Mary Tamer, a former Boston School Committee member and public education advocate, seemed like a natural fit to lead the Massachusetts chapter of Democrats for Education Reform (DFER-M) when she was named its executive director in 2022. But Tamer, who has since been ousted from DFER-M, is now engaged in a bitter legal dispute with its national parent group.
A group of New York hedge fund managers formed DFER in 2007 to promote charter schools. The organization’s founders saw Democrats as the barrier to privatizing education through charter schools. “So it dawned on us,” founder Whitney Tilson said, “that it had to be an inside job. The main obstacle to education reform was moving the Democratic Party, and it had to be Democrats who did it, it had to be an inside job.” What Tilson meant by “moving the Democratic Party” was ramping up a stealth campaign.
According to education historian Diane Ravitch, DFER’s core values derive from its beliefs in the Republican Party’s agenda to privatize public services, whether it’s redirecting public education dollars to charter schools and voucher-funded private schools or outsourcing the teacher workforce to private organizations like Teach for America. And it aims to get this agenda enacted not by slugging it out fairly through the democratic process but by using private wealth to influence decisions affecting the public.
Nevertheless, in a few short years DFER captured the attention of Barack Obama, who had become frustrated with Chicago public schools and was open to alternatives. And the organization would eventually have its heyday during the Obama Administration. Some of its state branches performed effectively, including in Colorado and the Washington, D.C., branch. It developed strong ties to major political figures, including Cory Booker, Andrew Cuomo, Governor Patrick Molloy of Connecticut, and Hakeem Jeffries.
Tamer’s complaint names DFER as a defendant, alongside the affiliated organization Education Reform Now and its advocacy group, Education Reform Now Advocacy. The complaint centers around the alleged gender- and age-based mistreatment Tamer received from DFER CEO Jorge Elorza, which she claims began after she inquired about “Mr. Elorza’s decision to join a Koch-funded rightwing coalition that seemed contrary to the organization’s best interests and mission.”
Perhaps Tamer should not have been so surprised to find DFER allied with big money—the organization has, after all, accepted large sums from billionaires, primarily in the hedge fund industry, who believe in privatizing education through charter schools and vouchers. But wealthy conservatives who also seek to dismantle public education are avid funders, too. Rupert Murdoch sank at least $1 million into DFER, hoping it would help swing K-12 business to his education tech company. Jonathan Sackler, heir to the OxyContin-producing Purdue Pharma, made a $10,000 donation to DFER-Massachusetts before Tamer’s tenure. Other well-documented billionaire Republican DFER donors include Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone and hedge fund manager Stanley Druckenmiller.
The “rightwing coalition” mentioned in Tamer’s complaint appears to be the No More Lines Coalition, which includes Koch-allied organizations such as American Legislative Exchange Council, State Policy Network, and Americans for Prosperity—the “troika” of Koch’s political organization—plus, Koch-funded groups yes. every. kid., Libre Initiative, Stand Together Trust, and the Independent Women’s Forum. School choice proponent 50CAN, Betsy DeVos’s American Federation for Children, and the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools are also members of the coalition.
Elorza has also been a speaker at the Charles Koch Institute.
The Walton family, of Walmart billions, has been the major financial backer of DFER for more than a decade. There are many documented instances of Walmart workers being mistreated by higher-ups. Tamer’s complaint depicts an organization spiraling downward, with key women leaders fleeing or being forced out, and state chapters closing.
Tamer’s complaint alleges that the chief financial officer and the chief operating officer, both women of color, left within months of Elorza taking over in 2023. On November 1, 2023, board members Marlon Marshall and John Petry acknowledged the problems and authorized a report on the organization’s culture, which was damning. “Soon thereafter,” the complaint continues, “presumably as a result of the report and the organization’s response,” Marshall and board member and organizational founder Charles Ledley resigned. Ledley also allegedly called for Elorza to resign.
The complaint also alleges that a number of other women leaders were pushed out of DFER, including Jen Walmer, a Colorado director who had proved so consequential that Governor-elect Jared Polis selected her for his education transition team in 2018, and Connecticut state executive director Amy Dowell.
Since 2009, DFER has claimed to be operating in nineteen different states and the District of Columbia. By February 2025, only the Louisiana, New York, Texas, and D.C. chapters remained. In January 2023, the number of national staff listed on DFER’s website was thirteen. By February 2025, there were only four.
The lawsuit story was originally reported by Adam Gaffin at UniversalHub in Boston and also by Julie Manganis at Law360. The story has not been reported in The Boston Globe, the region’s main news outlet. In happier days, The Globe routinely used DFER representatives, including Tamer, as sources for education stories, and it printed in 2023 an op-ed on education by Tamer.
It’s hard to tell what DFER’s troubles will mean for the pro-privatization movement in education, which continues to pick up steam. But perhaps DFER’s internal turmoil, its organizational downsizing, and its declining status are signs that the pro-privatization action in K-12 is at least moving away from the faux Democratic facade to the full-throated rightwing organizations like the ones backed by Koch.
Editor’s note: This article initially incorrectly indicated that Tamer’s complaint mentioned funders of DFER. That error has been removed.