Maurice Cunningham is a political science professor at the University of Massachusetts who has become an expert on the subject of Dark Money. He has his own name for the billionaires devoted to charter schools. He calls them the “Financial Privatization Cabal.” That’s clever and accurate but I stick with “corporate reformers” because there are fewer syllables.*

Cunningham (no relation to the charter-loving Peter of the same last name) has done a deep dive into the Dark Money funders of the 2016 campaign to expand charter schools in Massachusetts via a referendum called Question 2. A New York City organization called Families for Excellent Schools (FES) arrived on the scene to bundle and dispense Dark Money and renamed itself Great Schools Massachusetts. (FES was funded by the Waltons and has now been replaced by a new group which calls itself Massachusetts Parents United, also Walton funded.)

What is Dark Money?…

It is almost exactly a year to the day that I started my family history writing group. I’ve found this a fascinating group – it has been so inspirational to me in my own writing! Looking back to my blog a year ago, this is what I wrote about that first meeting:

I started my family history writing group yesterday… and handed out a sheet with some ideas to consider; reading it through now I think I may polish this up a bit… but here is what I gave them – first draft!

HOW ARE YOU GOING TO TELL YOUR FAMILY HISTORY– What is the end ‘product’ going to be – a folder of printed pages to show to the family, or maybe an actual printed book which could have a wider audience  – there are plenty of ‘publishing on demand’ options these days (such as Lulu or Amazon)

There is an author I greatly admire.

She is a novelist and essayist, a columnist and, well, I guess although the word is out of fashion, you could also call her an orator.

She is profound and brilliant.

She is also on Twitter.

And so I am following her on Twitter.

I am a fan.

But something confounds me. I think something has changed with the terrific writer. Or perhaps, it has just taken me a while to notice. Perhaps my admiration got in the way of my perception. (which, in today’s world, is probably often true)

Her tweets are not exactly profound.

As a matter of fact, they consist mainly of the same thing:

Complaints.

Oh dear, how she complains. Nothing makes her happy. Everything displeases her. And there seems to be no tiny incident not worth her scorn. There is no sense of proportion. She is as upset…