Now that North Carolina is controlled by an extremist governor and legislature intent on destroying public education, the Walton Family Foundation has increased its support for groups advocating for vouchers in that state.
Lindsay Wagner writes in NC Policy Watch:
“The Walton Family Foundation, known for supporting vouchers, charters, and other school privatization initiatives across the country, paid $710,000 to NC-based school voucher advocacy group Parents for Educational Freedom NC (PEFNC) in 2013, an increase of more than $100,000 over its 2012 contribution to the group.
“Parents for Educational Freedom NC has received large contributions from Walton since at least 2009. The Walton Family has paid PEFNC $275,000 in 2009, $525,000 in 2010, $625,000 in 2011 and $600,000 in 2012, according to the foundation’s website.
“Darrell Allison, president of Parents for Educational Freedom NC, has seen his own compensation increase considerably as the influx of Walton money has ramped up. In 2010, Allison received $107,889 for his work running the non-profit; in 2012, Allison reported an income of $156,582—a 45 percent pay increase in just two years.
“PEFNC has been the primary advocacy group responsible for bringing school vouchers to North Carolina.
“Last summer, lawmakers passed the Opportunity Scholarships program, a school voucher program that would enable taxpayer dollars to be funneled directly to private schools–$10 million in 2014-15 and $40 million in 2015-16, with the goal of expanding the program even further in the future.
“The law, passed as a part of the budget bill last summer, provides little in the way of accountability for private schools while reducing funds for public education at a time when schools are seeing sharp reductions in funding over a years-long period.”
Read the post to open the links to other articles about privatization.
– See more at: http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2014/04/03/walton-family-spends-big-on-school-vouchers-in-north-carolina/#sthash.wNEd4Eig.dpuf
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The Walton family is evil and disgusting. They are destroying the fabric of our country. I hope this family loses every red and evil cent they own. How dare they buy there agenda. People better start rising up and taking there opposition to the street or creeps like this will turn our country into a communist country.
I confess I have shopped at Walmart recently but I am convinced it is time to boycott Wally world. However, does anyone know if Target is any better?
Agreed…the Walton family represents pure evil, anti-American, anti-democratic values…Americans should avoid shopping in the WalMart stores from coast to coast…The Walton money should be used to build our public school system…not to destroy it…Shame on them, may the Walton name always be remembered as the family seeking to destroy our grea nations democratic foundations.
Unfortunately, Target is no better. None of these corporate giants care about the American people. All the care about is the MIGHTY DOLLAR!!!! I buy everything at local stores as much as I can. Lucky for me there are still plenty around.
While I have been sad at the dissolving state-wide and bipartisan support of public education (once taken for granted by most), I do believe that the wish for conservative and traditional values is really what is at the heart of privatization.
Some call it the Christian Right–whatever you call it, if it is gaining ground I think it is because people like it (or at least they think they like it). Obviously the state elected folks who are in favor of it.
It is easy to blame greed and money. I have been reading more and more about the history of NC politics and touring charters in other states and I simply think the conversation stalls out at the money argument. Wealth complicates the issue, but there is deep judgement about what is right, what is wrong and what is valued that goes along with all of this. To dismiss that reality is to muffle large perceives of truth for people who want the best for their children.
Perhaps if the DOE had not used federal money to coerce states, better support for state wide cohesion would exist. I blame federal programs far more than I do money or greed. Or evil, for that matter. Conservatives have a different notion of what is evil.
Add that to my top education questions (that I am still working to answer):
1. What is the problem?
2. What is evil?
(Smug answers do nothing to further the dialogue, I might add). I know one thing in life: the simplest answer is usually the best answer, but no answer in the education debate is simple.
The education debate is so huge, that I think simplifying the issue by looking local (i.e. Folks asking what are the choices I have for my child? And liking at least the appearance of options), and also, for example, not being beholden to sweeping federal mandates makes charters appealing at face value. Those pointing to the big picture have valid points, but most folks just want to find the best option for their child.
It is easy to get lost in the maze. The more mazer the maze, the more appealing the idea of locally run choices (I would think, for some). Mock it with creationism jokes and so forth, but again I think political conservatives yearn for conservative parameters on behavior and lifestyle. That is part of this debate that often gets left out.
Mazier the maze (To use hipster speak)
I think you are right, Joanna. Most on the left do not consider legitimate the affection so many have for their religion. I see the education struggle as a battlefront in the larger cultural war between “freedom” and individual responsibility and independence and the all providing state. We conservatives think that the safety net has been turned into a hammock.
I find it ironic that defenders of public education and democracy wind up opposing vouchers and freedom of choice, which one would think would be a core value of all American citizens.
It’s ironic too to hear poster’s talking of “evil” when protesting vouchers that will be used in many cases in religiously oriented schools where “evil” and “The Evil One” are living concepts.
Wrong. This is part of a worldwide neoliberal movement. Read Lois Weiner’s work for more details. This has nothing to do with religion.
I think to dismiss the Walton’s from acting evil is not right. Those people have done many evil things to get themselves to the top. Honestly, they don’t care who they hurt to get what they want. An outstanding company who truly cares about their employees is Wegman’s and not to mention it is a fantastic store. It was rated #1 grocery store in the country. If you ever visited one you would understand why. They give their young employees who are attending college money to help them get through school. That is an example of a wonderful company.
Why Joanna are you constantly always making an argument about liberals Vs. conservatives? There was no mention of this in anyone’s responses? Maybe you are trying to figure out your own demons.
Joanna doesn’t deserve your getting personal, Zenqi. There is the right and wrong of Walton’s policy, probably, which you effectively describe. Some of us also see the education wars as part of the larger conservative-liberal conflict in the country.
Surely you must mean “capitalist country” rather than communist country. There is oligarchical tyranny in communist countries too, but at least here one doesn’t need to be a party member to get good medical care. At least not yet.
Harlan.
I believe people should be respectful of each other. I believe Joanna also needs to be cognizant of others as well if she would like her opinions respected. In the past, I have been blasted by Joanna which I felt was inappropriate and uncalled for so, treat others as you would like to be treated. I am assuming you are all teachers and understand that phrase.
I personally do not believe in conservative or liberal parties that just a front for people. It really does not exist any more. Politics is politics. They are all pretty much the same. I used to live in NC. Very messed up state. I saw it coming three years ago and I got out just in time before things really got bad. Yes, I feel sorry for what happened to them but it really was slowly coming. There were big signs along the way. The leadership down there is very corrupt.
Zenqi:
Correct principle, the Golden Rule. I was not aware Johanna had been rude to you.
I guess I disagree with you that Democrat and Republican are the same. Sometimes it surely seems so, but I think there are real differences, though not perhaps these days when it comes to education.
Joanna, be afraid, be very afraid; Harlan has sided with you.
That was my main worry in agreeing with Joanna, that doing so would damage her reputation here.
I’m sure no harm was done. The comment was tongue in cheek.
The Waltons seem, like the Kochs, to be investing in the creation of an underclass, by undermining one of the great good this country has done, which is universal public education. Really; what has done more to create an educated citizenry than the public school system? As to religion in public schools, I would tread very lightly there. I have been reminded by a recent review of medieval to modern European history what a truly amazing thing the separation of church and state is. Let’s hang on to that freedom, so that everyone can follow their own creeds.
I agree with you more or less Elizabeth on the desirability of the separation of church and state. A distinction should be made, however, between the state imposing a religion, and state money being sent to religiously sponsored schools. They are very different things, but public school supporters often speak as if they thought they were legally the same thing. Probably it is better if religious schools were to receive no public funds and remained supported only by tuition and the sponsoring church. But I just wanted to point out that vouchers do not violate the principal of separation of church and state.
I also agree with you that one of the great goods of the last century was the public school systems, which offered a universal, free education. Part of the justification for funding such a system out of tax money is that it is SUPPOSED to produce an educated citizenry. I have to ask, however, whether the last two elections showed any evidence of the citizenry being educated enough to tell the better from the worser candidate. The election of President Obama, twice no less, is evidence to ME anyway, that the schools have failed to really educate the citizenry in what should be the glory of America, its constitutional protection of liberty. We have seen the President getting behind almost everything that works against the constitutional protection of freedom and liberty. Even his commendable change of position in support of gay marriage appears to have been more political than a matter of true conviction. But in the sphere of economics he has done everything wrong that would have speeded recovery from the depression we were in, and then to add insult to injury, he signs the ACA, aka Obamacare, which is causing nationwide increased expense for health insurance and loss of previous good coverage simultaneously. A truly educated electorate would not have fallen for his line, not the first time and certainly not the second time (although his margin of victory did fall). What the President is doing to education is what he is doing to the country as a whole, and I still sense that people in general, the great mass of them educated in the public schools over the last two generations, still have not understood the extent to which he is attempting to change American for the worse in many, many ways. If he really understood the value of universal public education (remember he’s a private school boy), he would not be trying to impose the universal testing that he is. He would not be trying to convict public schools of underperforming, with the remedy of closing them to be replaced by charters. His efforts to permit his campaign supporters, big Democrat hedge fund executives, to gain access is public tax money seems the worst kind of crony capitalism, and in fact much much worse than diverting public tax money to vouchers where at least not all parents will use them in religious schools. And for the public, which is supposed to be educated in good citizenship to put up with that strikes me as evidence that their education in citizenship and the values of democracy has been sadly lacking. Under President Obama the state has become the church of many people. Properly educated people would not let that happen.