Unmask the attacks on public schools

HEAL Together in partnership with True North Research released a new infographic below entitled “Unmasking the Attacks on Our Public Schools.” This infographic, designed by Innosanto Nagara, was created to expose the billionaire donors behind the attacks on public schools. 

In recent years, groups pretending to be grassroots and community-driven have sought to discredit and dismantle public education by:

  • Attacking inclusive history curriculums, diversity initiatives, and teacher’s unions 

  • Spreading inflammatory and inaccurate information about what is taught in public schools 

  • Diverting taxpayer dollars for public education to charter, private, and religious schools or home-schooling/microschools 

These national groups help create public spectacles that generate disproportionate local news coverage, even though most parents trust and support their kids’ public schools. And despite their claims of being grassroots and mom-driven, these organizations are funded by billionaires via dark money groups that also seek to influence elections and public policy while keeping their donors a secret. 

With data provided by True North Research, the infographic includes the publicly reported budgets of the following secretly funded organizations attacking public schools. Their true budgets are likely much larger, due to the lag in public reporting requirements.

Armed with this information, communities that care about public education can:

  • Ask who is funding dark money groups when their members attend school board meetings. For example: “Is your organization funded by billionaire Betsy DeVos?”

  • Request school board members require people who are testifying at meetings state where they live and whether they have a child in the district at school board meetings.

  • Speak the truth about the core American values at stake at school board meetings, to our elected leaders, and at the ballot-box.

  • Share this infographic and other information with their networks about how national political operations attempting to dismantle public schools are funded.

To get involved, join efforts led by HEAL Together

Read “The Disinformation Playbook Targeting Schools and Elections” by True North Research

And learn how to counter anti-public education attacks and share your personal story by using the HEAL Organizing and Narrative Toolkit 2.0.