EPC TOPIC: RBER: Engaging America’s Parents
CONNIE MARSHNER She was a pioneer in the conservative movement’s education reform initiative: as one of the founding staff of The Heritage Foundation in Washington, D. C., in 1973, she was its Education Director when Heritage helped to advise the parent protesting the culturally-destructive textbooks in Kanawha (pron: Kuh-naw-uh) County, West Virginia.
Connie became a national spokesman for pro-family issues during the 1980’s, being a regular conservative commentator on NPR’s “Morning Edition”, and a frequent guest on all the network shows. She debated Congressman Rev. Robert Drinan, S.J. one-on-one on C-SPAN.
She has written “Blackboard Tyranny,” one of the first books to make a comprehensive critique of public education. In 1980, she and Phyllis Schlafly were key organizers of the pro-family resistance to Jimmy Carter’s White House Conference on Families, for which she received an Eagle Award from Phyllis. During the 1980 Reagan presidential campaign, she was Chair of the Family Policy Advisory Board, and during the first Reagan Administration she chaired the Advisory Panel on Financing Elementary and Secondary Education. She was Executive Vice-President to Paul Weyrich at the Free Congress Foundation, and founder of the Family Protection Report.
As her children began to approach college tuition age, Connie acquired new skills as a professional fundraiser, and today is the head of Connie Marshner & Associates, a boutique fundraising consulting firm which helps pro-family and pro-life organizations to increase their donations. For twelve years she has been a strategic partner with Dr. Charles Kenny, the transformational thinker and founder of Right Brain People.