Writing for the Bucks County Beacon, independent education journalist Jeff Bryant and dark money expert Maurice Cunningham clarify where some “grass roots” groups really some from.
The term “obedient franchise” is a phrase from Anne Nelson’s essential book on the Council for National Policy (CNP), Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right. The CNP is made up of leaders of far-right operations like Heritage Foundation, Leadership Institute, National Rifle Association, and Christian Nationalists that set the direction of extremist attacks on public goods. And as Nelson describes, the CNP is a hub in the wheel of an array of spokes-organizations that amplify and advocate for the policy prescriptions of the extremist rightwing. Yet, when it comes to reporting on groups posing as grassroots “parents” organizations that attack public schools, even competent reporters seem unwilling or unable — often because of their editors — to alert readers that these operations are really obedient franchises launched by the institutional right.
An example of how this fallacy persists is a June 2026 article in The New York Times reported by Michael Bender on Defending Education, one of these supposedly parent-centered pressure groups. The group was originally known as Parents Defending Education.
This error has persisted since many journalists missed the reality of “parents” and “moms” groups at their inception. One example occurred in 2021 when The Columbus Dispatch quoted founding Parents Defending Education president and spokesmodel Nicole Neily on the organization’s origins, “We just all work from home . . . We’re all working moms.”
Regardless of who committed the original journalistic sin, Bender of The Times carries on with the illusion by describing the now named Defending Education as a “conservative parents’ rights group.” A more thorough examination of the group reveals that Defending Education has nothing to do with parents or their rights, and, instead, very much serves as an “obedient franchise” in a highly networked effort to destroy public education and replace it with for-profit schools, religious schools, and homeschooling.
Bender reports, “the group was intended to harness the energy of a parents’ rights movement that grew out of the backlash to school shutdowns and other restrictions during the coronavirus pandemic.” That is incorrect.
Parents Defending Education incorporated in 2021 and its initial Form 990 tax return, filed in November 2022, said nothing about Covid. Rather it was set up to combat “activists promoting harmful agendas” and “fighting indoctrination in the classroom.” The preoccupation was apparent on the organization’s webpage which showed no interest in Covid early on.