Strategic Grant Partners

Remember earlier this Red Sox season when the Baltimore Orioles Manny Machado injured Dustin Pedroia and the Sox retaliated by having a pitcher throw a beanball at Machado's head? The new pseudo-organization Boston Education Action Network (BEAN), funded by anti-union Strategic Grant Partners, is aiming a BEANball at the Boston Teachers Union.

The Philanthrocapitalists who spent over $17 million in dark money to buy education policy in Massachusetts in 2016 remain hidden. That can, and should, change.

Dark money is a hard story to understand precisely because the wealthy interests behind it don't want us to understand it. But we can do a better job if journalists make it a priority and regulators give them some help.

The dark money sharks of 2012 and 2016 also had a hidden interest in the 2013 Boston mayor's race.

Recent education policy shifts in Massachusetts have been directed by a handful of wealthy sharks who have hidden behind dark money. Until now.

Twenty million dollars in dark money poured into Massachusetts from New York on Question 2, and all the New Yorkers came away with was a familiar chant.

Among the pots of gold exploited by dark money givers to Question 2: the pensions of Massachusetts teachers, and the American taxpayer.

Pro-charter Great Schools Massachusetts isn't a grassroots coalition of parents. It's a creature of a shadowy organization known as Strategic Grant Partners.