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Thursday, August 22, 2024

Mystery Choice Coalition Opposes Harris-Walz

So this ran under a Fox logo yesterday:



Who might this pro-privatization group be? Turns out that Fox picked up a press release from the murky Invest In Education Coalition that gave both Democratic hopefuls and F in education.

We've dug into these guys before, and it's a twisty story. Let me try to pare it down to the essentials.

IIEC is a group that exists primarily to promote the Educational Choice for Children Act, a federal act that would create federal tax credit scholarships-vouchers-- much like the Educational Freedom stuff that Betsy DeVos tried hard to sell when she was in DC. At least, that's what they're all about currently.

But they have existed in a variety of forms and have either absorbed, taken over, or just cannibalized various other groups and names, including My Kid's Future and Edtaxcredit50, along with ties to Brighter Choice, Foundation for Education Reform and Accountability, and Foundation for Opportunity in Education. 

The group and its sometimes partner group, the Invest in Education Foundation, have been run by a small assortment of people, none of them educators. Lots of finance guys, some lawyers, a former legislator and lobbyist, one professional astro-turfer, most of whom have come and gone, often quickly. They have a youtube channel, a twitter handle, and, oddly, a Facebook page that is pretty regularly updated. They have been pumping out endorsements for the likes of Lauren Boebert and Carol Miller. And they are fully on the MAGA wagon for Trump-Vance. 

Someone, somewhere, has been giving them large piles of money to play with. Per the 990 forms, the Foundation took in gifts, grants and contributions totaling almost $3 million over five years; about half of that came in 2018. The low point was 2020 with $179K, but in 2022 they brought in $746K. Digging back, we a measly $155K in 2016, but almost a million in 2017.

If you want more, let try to tell some of their story in a more straightforward time than my previous attempt, with the caveat that this is all the result of a lot of playing with the wayback machine plus digging through Twitter and Facebook.

Digging into Twitter leads us to the original handle for the account, @OpportunityInEd, and there we learn that Invest In Ed had a president-- Tom Carroll.

Carroll's LinkedIn says that he presided over Invest in Education Coalition and Foundation from March 2012 to March 2019, calling it "A think tank and advocacy organization focused on school choice in NY and nationally." He also says he founded #EdTaxCredit50 Coalition in January of 2017, which focused on pushing a 50-state tax credit and "the expansion of 529 college savings accounts in December 2017 to allow withdrawals for private K-12 tuition, the biggest federal school-choice initiative ever adopted."

Prior to his time at IIE, Carroll spent 2002-2012 as president of the Foundation for Education Reform and Accountability, a New York State choice advocacy group, and before that, founder and chairman of the Brighter Choice Foundation, a charter network in and around Albany. Though he doesn't mention it, a listing for Carroll at the Center for Education Reform also says that post-FERA, he headed up the Foundation for Opportunity in Education, which fits.

Carroll's 2012 arrival at Invest in Education aligns with the group's certification by the IRS. The Foundation was granted tax exempt status in 2012, and the Coalition in 2013. Both list an Albany post office box as their address, both list Anthony De Nicola (the current chair) as the principal officer.

Thomas W. Carroll left IIE to get busy in the world of Catholic private schools; he just last summer announced he'll be stepping down as the superintendent of Boston archdiocesan schools at the end of this school year. He started there in April 2019.

And in 2021. we find Maureen Blum, in her single 990 appearance as Executive Director. Her LinkedIn page says she was ED with IIEC for six years (2016-2022), and she says that IIEC was a continuation of Coalition for Opportunity in Education "due to a name change of company." She started out with the Coalition for Opportunity in Education in 2012 and served as Director of Outreach till the apparent name change in January of 2016. And before that she was with Brighter Choice since 2003 as director of outreach. She was also the ED of #EdTaxCredit50/USA Workforce Coalition from April 2016 through January 2022. Also, from 2002 till the present, she has been CEO of Strategic Coalitions and Initiatives, LLC, specializing in the "development of grassroots and community infrastructure designed to support and implement--" you know what? She's a professional astroturfer.

Digging through the wayback machine, the earliest IIEC website version is from  the team page is from May 21, 2022.

Back then, IIEF had a president-- Luke Messer. Messer was the CEO of School Choice Indiana. He was also elected a state legislator (2003-2006) then moved on to a US Rep from 2013-2019 (in the district Mike Pence vacated to become Governor), where he was founder and co-chair of the Congressional School Choice Caucus. He made plenty of choicer friends in the days after Trump's election and DeVos's appointment.

By May of 2022, he was a partner at the law firm of Bose McKinney & Evans. At Invest in Education, he worked "every day to enact a $10 billion federal tax credit that would help give millions of children access to a high-quality school." By June of 2023, IIEF's address was the same as that of Bose McKinney & Evans, and the site was sporting logos for both a foundation and a coalition. One thing Messer doesn't list in his bio is his years as a registered lobbyist (2006-2012), right after he tried to privatize some Indiana highways. And he's been out there as the face of Invest in Education stumping for choice on all the usual fun places.

By December of 2023, Messner was gone from the page and IIEC had no address. In January 2024, they had a new logo, and the board was down to three members. 

Anthony J. de Nicola is the chair. He's also chairman of private equity firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe, a New York private equity firm that specializes in tech and healthcare. He and his wife are big on philanthropic giving, including supporting the Catholic church.

Thomas E. McInerny is the secretary of the board. He's CEO at Bluff Point Associates, a private equity firm. He used to be a general partner at Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe.

Robert H. Neihaus is treasurer. He's founder of GCP Capital Partners, a private equity firm.

In May of 2022, the board had three more members: Robert Flanigan, co-founder of Educate, LLC (where he's apparently just a "co-owner" since 2019) and former Merrill Lynch guy; Susan B. George of the Inner-City Scholarship Fund and the Catholic Education Advancement Office of the Archdiocese of New York; and Darla Romfo, president of the Children's Scholarship Fund, an outfit that provides "partial scholarships for low-income children in grades K-8 to go to private school," which sounds like voucher administration work.

Currently, those three, with de Nicola, are listed as the Foundation board. And IIEC finally has an address, now in Latham, NY.

One other name turned up on the 2022 and2020 990-- That's Michael J. Strianese, who was the CFO and COO for Invest in Ed, according to his LinkedIn from 2012-2018, then moved on to be CFO and COO for Northeast Charter Schools Network in Albany from 2019 on, so why he's on this 990 is unclear. Messer made $115,000 for his presidential duties; Strianese, $60K. On 2020, Strianese made $38,000.

There are lots of names of various backers and endorsers, but they are all backing and endorsing the federal voucher act, not the IIEC explicitly. There's no sign of actual staff (including whoever makes those Facebook posts almost every day and writes their press releases). 

I'm not saying that Fox could have easily googled their way to all of this before running with the IIEC press release, but a quick look at the website ought to make one suspicious that here's another organization that's not really an organization so much as a couple of folks with some contacts and deep pockets. 

It continues to amaze me how a couple of people can create an "organization" and with some slick web design and a good bank of email addresses that news organizations take seriously. But that is how the game is played these days, and so Harris and Walz get an F, from someone, for some reason. 

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