Final IRS Form 990 for ERN
ERN’s final IRS Form 990 for the year 2010 is available here. No political expenditures.
Teacher Responds to Hedge Fund Manager
From a recently released batch of emails (p. 32 – 33):
Lifting the Cap and Political Activity (SEE NOTE)
According to Joe Williams, ERN did not incur political costs during 2010. Additionally, questionable costs were paid for by ERN Advocacy. Multiple IRS 990s for ERN for 2010 are floating around, all containing different information. I’ll post an update with “final” information as soon as I can pin down more information. My original post is … Read more
Cease and Disist; Grading Obama and Romney
The LA County Democratic Party isn’t happy with DFER’s endorsement of a candidate. DFER released a report card grading President Obama and challenger Mitt Romney. [Note regarding bullet #2: 501c3s are not allowed to engage in this kind of activity that clearly favors one candidate or another, although they can engage in some voter education … Read more
Lobbying
“Schools fight dominates record spending on lobbying” (New York World) ERN Advocacy spent between $30,000 and $35,000 on lobbying at the federal level during the first quarter of 2012 (Lobbying Disclosure Act Database) DFER’s federal PAC filed their monthly report covering 3/1/12-3/31/12. The PAC raised a total of $80 and only has $1,797.82 on hand … Read more
IRS 990 Form for Education Reform Now Advocacy
ERN Advocacy’s IRS 990 from the year 2010 is available here. ERN Advocacy had total revenues just over $168k in 2009. Total revenues jumped to $4.2 million in 2010. Expenses jumped from $112k in 2009 to $3.8 million in 2010. ERN Advocacy paid out $614k in 2010, but no grantees are listed. The bulk of ERN … Read more
Updates
Kevin Chavous, Chair of DFER’s Board of Directors, asks, “Why Not School Vouchers?” (HuffPo) [Note: Chavous lobbies on behalf of a number of school choice organizations in Louisiana.] Joe Williams: “The problem we’re trying to solve is not is going to be solved by printing lists of teachers in the newspapers” (NYTimes) Williams will co-chair the New … Read more
Klein Leaves ERN?
According to the New York Times, Joel Klein will join Michelle Rhee and others in New York for a state-level branch of Rhee’s StudentsFirst. It appears (although isn’t mentioned in the NYTimes article) that Joel Klein is no longer the chair of Education Reform Now. His name was removed from the “about” page sometime between April … Read more
DFER and ALEC – A Few Connections
[This is not an April Fools' joke.] The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has been in the news lately for a variety of reasons. Today, Salvador Rizzo at NJ.com wrote about ALEC model legislation in the Garden State. Rizzo correctly notes that Colorado’s SB-191 is now model legislation for ALEC. SB-191 was Colorado State Senator … Read more
ERN Donor: Walton Family Foundation
According to the Walton Family Foundation website, Education Reform Now received $1.1 million in 2011.
