with the Republican Party.
The religious right-economic right connection is a component of conservative political power, as Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson recently argued in Let Them Eat Tweets: How the Right Rules in an Age of Extreme Inequality. The Waltons and Charles Koch fund MPU’s allied organization National Parent Union through a joint venture called the VELA Education Fund. VELA announced a grant to NPU on August 3, 2020, NPU having established a track record of nearly seven months. VELA has also given CONTINUE READING: Massachusetts Parents United, National Parents Union, and the Christian Right
