Perdido Street School: How Education Reformers Fund Their Reform Lobbying Efforts Without Revealing Their Donors

Perdido Street School: How Education Reformers Fund Their Reform Lobbying Efforts Without Revealing Their Donors:

How Education Reformers Fund Their Reform Lobbying Efforts Without Revealing Their Donors

Chris Bragg of the Times-Union with an illuminating piece about how education reform groups push their political agenda without revealing who's funding it:

Three groups pushing education reforms that spent heavily lobbying state government this year funded at least a portion of their efforts though donations whose original sources are essentially untraceable.



StudentsFirstNY Advocacy, the Coalition for Opportunity in Education and Families for Excellent Schools spent more than $8.3 million during the 2015 legislative session lobbying state government to promote charter schools and other issues, according to recent lobbying disclosure filings.

Here is one of the games the education reformers play to hide where the money's coming from:

Manhattan-based group StudentsFirstNY Advocacy, which pushes for charter schools and other causes, spent $2 million this year, but the sources behind roughly half that spending are unclear..



One million dollars were donated to StudentsFirst NY Advocacy by another nonprofit, StudentsFirst NY Inc., that heavily overlaps with it: The two groups share an office suite and staff.



Both StudentsFirst NY Advocacy and StudentsFirst NY Inc.

Perdido Street School: How Education Reformers Fund Their Reform Lobbying Efforts Without Revealing Their Donors: