Monday, February 20, 2012

The Parents' Campaign: Follow the money. Front for Parents for Public Schools.

The Parents' Campaign has been making quite a bit of noise lately as it wades into the charter school debate. Who exactly is the Parents' Campaign? The organization's mission statement is "The goal of The Parents’ Campaign is to engender a public education system that affords all students access to excellent schools so that children can become what they dream." It states its 2012 legislative priorities are to improve funding, teacher quality, and school leadership for public schools. Who could be against those goals?

The lightning rod for the Parents Campaign is Nancy Loome, Executive Director and the 2005 Parent of the Year (State Board of Education winner). She sends the blast emails, speaks to the media, and handles the talking points. The Parent's Campaign and Ms. Loome have become very prominent in the charter schools fight in 2012. The organization professes to support charter schools- with a list of restrictions on how and where they can operate. It is this columnists opinion PC opposes charter schools and is using the amendment process to castrate any charter school legislation.

The tax returns for the Parents' Campaign make one thing clear: the organization is a front for Parents for Public Schools, the public school advocacy group. The 2010 Form 990 (posted below) for the Parents' Campaign state it had total revenue of $237,789. Salaries and employee benefits were $194,028 (81% of revenue). It reported an operating deficit of $27,560 (Hmmm.... no wonder the idea of for-profit charter schools is anathema to this group.).

The chairman is Claiborne Barksdale and the Vice-Chairman is Dick Molpus, the leading public school advocate in the state. Mr. Molpus founded Parents for Public Schools and Mr. Barksdale is the Chief Executive Officer of the Barksdale Reading Institute. The 990 states Ms. Loome is paid $99,040 per year and benefits worth $9,540. The old adage is follow the money. Well, the old adage is true in this case as the money leads back to the public school lobby: Parents for Public Schools and the Barksdale Institute.

Parents for Public Schools gave the Parents' Campaign $175,000 while the Barksdale Institute gave $42,000. PPS gave PC $150,000 in 2009, and $150,000 in 2008. The Parents' Campaign only had revenue of $237,789 in 2010. Thus the Parent's Campaign is likely a front for the public school lobby- Parents for Public Schools and the Barksdale Institute.

Lobbying. Lobbying. Lobbying Parents' believes it lobbysts as it pays Ms. Loome $13,283 in 2011 to lobby and reported three other lobbyists in 2011 although none made over $3,000. Camille Scales Young registered as a lobbyist for the Parents' Campaign last Friday. Her compensation is unknown. Given that the Parents' Campaign is a lobbying arm of the public school lobby, they should be recognized as such during the charter school debate.



9 comments:

Ironghost said...

Thank you! Now if the CL would spend more time reporting on stuff like this and less on Gay Marriage at the Ag Museum...

Shadowfax said...

People who sit around on sofas and use flip charts and oversized sticky-notes to come up with mission statements and then break to order angle-sliced deli sandwiches are Useless with a capital friggin' 'U'.

There are many lawyers and probably some doctors who don't wake what that Loon Loome is paying herself.

Julia said...

Thanks for the info....sharing!!!!

Anonymous said...

From lessons learned from life: A goal is a dream with a deadline.

Anonymous said...

" Gay Marriage at the Ag Museum "

Too funny Ironghost.

Expect more such earth shattering stories from the CL after the "buy-out". Now that Jerry Mitchell is the dean of CL "reporters", I expect the next headline will be :

"KKK STOPS BLACK GAYS FROM VISITING AG MUSEUM"

Anonymous said...

Kingfish could you enlighten us on what Jerry mitchells New role at the clarion Ledger is? i would like to know and so would many others.. could free up some money for some folks who currently subscribe to the clarion

Anonymous said...

I think I saw him in my driveway at 6 am today delivering today's edition ;-)

Michael Van Veckhoven said...

The Parents Campaign and any other group or individual in our state whose goals have more to do with political agendas than real education reform do not speak for me and the thousands of other Mississippi parents who choose to enroll our children in public schools and who take part in REAL advocacy for public education.

We are new vehicle dealers, small business owners, minimum wage workers, attorneys, physicians, single Moms, public school teachers, manufacturers, etc.

And, regardless of our personal political persuasions, each of us realize one thing -- that the key to a strong, diverse community is to have a strong, diverse public school system.

I encourage the author and the citizens of Mississippi to be cognizant of who the true "leading advocates" are.

Unfortunately and evidently, the voice of the relatively apolitical public school advocate is not being heard often enough in Jackson.

I'm doing my best to spread the word at The Public School Warrior, www.mississippi123.wordpress.com.

I invite all of you to read it and leave comments.

Thank you, Kingfish, for starting a much-needed discussion on public school advocacy.

Anonymous said...

And a look at MCPP's most recent 990 shows that the state's leading charter school advocate doesn't report the sources of the 600k plus it raised,

Wonder who they're fronting for?

Molpus and Barksdale at least live here.



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