The Walton Family Foundation announced that it plans to spend $1 billion over the next five years to increase the number of privately managed charter schools. If experience is any guide, almost all of these will be non-union. This was reported by politico pro, which is behind a paywall (I inquired, and it costs $3,500 to gain access). The emphasis in this massive spending will be startups.
“Just as we were in 1997 with our first charter grants, we are inspired by the ideas and passion of our startup grantees, and we’re determined to do all we can to help them succeed. I’d like to wish you, your teams and all of the students and communities we serve a 2016 of progress and accomplishment,” Marc Sternberg, director of the foundation’s K12 program, wrote in a letter to stakeholders obtained by POLITICO.
The Bentonville, Arkansas,-based foundation is run by the family of Walmart founders Sam and Helen Walton and is a frequent target of teachers unions for its promotion of school choice efforts, including research. Since 1997, it has poured more than $385 million in 2,110 new public charter schools – or about a quarter of all charters nationally, the foundation said.
Imagine that! The Walton Family Foundation, which was created by the billions earned by Walmart, is anti-union. Walmart does not have unions. It has fought unionization and had to be pushed kicking and screaming to agree to pay minimum wages, eventually. Every member of the Walton family is a billionaire. Now, why would unions not like the Walton family? Anyone? This is a family that enjoys the wealth created by the sweat of others who are not paid a living wage. Do the Waltons sleep well at night?
The Walton family represents the face of rapacious avarice in modern America. Having made their billions, they now use them to destroy the one basic democratic institution on which generations of Americans have relied for the education of their children: The American public schools. They will use their billions to divide communities and to turn citizens into consumers. That’s the Walmart way.
To view online:
https://www.politicopro.com/education/whiteboard/2016/01/walton-foundation-to-donate-1-billion-to-promote-school-choice-065681
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I’m so disgusted with the Walton family, the Koch brothers and the like. Control and power seem to be what drives them. A disaster, as far as I’m concerned.
I’m with you Marian! As I posted a bit ago in a piece entitled The Attack of the Walmartians! http://publicschoolscentral.com/
I think it is ironic that to do business in China, Walmart has to let labor unions represent their Chinese workers because every worker in China belongs to a labor union.
Walmart has 387 supercenters in China and 12 Sam’s Clubs, etc.
But most workers in China’s factories, mines, mills, warehouses, docks and transport hubs still have little or no say in selecting their union representatives, and no means, short of stopping work, to bring recalcitrant employers into direct negotiations over industrial grievances—just like Walmart wants it.
However, Walmart China probably hates the changes taking place: “Despite the inadequacies of Chinese law, the government sometimes now allows strikes and plant-level collective bargaining. The government has also enacted improvements in workers’ rights in the past few years (for example, the 2008 Employee Contract Law), and created a policy favoring widespread “collective consultation” over wages and working conditions. As a result, Chinese industrial wages are rising—a good thing for both Chinese working families and for workers in other countries that compete with China in a variety of industries.”
In addition, the Walton family must hate this: “Recently, Chinese industrial workers have been pushing back, demanding better wages, hours and working conditions. Collective action by Chinese workers, including strikes, has been successful in many cases and is bringing Chinese employers to the bargaining table As a result, China’s industrial workers are fashioning their own system of industrial relations, largely without the assistance of the existing law and labor relations institutions.”
http://www.aflcio.org/Issues/Trade/China/Labor-Rights-in-China
There’s a lot of extremely unhappy working people in these countries that are held up as models of competitiveness.
This is South Korea:
“Massive protests have rocked South Korea’s capital city of Seoul over the past month, as workers demand the ouster of President Park Geun-hye and an end to her plans for drastic, anti-worker changes to the country’s labor laws.
Tens of thousands faced off against the police on November 14, braving high-pressure water cannons and tear gas.
Undeterred, they marched again on December 5, donning facemasks in defiance of the president’s threats to ban rallies with masks. A 69-year-old farmer remains in critical condition after being doused at short range by a water cannon.
Police have arrested nine members and officials of the Public Service and Transportation Workers union over the past two weeks, and imprisoned five officials of the Construction Workers union.
In the lead-up to the December 5 demonstration, they raided 12 offices of eight Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) unions and affiliates, copying files and confiscating documents and computer hard drives.”
When the Walton heirs scold US working people about their lack of drive and rigor, they’re omitting that the push to drive down wages and economic security is opposed in other countries, too.
http://labornotes.org/2015/12/union-led-popular-protests-push-oust-south-korean-president
This is the global working class’s extremely massive majority fighting against less than 0.01% of the total global population.
Remember, too, that public schools are systems – if they’re opening charter schools all over the country that has an impact on every child in an existing public school, so the Walton heirs influence policy and practice for children in existing public schools, too:
“The size of the Walton foundation’s wallet allows it to exert an outsize influence on education policy as well as on which schools flourish and which are forced to fold. With its many tentacles, it has helped fuel some of the fastest growing, and most divisive, trends in public education — including teacher evaluations based on student test scores and publicly funded vouchers for students to attend private schools.”
That’s not even counting the revolving door between government and the foundations. It’s like musical chairs- staff move in and out of actual government and this quasi-government entity. There’s no real dividing line at all between the Walton heirs want and “government”- they are often literally the same people.
One billion is pocket change for the Waltons.
And for Congress. It is worth recalling that USDE has poured over $3 billion into the Charter Schools Program. That program was created to help launch new charter schools and expand high-performing models.
Congress just increased funding for the Charter Schools Program by $80 million. For fiscal 2016, funding will be at $333 million, higher than ever.
ESSA pays lip service to greater accounability in authorizing charters.
They’re ga-ga over charter schools in DC. It’s a lost cause. Left to their own devices, I think Congress and the President (doesn’t matter which President) would replace every public school with a charter school.
Read any Obama Administration statement about public schools. You’ll find plugs for specific charter chains in nearly every one. They barely mention public schools, unless it’s prefaced with “failing”. They can’t find a public school system that “works” in the entire country, apparently.
I don’t believe Obama and his cronies have even looked for effective models within public education. They choose to ignore democracy and the vast majority of students. They are totally smitten with corporate dominated schools while they ignore all the problems, waste and fraud, and they refuse to regulate them. It’s a free market, freeloading, free for all of corporate welfare. Students and teachers are guinea pigs.
It might be fun to ask one of the Presidential candidates whether they agree with specific Walton-funded public education policies- identify the policy as Walton funded and ask about each one.
See if any of the US political leaders dare to disagree publicly. I think we deserve some concrete assurances that our political actors are not completely captured by these people. One way to show that would be to disagree publicly, on the record. Issue a challenge to any of them. I doubt we’ll get any takers, but maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised.
I would love see the candidates address your question, but I doubt corporate owned media will ever let them ask it. In the Democratic debates, specifics about education have been avoided other than Bernie’s free higher education plan.
The campaign for Russ Feingold called for a donation. I asked the caller about Feingold’s objections to charter schools, if any. The caller reviewed her literature for him and, couldn’t find the topic. She hadn’t heard about the privatization movement. I told her (she seemed sincere) that I would send a contribution, if she called back with Feingold’s voting record, proving his opposition to oligarch-owned public education. No call back, yet.
Teachers on food stamps while the the Wallies wallow in dough — that’s the future they have “store”.
At least the Detroit teachers are finally beginning to realize they’re in the Alamo now, and will have to strike to live free or die.
The Waltons should take some of their billions to buy healthcare for their employees instead of expecting taxpayers to underwrite their employees lack of insurance coverage. The Waltons are masters of corporate welfare.
There’s Hillary’s connections to Walmart. And then there’s this underdog named Bernie that’s taking them on. There are many videos on YouTube as well with Bernie calling out Walmart as well.
So why are the teachers’ unions backing Hillary? I’m confused.
http://www.politicallore.com/bernie-sanders-takes-on-walmart/1618
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/most-firms-that-gave-to-clinton-foundation-also-lobbied-state-department/article/2564553
Did the walton’s make their billions or did their daddy?
As they say, no one works harder to protect his/her wealth, with verbiage about grit, perseverance and “pulling yourself up by the boot straps”, than someone who inherited wealth.
West Coast teacher, the Waltons’ daddy Sam made the money. Not sure that any of the Waltons have ever actually worked.
What is Gates’ problem?
Another reason we need to have the income tax system back at Eisenhower Era levels.
These people have way too much money and too much time on their hands, and they are dangerous as a result.
running into all kinds of problems in St. Louis…..I posted a couple of things that Tod Robberson has written about charter schools………pretty idiotic stuff…..he is coming from Dallas to take over the post dispatch editorial page. GILBERT BAILON. managing editor at the PD.and a source of a lot of the problems……removed my documented comments, including his praise of Waiting for Superman…I had praised one columnist for recognizing the significance that the guy wanting to move the Rams to LA is a semi-Walton….I was raising the question…..would the NFL be nervous about letting Kronke…who some say has……personality problems….building a footbal cathedral as his sort of relatives continue their major efforts to exploit Los Angeles public school children…..one reason St. Louis has a hard time making the connection…..BAILON makes sure we hear virtually nothing negative about the charter schools allowed by the takeover school board……….I might try to post the articles again at the PD, and be more polite in my phrasing……this new editorial guy shows every sign of being………fun.
The Star-Ledger in Newark has only praise for charter schools and corporate reform.
If the nfl regards Kroenke as an embarrassment….Newark would be a good place to allow him to move to……I have to wonder if they really want a bozo like him in that huge market.
Reblogged this on karenw95.
One Billion Dollars for charters? This will be such a relief to those folks in NJ who tell us there are 10,000 students on waiting list for charter schools. No one ever produces lists–or acknowledges that one student could be wait listed at multiple schools. It kind of reminds me of Joe McCarthy’s list that never saw the light of day.
Not a WalMart shopper
mark, WALMART does it again. Trying to make money on public school students from public funds. This misuse of public funds used to be breaking the law. Respectfully, Paul Paul J. Smith, Ed.D. pjsmith44@yahoo.com
The U.S. Dept. of Education’s timing and targeted expenditure of $71 million, for the expansion of charter schools in Ohio, gives the appearance of collusion, against the American people, by a governmental department and the oligarchy.
Well, even for the Waltons, $1b isn’t “pocket change”. They are worth just shy, as a family, of $150b today I think +/- $5b or so. So for your “average” millionaire — and many of us practically accidentally are nearly millionaires just because of the nominal price of our houses these days (YMMV of course) – that translates to about $6,500 in round terms. And that’s a fair amount to donate, still.
*However*, this isn’t a donation, it’s a kick-starter investment. And that’s another story of course.
Wasting time just now on youtube I watched an old clip of Sanders stating that the Walton family alone has more wealth than the bottom *40%* of Americans. I don’t know what year that was claimed. But it’s pretty startling. Pocket change or no, the control by that one family of the rest of us is just, well …. what is wrong with us anyway? There are – news alert – a whole lot more of us. Why do _we_ let this happen???
What a disgusting family! They steal public funds by not paying taxes and paying their workers so little that they need to be on welfare and food stamps while working full time. Now they are working to dismantle our once excellent public school systems to scam more money off Americans.
Can’t we export these useless parasites?