In Massachusetts, voters will decide on whether or not to keep the Big Standardized Test as a graduation requirement. Dark money expert Maurice Cunningham has been tracking who, exactly, wants to keep the test.
The framing battle over Question 2 on MCAS—is it between “parents” and the Massachusetts Teachers Association or between the “business community” and the MTA—has been settled by New York billionaire Michael Bloomberg: it is between oligarchy and the MTA or if you like, capital v. labor.
The Boston Globe’s Matt Stout reports that Bloomberg pours $2.5m into opposing MCAS ballot question. Stout reported that Bloomberg’s donation amounts to just over half of the money raised by the Protect Our Kids future: No on 2 committee. That has changed just slightly, with new donations.
Perhaps the real frame should be Michael Bloomberg v. MTA? His stake is large enough to say he owns this thing. No one can seriously count Bloomberg as part of the Massachusetts business community. The New Yorker also finishes off the “business community’s” refrain that they are acting to preserve business “competitiveness.”
Stout also reminds us that Bloomberg kicked in $490,000 for the charter school ballot question in 2016. Bloomberg is a pro-school privatization giver and befitting a billionaire, an ardent opponent of unions.
As I wrote in Latest OCPF Filings; and the Larsen A. Whipsnade “Never give a sucker an even break” Media Awards the biggest (pre-Bloomberg) donors to No on 2 clustered in the financial sector. The Globe’s business reporter Jon Chesto had done good reporting on this and as I wrote in “Whipsnade” has a case that it is the business community favoring No on 2, and he acknowledges the clustering in the financial sector. Now we can say, Bloomberg, then high finance, then some business groups like the Massachusetts Competitive Partnership, etc.
Recent OCPF updates show additional donations to No on 2: $100,000 from Bain’s Josh Bekenstein; $100,000 from John Fish of Suffolk Construction: $100,000 from Massmutual, etc.
Bekenstein and his wife slid $2,500,000 in dark money into the charters campaign in 2016. They were also major donors to Strategic Grant Partners , which kept pro-charter Families for Excellent Schools afloat leading into the charters campaign.
