The big school board race is this week in Los Angeles, and we know that the billionaires have lined up behind their slate. We know that Eli Broad wants to own his hometown’s school board and Mayor Michael Bloomberg has tossed $1million into the race to help the same candidates that Eli wants.
What is less well known is that one of the biggest founders of school choice–AKA, privatization–is the Walton family of Arkansas. Sure, the natural connection between Arkansas and Los Angeles might escape you, as it does me. But consider this, from an article written on Huffington Post by Peter Dreier of Occidental College:
In 2006, one member of the family gave $250,000 to a statewide initiative for universal preschool education.
“In Los Angeles alone, the Walton Family Foundation has donated over $84.3 million to charter schools and organizations that support them, such as Green Dot Schools, ICEF schools, and the Los Angeles Parent Union, as well as $1 million to candidates or political action committees which support diverting tax dollars away from public schools. They believe in high-stakes testing, hate teachers unions, want to measure student and teacher success primarily by relying on one-size-fits-all standardized tests, but have an entirely different set of standards when it comes to judging charter schools.”
Furthermore, the Waltons generously support other organizations that promote privatization:
“The Waltons have long supported efforts to privatize education through the Walton Family Foundation as well as individual political donations to local candidates. Since 2005, the Waltons have given more than $1 billion to organizations and candidates who support privatization. They’ve channeled the funds to the pro-charter and pro-voucher Milton Friedman Foundation for Education Choice, Michelle Rhee’s pro-privatization and high-stakes testing organization Students First, and the pro-voucher Alliance for School Choice, where Walton family member Carrie Walton Penner sits on the board. In addition to funding these corporate-style education reform organizations, since 2000 the Waltons have also spent more than $24 million bankrolling politicians, political action committees, and ballot issues in California and elsewhere at the state and local level which undermine public education and literally shortchange students.”
You do understand what is going on, don’t you? It is the Walmart management style–deregulation, low-wage employees, cost-cutting over all–transported to education.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
but the WalMart model is currently in great trouble. Their profits and revenues are plummeting, and even store managers are being openly vocal about the inability to keep their shelves stocked, in part because suppliers are apparently pissed at how long WalMart takes to meet its contractual obligations to pay them
WalMart is also short-sighted in not paying most of its workers enough to be able to shop there, unlike Henry Ford who understood that if he paid his worker enough to buy the cars they were building, they would build better cars and he would sell more of them
If you want a prophecy of what a fully commercialized system of education will look like, do this little experiment tonight while you are watching TV. Imagine that every 3rd or 4th commercial you see — spewing the lies they constantly do on a 24/7/52¼ basis about how wondrous their products are and how you can’t live without the latest innovations in TP technology — imagine those are ads trying to talk hapless children and parents into the “Choicier” Choices of this or that charter-cyber-school. And think about the fact that more public funds will be diverted to the industry that produces those mis-educational ads than all the funds spent sweating the small stuff like education itself.
I want the whole world to know about LAUSD.
I want them to know about the teachers incarcerated in the 7 teacher jails.
I want them to know about 36 students in elementary school classrooms while there is still an outside bureaucracy.
I want them to know about the Gates, Bloombergs, and Broads trying to have their influence on LAUSD.
more: http://www.examiner.com/article/i-want-the-whole-world-to-know-about-lausd
The reason the Walton’s are supporting privatization is the fundamental hostility of the public school establishment to private enterprise in general. The public schools are union. The Waltons are management. They give their money to try to free the American educational system from the perpetual anti-business and pro-union propaganda of its teachers and administrators. One hesitates on this blog to use such words as “socialist” or “communist” because many of the posters here consider them as name-calling snarl words, but, in fact, they are legitimate and accurate terms to describe the fundamental, may I say progressive and Deweyian mindset of public school teachers everywhere in this country. The 49% which lost the election, and possibly even some of the 51% which reelected President Obama, if they paused long enough to actually think about what they were voting for, would recognize that they are not in favor of government control of everything, even education, and the intellectual indoctrination of students in the collectivist rather than individualist mentality which has heretofore characterized American culture. No wonder the Waltons want to help break the stranglehold of public school teachers on the minds of their children. It’s no mystery.
Business is NOT bad. There is NO man made global warming. Washington DOES have a spending problem. What parent who wants to see his children rise and prosper in the world, wants to see their minds filled with the mush of passiveness and state dependency. The parents want educational options, even, God forbid, horrors oh horrors, parochial schools where they teach things that are not true (according to the secular atheists and materialists who run the public schools). Why wouldn’t the Waltons try to buy the election to the LA school board of people who will continue to dismantle the control of the schools by Godless commies? (You don’t think of yourself as a Godless communist? Hmmmm. But you ARE! Why not be up front about it rather than blathering on about “democracy” and “public” education? )
When public education begins to support free enterprise in general, maybe, just maybe, it has a chance of surviving, but until it gives up its characteristic ‘I’m sticking to the union’ motif, all of its fulminations against inadequate funding, inequity, and high stakes testing won’t cut it with the populace in general, who are not social democrats in orientation, although President Obama is trying as hard as he can to transform the culture by governmentizing as much of the economy as possible. Why he doesn’t support government education is something of a mystery to me. He will ruin health care with Obama care. Why he is trying to eviscerate the base institution of his most loyal supporters is a profound puzzle to me. Anyone out there understand it?
Wow, you wear your bias on your sleave. When free enterprise stops fucking the American public, maybe teachers will stop pointing out the deceit and abuse of the corporate world.
Harlan, you say some very silly things. Public education hostile to free enterprise? That’s absurd! 90% of the people in our capitalist society went to public schools. Our nation has thrived, as has private enterprise, because of free public education. Really, you should inform yourself before opining.
So… What you’re saying, Harlan, is that the entire enterprise of privatizing our public schools (which you seem to be admitting does exist) is a sort of lashing out at the public school system on the part of business leaders in an effort to “get back” at public schools for “dissing” them? And that maybe, just maybe, if the public school system genuflects properly and kisses the rings of the free market, it might, after a time, pull its boot up from the back of its neck and allow it to lift its face out of the mud? Which it put there simply because it was being “dissed”?
And you willingly post this belief of yours, in a public forum?
And for the record, Harlan, free enterprise is every bit as godless as communism and public education.
Great response.
Harlan – that’s just embarrassing for you. Even worse is that you don’t realize it. Your mother must be so proud.
Somebody please free the children who HU holds captive everyday in his charter school. God help them.
Linda: I appreciate the concern you express but perhaps your efforts in this regard may be better employed elsewhere.
I am reminded of my high school days. On the infrequent occasions when I wandered through a skid row section of downtown, I would see a well known homeless resident of the area, a fellow who believed he was Jesus Christ [apply whatever labels your might think appropriate to his mental and emotional state]. The other teenagers I was with made snide remarks about him and treated him with open contempt. I didn’t share their attitude or their behavior. I well remember that when he would sneeze and cough [which he did frequently and somewhat painfully], he would mumble something that sounded more or less like “I bless Myself!”
I refused to follow the crowd. Why torment the poor fellow with even the most well-intentioned corrections? His life was miserable enough without forcing him to acknowledge his own desperately tormented existence.
Linda, I appreciate your good heart but perhaps you are best to leave HU to his own demons. You have enough difficulties to deal with; at least you won’t have to share in his torments…
Just my two centavos worth.
Can you imagine sitting in a history class?
Oh Harlan, nice of you to take a swipe at all of us public school teachers with your petty and ideological nonsense. Can you prove global warming isn’t happening? Would Jesus approve of how corporations are running things like paying management 1200% more than their workers? I’m sure right-wing blogs and radio have made that connection that would have said Jesus approves (oh wait, Joseph Farrah already has mentioned it numerous times on his website). God forbid that we try to make students question things and stand up for themselves so they are not taken advantage. BTW, Harlan, you can take the corporate domination mentality and obedient workers stuff to China because you sound like you have more in common with the communists there than you do with what the people here think is just and fair (and democratic). That also makes for a teachable moment here, why don’t you learn what a communist is than spew accusations on people. When everyone is equal and government has turned over the means of production to the people, then you have Communism. We haven’t had a true Communist country on the planet… ever. We’ve had dictatorships parading around with the label “Communist,” but you wouldn’t know that of you attended “those” schools and read and listen to your ideological nonsense 24/7.
Dictators with unchecked power are fully embraced in charter schools. Having truly elected board would interfere with the dictators ability to raid public tax dollars.
The tax dollars do not belong to the public schools. They belong to the tax payers who hire public services. If they want them to go to charters and vouchers, and even online charters, that is not a call the public schools are philosophically legitimate to make. No one is “raiding” tax dollars. People are using them in more ways than they used to. That’s all.
Harlan,
Vouchers have been on state and local ballots many times. Voters have rejected them EVERY time. Most recently, Florida voters turned down vouchers last November.
umm, no Harlan. Individual taxpayers do not get to decide where general tax revenues go, nor do small groups of taxpayers. Taxes are imposed upon a general populace, and the decision on how they are spent should be being made by the representatives elected by those in the taxpaying population eligible to vote.
That is why parent trigger laws are a direct violation of the notion of the commons provided for by taxes. It is why what happened in California, where only those parents who signed a petition were allowed to vote on whether a school was taken charter is a violation of basic democracy.
And it is why the neo-vouchers, Kevin Welner’s very good description for what is now going on, is a scam allowing some people to direct their taxes to their own benefit in ways that skirt the limits of the law (in most cases – in some they are in outright violation, but that takes a while to demonstrate in court) but clearly violate the principle that we pay taxes for the general good from which we all benefit.
I pay taxes on my home in Arlington VA, more than half of which go to public education. We have no children. Yet because our schools are so good, I benefit by the increased valuation of my home.
It is exactly the same principle that says part of my federal tax revenue goes to pay for the military-industrial complex I abhor because I am a Quaker.
You are rationalizing and doing a piss-poor demonstration thereof. The tenth graders I used to teach would take you apart in a heart beat, and totally destroy you in verbal exchanges, your reasoning is so weak.
But DeeDee, Harlan and shrills like him don’t see it that way. They view public schools as economic terrorism on tax payers and blame the unions for everything. However, I am convinced Harlan wouldn’t be saying much if he was teaching in public schools. I wonder what Harlan thinks of Lockhead Martin for ripping taxpayers off for what could amount to a 1 trillion dollar loss on the F-22 fighter jet that has been a disaster? I bet he doesn’t have a problem with defense contract terrorism, does he?
What’s this, a confession?
Making America safe for plutocrats through the miseducation of a democratic citizenry. See post on lafered in response to Nevada ed-sup’s statement regarding issues of class size and quality teachers. Nevada’s sup came to the state directly from the George W. Bush Institute and our local Washoe County Schools sup, our current and previous are graduated of the Broad Academy!
They are also funding ConnCAN here in Connecticut and the national organization it spawned, 50CAN. ConnCAN was organized by Jonathan Sackler (who made his fortune off of oxycontin) and a group to lobby on behalf of their charter foundation, Achievement First. One of the members of that founding group is Stefan Pryor, CT’s current Commissioner of Education. Convenient, no?
Waltons also fund TFA and KIPP and Stand for Children, among others.
While this is certainly more serious, in Syracuse, NY, the breakfast IN THE CLASSROOM program is sponsored by Walmart. The food is awful, loaded with sugar and fat. Teachers are forced to act as food service workers and custodians, as we clean up the mess. The children act as if they are on vacation, and it takes forever to calm them down. Instead of starting instruction when the bell rings, we are waiting for the eating to be done – since God forbid we should deprive anyone of their food. Although a good portion of the class is eating a second breakfast. Every student used to be allowed a free breakfast eaten in the cafeteria, until our Broad Academy trained superintendent decided we should give up preparation time to supervise breakfast. She claimed it was a “stigma” to eat in the cafeteria. Prior to this kids went to either the cafeteria or the gym to play before school. Now, not so much. Thank you Walmart Foundation, chipping away at the education system.
Wow–thanks for sharing Corinne. This is the first I had heard of this program. Good to know. Why are parents and the community allowing the sugar and fat? I’m in Colorado and I know the push is away from the lack of nutrition in school meals.
Ha, ha! When our school district attempted the little trick of having breakfast in the nicely carpeted classrooms…we got BUGS! So, that sent the program back to the cafeteria–where it belongs–PDQ!
Hope you get bus, too, Syracuse Corinne! THAT’LL teach ’em!
Sorry–of course, that should be “Hope you get buGs, too…”
Have you ever looked at the lunches served in charter schools? A bunch of prepackaged garbage. I can’t believe they are serving this garbage to children.Michelle Obama, have you studied the foods served in charters? Why aren’t you fighting to end the junk served to urban kids in charters?
If they have the warehouse on wheels, they probably want classrooms on wheels for all of LA. Just load the kids up on buses and drive them around all day being taught by TFA tour guides. Lots of stuff to look at out the window for the daydreamers.
For Harold, Walton/WalMart:
The U.S. job market is slowly improving, and most economists expect that gradual recovery to continue this year. Yet one of the most disturbing trends of the recession is still very far from being reversed. America’s middle-class jobs have been decimated since 2007, replaced largely by low-wage jobs.
A recent presentation from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco lays out the situation clearly. The vast majority of job losses during the recession were in middle-income occupations, and they’ve largely been replaced by low-wage jobs since 2010:
Mid-wage occupations, paying between $13.83 and $21.13 per hour, made up about 60 percent of the job losses during the recession. But those mid-wage jobs have made up just 27 percent of the jobs gained during the recovery.
By contrast, low-wage occupations paying less than $13.83 per hour have utterly dominated the recovery, with 58 percent of the job gains since 2010. (This data all comes from an earlier report (pdf) from the National Employment Law Project.)
That’s put downward pressure on wages: “[M]any middle-class workers have lost their jobs and, if they have been able to secure new employment at all, find themselves earning far lower wages post-recession,” the San Francisco Fed notes. ”[O]n average over the next 25 years, these workers will earn 11% less than similar workers who retained their jobs through the recession.”
So what types of low-wage jobs are we talking about? Nearly 40 percent of the jobs gained since the recovery began — about 1.7 million — have come from three low-wage sectors: food services, retail, and employment services (that last is a sweeping category encompassing jobs like office clerks and sales representatives).
As the San Francisco Fed presentation notes, just four low-wage sectors now make up nearly 12 percent of the workforce in 2011: retail sales, cashiers, office clerks, and food preparation and service workers. ”[T]hese occupations are crucial to the support and growth of major industries across the country, but many of these workers do not earn enough to adequately support their families, even at a subsistence level.”
By contrast, many mid-wage industries, such as construction, manufacturing, insurance, real estate and information technology, have either stagnated or grown too slowly to make up for their pre-recession losses.
http://goo.gl/mJ4pz
Or will Harold blame the public schools for that.
I can’t get past his picture…..imagine him teaching?
Linda, I’ve been thinking the same thing–he’s pretty scary looking!
Not a kind comment Linda. Is there a certain “look” one must have in order to teach? You really should apologize for that remark as it is totally uncalled for.
I apologize Harlan. I am sorry.
RBMTK,
Then I’m scary looking too and I don’t give a shit if you or anyone thinks so. My friends don’t call me the bear (yes I have very similar facial features as Harlan but a scragglier, longer beard and #2 cut hair buzz) for nothing. Not all of us are “blessed” with Apollo looks.
Remember you can’t judge a book by it’s cover and it’s what’s inside that counts. Isn’t that what you tried to teach your students when you taught? Most of my friends have views similar to Harlan’s and I have a blast “going at it” with them. No need to continue the ugliness started by Linda.
It wasn’t continued and I apologized. You are correct. So why are you continuing it?
Linda,
I appreciate your rethinking and apology. My response to RBMTK was being written when you posted your apology so I had no intention of continuing this after seeing said apology.
Duane
Okay…understandable. I have to stick to the issues. Sorry again.
er, Harlan.
I can’t take responsibility for how I look. Only for what I say and do. I want to try to stick to the issues, but sometimes I do ramble on. I have designated one of my best students to tell me when to stop digressing and move on. To THAT flaw I do confess, voluble garrulousness, but she does her job well. It’s really quite funny, and the rest of the kids appreciate it, Sometimes all she does is give a little low whistle. It cracks me up. And I DO move on.
I hope you will accept my apology. I lost my mind with the rant. It was uncalled for and I am sorry Harlan. I did like the story. Love that girl!
Walmart billionaires saw profits drop last year. They knew it would happen eventually. All those contracts for school supplies are so tempting…and why make bids to thousands of boards of education around the country when you can just buy the board candidates and steer the contracts to your own profit?
Charters have the Walmart management style. Autocratic leaders who treat their staff like garbage working in a sweatshop like mentality. Provide an unstable work environment with low rages and no retirement. Funnel all the profits upward while providing the cheapest product you can provide. Pretty sad. My biggest beef is that politicians are bought by them. It makes me sick.
I understand that the representatives make the decisions. I’m just observing that those state legislatures are increasingly lifting the caps on the number of charters, and may get around to vouchers eventually. As for the gratuitous insults about my puerile command of argumentation, all I ask is to be taught by seeing the correct arguments made. Your response explaining how representative government works is a straw man argument. I did write mine badly, but you have not shown that legislatively authorized extensions of public funding to charters is a “raid.” I hate a bad argument even as you do, and my tenth graders frequently dismember mine, but that’s what discussion is for. Now, my claim is that charters have as legal a claim to tax money as the public schools. UNrefutable, Ken. They also have as moral a claim too, in my view, but that is debatable. I say that if the tax money is being spent on a school that does not discriminate except on the basis of intellectual readiness to benefit, such a school is morally entitled to the minimum foundation grant of the state as long as its curriculm satisfies all requirements for high school graduation because those students do not occupy seats in the traditional high school. Care to offer a counter argument?
Charters in their corporatized form with no accountability have no “right” to tax money. They have unelected boards. It is nothing but a scam. If you teach in a public high school you have gone off the deep-end if you support charters (and a hypocrite). Go work in a Detroit charter and tell me if you still support the concept. Awful, awful, awful!!!!!1
Okay, Duane and Harlan–I am sorry. As one who isn’t big on looks herself (I have long, gray-black hair & a big nose & sometimes kids called me “the witch,” but many more times they called me “The hippie from hell.”) However, I don’t let things like that bother me, but that’s just me…
That having been said–and I’m not retracting my apology–I AM truly sorry–it just seems that you made your PICTURE look scary, Harlan–the lighting & angle. Did you do that on purpose? Looks sort of devilish! (So I wasn’t inferring that you’re ugly–it’s just the picture looking rather…devilish.) Anyway, sorry again.
Shall I meet you on Bald Mountain? We all know Democrats are from heaven, Republicans from hell. Jesus is the God of Democrats, and Mamon of Republicans. Let me get my Guy Fawkes mask.
J. H. Underhill
Harlan, you DO have a good sense of humor!
For what it’s worth, whenever I look at Harlan’s picture I imagine he is some great snail twisting his head around to look up, his shell just out of the picture. I think the picture is amusing more than anything else. I don’t believe it affects my opinions of his arguments.
Oh–one more thing & I PROMISE not to say more. Part of the reason I brought up that “devilish” thing was because, a while back, I enlarged your image on the Gravatar, & you do have a picture of yourself with a devil mask on!
Now, for my part–basta!