Momma Bears has often wondered about the gullible people who fall for the StudentsFirst sales pitch. StudentsFirst is an underhanded, astroturf organization funded by corporate billionaires (HERE and HERE). This is Michelle Rhee's group. Yes, the same Michelle Rhee that legislators don't want to be associated with because she has such a bad reputation. How on earth do they have over 75,000 "likes" on Facebook? The people commenting on their posts obviously don't agree with them (read them when you need a laugh, it is pretty funny). They rarely get any "likes" at all on their posts despite having 75,000 "members" on their facebook page.
Well, we found the answer... those gullible people were really not people at all!!!
StudentsFirst's Facebook "likes" were bought from Bangladesh!!!
We aren't kidding! Look:
Well, we found the answer... those gullible people were really not people at all!!!
StudentsFirst's Facebook "likes" were bought from Bangladesh!!!
We aren't kidding! Look:
See the red circle around "Dhaka, Bangladesh"? It is listed as the "Most Popular City" for likes on this page.
Search on Facebook for "We Sell Likes in Bangladesh." You'll see that anyone can buy 1000 likes for about $15 bucks. (Click HERE to go buy likes or fake friends for yourself.) Click HERE to read an article that tells about the dishonest business of buying popularity on social media sites.
Check out this page from StudentsFirst in Alabama:
Search on Facebook for "We Sell Likes in Bangladesh." You'll see that anyone can buy 1000 likes for about $15 bucks. (Click HERE to go buy likes or fake friends for yourself.) Click HERE to read an article that tells about the dishonest business of buying popularity on social media sites.
Check out this page from StudentsFirst in Alabama:
See that their most popular city is Istanbul, Turkey?
See that their most popular age group is 18-24 year olds?
See how the graph lines were pretty low until it spiked the week of March 9?
Yep, apparently, someone bought themselves some cheap, overseas popularity... because informed parents sure don't "like" what StudentsFirst is pushing on our kids and schools in America!
No, we don't "like" their corporate donors profiting from our kids and our public schools.
No, we don't "like" their stinking vouchers or manipulative parent trigger law.
No, we don't "like" our kids doing common core.
No, we don't "like" our public schools converted to charter schools for their profit at the expense of our children.
Smart parents want strong neighborhood public schools in their communities, which is the total opposite of what StudentsFirst spends its millions of dollars on in our state to lobby our elected officials and fund campaigns to sway our politicians.
StudentsFirst is, literally, buying votes in TN. Unfortunately, their money in TN makes them very popular. The TN legislators who received the most money from StudentsFirst (Senator Delores Gresham, Rep. John DeBerry, and the members of the Education committees) vote lock-step with what StudentsFirst wants. Every. Single. Time. (That's a big reason that the TN House just circumvented those bought & paid-for committee members by hijacking a bill and adding amendments on it to delay PARCC & common core.)
FAUX Parents
This is what we Momma Bears now like to affectionately call, "Faux Parents." See, when Commissioner Kevin Huffman told a group of rich Chamber of Commerce people that he couldn't possibly listen to parents because there are many "Faux Parent" groups in TN with ulterior motives, we thought he was talking about Momma Bears and groups like ours. Obviously, we were wrong. He was talking about his ex-wife's organization, StudentsFirst! (Okay, he really was probably talking about us and trying to discredit our voices, but still, you gotta note the irony of his claim and the truth of StudentsFirst's purchased popularity!) Check out the Twitter storm (#fauxparent) to see pictures of real parents holding signs about being a "faux parent." Parents, sure do have great senses of humor!
The sad part of this can be stated by a mom who said this:
"StudentsFirst has lobbyists galore up on the hill telling our legislators that they are speaking on behalf of parents. They are just neglecting to mention that the parents are living in Bangladesh not the US and certainly not Tennessee."
With tongue-in-cheek, she also says:
"Clearly Rhee (Michelle Rhee, CEO of StudentsFirst) is not on her "A" game because her home state of California only has 241 likes on it. Seems like someone needs to put a call in to the folks in Bangladesh and get that fixed."
Considering Michelle Rhee's cheating scandal and how her organization has paid big campaign bucks to gullible politicians, this Facebook debacle doesn't surprise Momma Bears one bit.
See that their most popular age group is 18-24 year olds?
See how the graph lines were pretty low until it spiked the week of March 9?
Yep, apparently, someone bought themselves some cheap, overseas popularity... because informed parents sure don't "like" what StudentsFirst is pushing on our kids and schools in America!
No, we don't "like" their corporate donors profiting from our kids and our public schools.
No, we don't "like" their stinking vouchers or manipulative parent trigger law.
No, we don't "like" our kids doing common core.
No, we don't "like" our public schools converted to charter schools for their profit at the expense of our children.
Smart parents want strong neighborhood public schools in their communities, which is the total opposite of what StudentsFirst spends its millions of dollars on in our state to lobby our elected officials and fund campaigns to sway our politicians.
StudentsFirst is, literally, buying votes in TN. Unfortunately, their money in TN makes them very popular. The TN legislators who received the most money from StudentsFirst (Senator Delores Gresham, Rep. John DeBerry, and the members of the Education committees) vote lock-step with what StudentsFirst wants. Every. Single. Time. (That's a big reason that the TN House just circumvented those bought & paid-for committee members by hijacking a bill and adding amendments on it to delay PARCC & common core.)
FAUX Parents
This is what we Momma Bears now like to affectionately call, "Faux Parents." See, when Commissioner Kevin Huffman told a group of rich Chamber of Commerce people that he couldn't possibly listen to parents because there are many "Faux Parent" groups in TN with ulterior motives, we thought he was talking about Momma Bears and groups like ours. Obviously, we were wrong. He was talking about his ex-wife's organization, StudentsFirst! (Okay, he really was probably talking about us and trying to discredit our voices, but still, you gotta note the irony of his claim and the truth of StudentsFirst's purchased popularity!) Check out the Twitter storm (#fauxparent) to see pictures of real parents holding signs about being a "faux parent." Parents, sure do have great senses of humor!
The sad part of this can be stated by a mom who said this:
"StudentsFirst has lobbyists galore up on the hill telling our legislators that they are speaking on behalf of parents. They are just neglecting to mention that the parents are living in Bangladesh not the US and certainly not Tennessee."
With tongue-in-cheek, she also says:
"Clearly Rhee (Michelle Rhee, CEO of StudentsFirst) is not on her "A" game because her home state of California only has 241 likes on it. Seems like someone needs to put a call in to the folks in Bangladesh and get that fixed."
Considering Michelle Rhee's cheating scandal and how her organization has paid big campaign bucks to gullible politicians, this Facebook debacle doesn't surprise Momma Bears one bit.
UPDATE: People have contacted us wanting to how to see for themselves that StudentsFirst's "likes" really are from Bangladesh. It is easy: Go to the Students First facebook page (Note: In the Facebook search bar, you have to put a space between Students and First for their national page, but some of their state pages don't have a space. For example, StudentsFirst Alabama. Weird.) Anyway, just click on the word, "Likes," (see red arrow below) and you'll get to the details page we posted images of above. See, easy, right?
For some reason, Facebook only shows "Most Popular City" for some pages and not others, so some of the smaller Students First (or StudentsFirst) State pages don't show the most popular city. We can't figure out why this is. Of course, Facebook changes more often than the weather, so don't be surprised if this, changes, too.
Here's our new Momma Bears facebook page. "Like" us because you really do, not because you're paid to. Thanks!
Here's our new Momma Bears facebook page. "Like" us because you really do, not because you're paid to. Thanks!
