Maurice Cunningham is a dark money expert in Massachusetts who sees more dark money shenanigans in the recent push for reading reform.
A Coalition of Billionaires masquerading as the Mass Reads Coalition is lobbying the legislature to pass a corporate coveted reading bill. It is mostly a familiar gaggle of privateering interest groups underwritten by the Boston Foundation, Barr Foundation, and the Walton Family Foundation.
At the Mass Reads website, you will find the Coalition of Billionaires members. EdTrust, Educators for Excellence, Latinos for Education, Massachusetts Charter Public School Association, Massachusetts Business Alliance, National Parents Union, Teach for America, Teach Plus—all have taken in millions of dollars from the Barr Foundation (supported by Boston billionaire and 2016 charters ballot question dark money donor Amos Hostetter) and the Waltons of Arkansas (union-hating heirs to the WalMart fortune). All of them except EdTrust and National Parents Union have also received money from the Boston Foundation.
Walton family client ExcelinEd is in there too. ExcelinEd is Jeb Bush’s outfit and you may remember them from Mass. DESE Helps Jeb Bush Sell Out Public Education citing a report from the Washington Post that ExcelinEd (then the Foundation for Excellence in Education) “has been criticized as a backdoor vehicle for major corporations to urge state officials to adopt policies that would enrich the companies.”
Gee, I wonder if any major corporations would be interested in the “massive profits” that could be at stake in the privateers’ legislation?
Read the full post here.