Logan T. Carlson, an investigative journalist for the Gannett News Service, noticed that the School Choice Demonstration Project at the University of Arkansas is funded by pro-voucher foundations, including the Walton Family Foundation and the Bradley Foundation. A group of researchers at the Project have been responsible for the five-year evaluation of Milwaukee’s voucher program. They found that the voucher schools did not affect students’ test scores, but led to a high graduation rate. Critics point out that 56% of the students who enrolled in the voucher program left before graduating.
Even more worrisome is the connection between the research project and campaign donors.
Carlson writes:
“The research conducted by the School Choice Demonstration Project at the University of Arkansas is paid for primarily by special interest groups that also donate to politicians pushing for the voucher expansion.
“A Wisconsin Democracy Campaign report on school choice special interest money shows that individuals with ties to foundations that have funded the School Choice Demonstration Project have donated more than $630,000 to Wisconsin politicians, most of them Republicans, during the past decade.”
Patrick Wolf, the lead researcher from the University of Arkansas, said his research was unaffected by the source of the funding. However, in an opinion piece he wrote recently, Wolf strongly endorsed school choice in Minnesota and warned Minnesotans that they had fallen behind in adopting school choice programs, such as vouchers and charters.
The reporter noted that the Walton Family Foundation had spent over $500 million in the past three years to support school reforms, especially vouchers and charters. In 2002, the foundation gave $300 million to the University of Arkansas, which the article calls Walmart University.
When the University established its Department of Education Reform, funded in part by Walton, it invited Jay Greene to chair the department. Greene is known as a strong advocate of vouchers. Patrick Wolf holds the endowed chair of school choice in the department.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Campbell’s Law is at work here. Duh…
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I tried to include info on this post as a comment on Wolf’s opinion piece without including the actual link (not allowed on the Star Tribune). Milwaukee vouchers are a sham:
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What does it meant to “fall behind in adopting school choice programs such as vouchers and charters”? Is that like falling behind in having Walmart stores in your state?
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I might understand if this was a private for-profit, “University of Walmart”, but a “Department of Education Reform” with an “endowed chair of school choice” promotes a highly charged political agenda and that does not belong in a public university.
Maybe they say “school choice” because they don’t believe in other kinds of choices, like I bet they don’t have have a “Department of Medical Reform” with an “endowed chair of women’s choice.” I wonder if that department has an “endowed chair of right to life” though. If so, I bet they also have a Department of Law Reform with “an endowed chair of capital punishment.” They’d probably have a whole lot of endowed chairs in that department, like an “endowed chair of tax elimination for the wealthy” and a “endowed chair of employment regulation repeal.”
So now it’s not enough for donors to get a wing or a building named after them, they can buy a department and endowed chairs to promote their political agendas, too, huh? And this is permitted at a public university merely because there are buyers with deep pockets? Just unbelieveable.
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