“Imagine that you are possessed of the surname “Walton” and happen to be sitting on mad coin—say a cool $90 billion. How do you celebrate the occasion that is Teacher Appreciation Day? Do you chip in to give the nation’s teachers a raise, knowing they’ve been hard hit by the recession? Do you send them gift cards to Walmart, the store that hath so enrichethed you? If you are a teacher in Massachusetts, the Waltons have an extra special treat in store for you: a fully-funded gala at the Statehouse urging the replacement of the state’s many non-excellent teachers with fresh new innovators who will share their excellence one renewable year at a time. Happy Teacher Appreciation Day, xoxo Walmart!”
EduShyster describes here the Walton family campaign to create new charter schools in Massachusetts.
The billionaire family is funding almost every part of the campaign in the state where Horace Mann created the nation’s first public schools.
I know this is supposed to be funny. It’s not. It makes me very sad.
There must be something that money can’t buy.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
like the Beatles sang: “Money can’t buy me love.” That’s it. The children won’t love the new education order.
And we can talk and talk about love. There a zillion songs and a zillion Scripture passages and a zillion wisdom tales.
Money cannot buy love. Without love, nothing prevails.
Give it some time.
I do not teach in the states but am an International School Teacher. Perhaps teachers should boycott walmart if the Waltons don’t think we are any good. Maybe we should take our meager salaries and buy our students supplies at Target/ Office Supply exclusively. I know it isn’t much but why do we continue to support companies that are using their money to put us out of work?
I think a boycott is the only way this will stop. These people are very greedy, and if they think they might lose money, even a small amount, they will withdraw. They have already dropped out of ALEC.
I guess they want to be the only ones with money. First the deny their employees a living wage, now they want to destroy the teaching profession. What’s next? Imagine the impact on American society if the Walton family gave a damn about more than just their greed.
Skip Walmart. They are a bad business model.
Excerpt: (Costco CEO) Mr. Sinegal begs to differ. He rejects Wall Street’s assumption that to succeed in discount retailing, companies must pay poorly and skimp on benefits, or must ratchet up prices to meet Wall Street’s profit demands.
Good wages and benefits are why Costco has extremely low rates of turnover and theft by employees, he said. And Costco’s customers, who are more affluent than other warehouse store shoppers, stay loyal because they like that low prices do not come at the workers’ expense. “This is not altruistic,” he said. “This is good business.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/17/business/yourmoney/17costco.html?pagewanted=all
Costco deserves the business because they care about their customers and employees. I will drive further to shop in their store, even with a Walmart and Sam’s Club much closer to my home.
You cannot buy credibility you must earn it. In the long run if we do not let them go too far they will fall of their own weight and lies.
You can”t buy your way into Heaven.
You can’t buy integrity!
AMEN…you posted exactly what I was going to write, Hannah.
This theme seems to keep recurring, doesn’t it?
Funny, I just read something that said that so many of these villainthropists who have become rich through inheritance often pour their money into projects “for the public”
(such as libraries and cultural centers, although they can never be anonymous–just HAVE to stick their names on everything, like children leaving smudges on the refrigerator!) to assuage feelings of guilt as to just where, in some cases, that money has come from. I would also add that the same applies to perhaps just a twinge of aforementioned guilt if they even (ever!) think about how they treat their employees.
Wait! Strike my last comment–I would wager that they NEVER think–for even a nanosecond–about how poorly they pay AND treat their employees.