Maurice Cunningham is an expert at tracing dark money in the world of education. In a recent post, he finds some of the same old players getting busy in Massachusetts.
K-12 privateers are lobbying to bring vouchers to Massachusetts, the better to line their own pockets, preach Christian Nationalism, and achieve the political goals of their investors like the Walton family and Charles Koch.
This is my takeaway from two fine pieces on the temp agency pumping up the plot, the first a news story by Yawu Miller at Flipside News, Coalition aims to bring private school vouchers to Mass; and a commentary by Jennifer Berkshire at The Education Wars, The Blue State Voucher Express.
Two quotes help us to define how we should think about the voucher scheme.
The first is from Moms for Liberty founding spokesmodel Tiffany Justice (Heritage recently sacked Justice):
Asked what percentage of children she imagines should be in public schools going forward, Justice, who is now with The Heritage Foundation’s political advocacy arm, told ProPublica: “I hope zero. I hope to get to zero. . . .
If America’s public schools cease to exist tomorrow, America would be a better place.”
But what would replace public schools? In a memorandum to Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos in 2017, the right-wing Council for National Policy had the answer:
Far better is the promotion of a gradual, voluntary return at all levels to free-market private schools, church schools and home schools as the normative American practice.
Free-market private schools = for-profit businesses.
Church schools = Christian Nationalism indoctrination camps.
Home schools = you are on your own (but with heavy emphasis on Christian Nationalist home-schooling).
No more public schools.
That is what “choice” means.
Let’s have a closer look at key “Coalition” members. National Parents Union is “spearheading” the campaign. Then there are Education Reform Now, Pioneer Institute, and ExcelinEd.
The Walton Family Foundation (Walmart money) started the National Parents Union in 2020. From 2020-2024, the Waltons poured in $5,900,000.
Another NPU donor is National School Choice Awareness Foundation, $50,000 over 2023-24. NSCAF gets money from the Waltons and from Stand Together, a Koch operation. Awareness’ CEO is former director of national communications for DeVos’s privateering arm American Federation for Children.