The organization that has done the most to undermine public education is the Walton Family Foundation. It has given hundreds of millions of dollars to charter schools, voucher programs, Teach for America, and rightwing think tanks to advocate for privatization. The Néw York Times reported that the Walton foundation had underwritten one of every four charter start-ups in the nation. In addition, it has given more than $50 million to Teach for America to assure that the charters have a non-union teaching staff.
And lest we forget, the Walton family as individuals has given large sums to charter referenda in Georgia and Washington state, as well as to pro-privatization candidates.
A reader suggests:
“How about a national teachers’ boycott of Walmart re school supplies and asking parents/kids to do the same? Perhaps we can enlist Target or Office Depot, Staples, other nation wide alternatives. . .”
I generally don’t advocate boycotts, but on the other hand, I never never never shop at Walmart. That’s just me.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Welcome on board! I haven’t shopped at Wal-Mart for almost a decade because of their anti-union (aka anti-working people) efforts.
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Absolutely right.
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Me too. Everyone just rolls their eyes at my list of personal boycotts – including Koch Bros. products I try to avoid. But no Wal-marts for me.
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It’s long been clear to me that Walton, Inc. is something akin to a political party that raises funds through the sales of dry goods and groceries — that its real mission is to transmogrify our society into something nearer and dearer its own black heart.
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Funny you should mention it at this moment.
Here is an article I wrote this week which was published yesterday by City Watch Today. Carrie Walton Penner, who sits on most of the Rheeform boards in the nation figures here too. She is a Board member of California Charter School Association, and that organization was a major donor to the worst charter school candidate running for LAUSD BoE in this Tuesday’s election. Carrie also personally donated an enormous amount of Walton cash to Ref Rodriguez, a millionaire who owns the16 PUC charters. Broad, Bloomberg, and Steve Jobs’ wife, plus others of their 1% group, poured a fortune, over $5,500,000, into this little election (which a few years ago only cost a candidate about $30K) to preserve their Free Market investment…all in the name of “civil rights” of course.
The ‘big bad” unions and the ‘riff raff’ like me and my fellow educators, could only come up with $945,000 to counter the plutocrats.
Please read about Rodriguez’s shenanigans in the links. LA Progressive did a great expose on him, and the Audit Report he sought to hide until after the election, is also linked and is in the comments. If you can’t get it all up here, google City Watch Today.
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CityWatch
LOS ANGELES Saturday, May 16th 2015 3:52
Why Would Anyone Want to Replicate Stupid, Greedy, Inept, Fraudulent?
16 May 2015
Written by Ellen Lubic
VOICES-On Tuesday there will be an election for three LAUSD Board of Education members. These candidates are Kayser (photo) v. Rodriguez, Galatzan v. Schmerelson, and Vladovic v. Gutierrez.
The most highly funded race by the billionaires who wish to privatize all of America’s public schools (with the goal of making public schools Free Market Wall Street opportunities for vast profit) is that of Rodriguez. They have poured over $2,000,000 into the coffers of Refugio Rodriguez who is the multi millionaire PUC charter school chain organizer, owner, CEO, treasurer…and other titles he chose over the years.
A forced internal audit of his PUC charter chain was finally exposed only weeks ago despite his (and his ally on the Board, the notorious charter supporter, Monica Garcia, the clone of Tamar Galatzan and John Deasy) great efforts to hide it from public view until after the election. It showed repeated violations at many of his schools over a long period of time. Most were financial and some leading to his own enrichment.
Last week, the LA Progressive published the article linked below, showing his insider dirty dealings with his own Board leadership in contracting for food services from companies they actually owned, to provide all school meals. This was a very profitable, though probably illegal, enterprise for Rodriguez.
The LA Times, which endorsed Rodriguez (and Galatzan who is also a Deasy and charter supporter), has not backed down from their ill advised endorsement even though they published a similar story on his potential illegal and ostensibly fraudulent behaviors.
How come with this audit evidence and the facts on the food services contracts which are possibly indictable, Rodriguez has not resigned as a School Board candidate, after running one of the dirtiest campaigns in history? And why is he allowed to join with the Latino SouthWest Voters program to now bribe inner city Latino voters to come the polls for a payoff of $25,000?
An LASR article lauds them for getting out the vote with 2700 first time Latino student voters, who also are given the payoff motive to go to the polls. What a message for new voters, to sell their vote for cash and prizes! Of course, the ‘wink wink’ is to vote for the Latino surnamed candidate.
It would seem that the LA Times and their billionaire publisher Austin Beutner, and billionaire advisors Eli Broad and Richard Riordan, have learned nothing from the entire LAUSD/Deasy four year fiasco which cost the District over $167,000,000 in losses from the inept and possibly fraudulent dealings of former Superintendent John Deasy who is now being investigated by the FBI and the SEC, with his Apple and Pearson early emails indicating he gave them insider information on how to be the low bidders for $1.3 Billion for iPads and for Common Core Software curricula not even designed at that point of contractual assignment.
Also with Deasy’s poor judgement insisting on using the MiSiS software which he knew was flawed for many years, and at the point he insisted on using it in LAUSD, was still not viable. It failed, and it hurt students and schools immeasurably. Now LAUSD is trying to get some of the public’s money back from these rotten deals. Do not forget that this huge amount of $1.3 billion in probable sweetheart deals, was snatched from the Construction Bond Fund that LA voters and taxpayers approved to build new public schools and to repair old schools which are falling apart. Taxpayers were ‘snookered’ by these machinations of the billionaires and their puppets.
Only yesterday did the public learn that the BoE, once again in secret, was influenced to hire interim Superintendent Cortines back for another year despite his rancor with and against teachers and their unions, and despite the second sexual harassment law suit filed against him. He also recently named charter school supporter, Thelma de Melendez, as his second in charge.
At Beaudry, Cortines and the Board of Education evidently never did start a national search for a better superintendent than Deasy (who trained to be their “CEO” at the Broad Academy, and who has now been hired full time to work for Eli Broad), and they seem to have no intention of doing so in the near future. Is this more of Broad’s intrusion into the affairs of LAUSD?
Why are voters once again exposed to all this brouhaha and the buying of elections by these wildly wealthy Wall Street profiteers and non-educators who seek to bring all public services into the Free Market to expand their greed in forcing the direction of even more redistribution of American’s wealth upward, to themselves?
Stigler, Schumpeter, and Milton Friedman, with their Ayn Rand parroted theories of the Invisible Hand, and Creative Destruction, have long been proven false by modern Nobel Prize winner economists Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman, looking at a Free Market that is anything but FREE.
Please use good judgement and vote for Bennett Kayser and Scott Schmerelson when you go to the polls, without being bribed, on Tuesday, May 19.
(Ellen Lubic, Director, Joining Forces for Education, Public Policy educator/writer. Views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the views of CityWatch or its ownership.)
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My default pronunciation of PUC does not follow the phonetic rules but seems to “flow forth” naturally.
I’m sorry. I couldn’t resist.
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You made me laugh out loud. At first, I thought it was public utilities commission…but your take is funnier. We older educators can say it all since have seen it all.
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Can’t use Staples as an alternative. They are undermining the USPS union employees with non-union mini post offices in their store.
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Back to School is a great time for all those big-box stores, and a boycott by teachers and school kids would have a lot of effect. With school still out though, it might be hard to tell kids and parents about it.
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School is not out yet.
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Wal-Mart has a heart? News to me…
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In 1996, a friend of mine and I attempted to prevent a new Walmart from being built in a small town in Pennsylvania. Several Walmarts already existed in the county. Out goal was to prevent the local township for zoning the proposed site for commercial use. To do this, we attempted to rally local business owners to sign a petition against the rezoning. We went business to business, pleading with owner to sign, reminding them how Walmart would take business from them. Exactly zero of the owners we spoke with were interested. We tried to get support by handing out anti-Walmart literature at local shopping plazas. Few people we engaged were sympathetic. We spoke at the township meeting about the rezoning. The consensus among attendees was the Walmart would bring jobs and the two of us should mind our own business. The Walmart opened. At least half of the business we approached closed within a decade.
With only two teenagers doing this in the years prior to social media, we were doomed from the start. A similar campaign today could have more traction. A significantly larger campaign supported by an ad hoc coalition of professionals and labor advocates would at least get national attention if not achieve its aims. The 19 year old in me would applaud such an effort.
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Even 20 years later, I’m appreciative of your efforts. Thanks for telling the readers of the blog, about your campaign.
I shake my head when small business owners complain about taxes, completely ignoring the businesses’ lifeblood… revenue from the middle class.
Paying taxes is the luxury of a business that is able to survive and thrive.
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A larger coalition (not run by a pair of teenagers) was more successful in an adjacent county. We found out about their efforts after the fact.
I’ve wondered if any of the business owners who lost their livelihoods went on to work for that Walmart. They could spend their earnings there, because it ended up being one of the few places left where people could shop. Maybe they’d get a discount as employees.
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Are you still involved in organizing in your adult career Jeffrey? Sounds like you are someone that could effectively lead a campaign to boycott Walmart.
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I’m not. I taught for fourteen years and now I’m pursuing a career as a writer. I suppose I write about Walmart…
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See this from Forbes:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/04/15/report-walmart-workers-cost-taxpayers-6-2-billion-in-public-assistance/
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I’ve also read that Wal-Mart has actually hired social workers to help employees access government benefits! The hypocrisy of that company, it burns!!
I’m a Wal-Mart avoider, but it’s pretty easy for me because I live in an area where there’s a variety of retailers within a reasonable distance.
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Thanks for this excellent link, Duane. Can you imagine that these Walton free loaders are costing the rest of us $6.2 Billion a year, as reported in Forbes, because they pauperize their employees, but as Sharon says, they teach them how to apply for food stamps and minimal health care. What greedy hypocrites! It shocks me that the populace had not yet hit the streets with pitchforks. How long can this go on before all over America guillotines are set up in the town square?
They want to kill off all unions, all pensions, all health care insurance, all Social Security, all public services….until there is nothing left for the majority of citizens but death. In LA, they are major funders of Parent Revolution, TFA, and anything to destroy public education.
When I see any of the Walton tribe in public venues on TV, talking down their noses about the lower class, yet they live off the work of their father/grandfather (and are trying to kill estate tax), it makes me realize that there is pure evil in the 1%. They have no empathy for anyone, but want all the world’s wealth for themselves.
Just finished a creepy but very popular book, Perfume, by Susskind, wherein the protagonist was this same kind of person, totally lacking empathy. At the denouement, he was chopped to pieces by the people, and then they ate him. Just saying…..
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Organized boycotts can be very effective. The legendary grape and lettuce boycotts in the 60s and 70s helped the farmworkers establish their union, UFW, and win pay raises and improved conditions. Such businesses like Walmart are very dependent on consumer patronage to turn a profit. Even small losses in market share can affect their stock market value and bottom lines, given the ruthless pressure management is under and imposes to increase sales and revenue. For example, the running shoe company with the largest share of the world market, Nike, with about 40% of the athletic shoe market at the time, bent to protests and boycotts vis a vis revelations that child slave labor in Asia was involved in the manufacture of their soccer balls. Perhaps the most famous case of boycott effectiveness was the long-term isolation of apartheid South Africa. Nelson Mandela acknowledged the importance of this world boycott to the eventual victory of the freedom movement there. So yes, organized boycotts work, and it doesn’t matter that some of us never shop at Walmart, because millions of others do, and many of those shoppers will respond to bad press about Walmart’s labor policies and choose to shop elsewhere. Because there is a humane, civic, immense, and unorganized majority in America whose kids, schools, and family budgets are suffering under the broad-based business attack on wages, unions, public schools and the public sector, we should work with likely allies to use boycotts.
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Yes, Ira, I still get pangs of conscience if I eat a grape.
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Target and Staples are not labor friendly. There is a boycott by organized labor for Staples right now.
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Yes, yes, yes. I don’t shop at WM for a few reasons.
I feel crazy hearing teachers talk about how they “have to” shop there, after I’ve told them all about WM’s terrible corporate citizenship coupled with what they’re doing to public education.
And there’s a huge part of the problem with all things education, politics, and economy: not only are many people uninformed, but when they become so, they may still behave in the pettiest of ways. Nobody “has to” shop at Wal-mart.
But now that teachers have been under attack for a decade? Maybe the Bernie Sanders campaign would support it?
As far as I’m concerned, teacher organizations, particularly the AFT and NEA, should have called for this years ago already. They need to call for it now.
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/9/11/chris_hedges_dems_owe_chicago_public
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A placard, in my car’s back window, says, “I stand with Walmart strikers.”
The next time I join a picket action at Walmart, I will, in advance, send the letter I sent to the police, who protected Walmart’s interests, the last time. The letter explained the detrimental effect of multinational corporate political activity on local communities, including threats to public funding and public pensions, for law enforcement.
In the letter, I enclosed the information from KnowYourCharter.com, with annotations about campaign donors and convicted financiers. The families of police send their children to public schools so, I assume they care about the impact of privatization on public education.
The statistic, 6 heirs to the Walton fortune have the same wealth as the combined poorest 40% of Americans, makes the case for anyone who can connect dots.
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The purchase of school supplies is a boon for retailers and the cost has increased by making parents pay retail prices for many items that could be provided by bulk purchases at the district level.
In my first year of teaching, the fourth largest district in the US, the district had a contract for crayons. They were delivered in boxes of several sizes to a central warehouse, by rail, in boxcars.
Of course there were overhead costs in that system, and perhaps some waste because there was no direct cost to parents…the accounting was at a distance from public view. But one of the disadvantages of site- based management and off- loading the costs to parents is the huge markup for retail prices that are then put on “sale” during the back-to-school marketing period.
Now in some communities the cheap school supplies are provided to qualified schools by outfits such as ” crayons to computers,” a recycling program, where many of the available items are new and also advertising promotions. Equipment comes from major corporations who get a tax write off for contributing. Teacher from schools with a high proportion of kids who qualify for free or reduced priced lunches qualify for X many trips per school school year. Teachers tell me the real treasures in our local warehouse come from the collections of retired teachers–books, posters, collections of stones, bones, and games.
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To the extent possible, no teacher should ever set foot in Wal-Mart (nor should anyone else for that matter, but especially teachers). But in a lot of places, Wal-Mart is the only game in town. Or at least the only affordable game, which is important to a lot of people who are living paycheck to paycheck, or without a paycheck at all.
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Correct. In South Florida it’s pretty much Publix and everyone else. So unfortunately many people have no other choice than Walmart due to their income limitations. Publix is the biggest rip off when it comes to grocery sores.
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Great idea! Quit Sam’s Club and Walmart five years ago! Not to mention Home Depot! Costco is much better to their employees!
Sent from my iPhone
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The AFT and the NEA should have put out this message to their members years ago. When Sam’s Club was making special offers to teachers in Philadelphia to join a few years, I put out a letter to the PFT members in my school telling them why they should not. Most had no idea what Walmart was funding.
A boycott will not work unless the major unions make a commitment to back it and urge their members to take part.
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Here’s a great story telling how a quaint Adirondacks village, a tourist destination in upstate NY, kept Walmart out and created its own department store when their previous anchor store’s parent chain went bankrupt:
“The Community Store in Saranac Lake is entering its fourth year as New York’s only community-owned department store – a model for local sustainability.”
http://www.lakeplacid.com/do/shop/community-store-saranac-lake
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Here’s a great story telling how a quaint village in the Adirondacks (an upstate-NY tourist destination)– after their anchor store folded due to parent-co. bankruptcy– kept Walmart out and created their own replacement:
The Community Store in Saranac Lake is entering its fourth year as New York’s only community-owned department store – a model for local sustainability.
http://www.lakeplacid.com/do/shop/community-store-saranac-lake
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Saranac Lake, a quaint Adirondack village & tourist destination in upstate-NY, kept Walmart at bay after their longtime anchor store folded (due to parent-co bankruptcy). They created a community department store owned by town residents, the first of its kind in NYS, now in its fourth year of operation.
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At the beginning of this school year, our district had a cram-the-bus deal with Wal-Mart. The District and Wal-Mart asked shoppers to buy extra school supplies to donate to our district. Our district then asked teachers to staff the bus (parked at Wal-Mart) to accept donations. I volunteer for many school activities – I could not bring myself to go to Wal-Mart to do this.
I think I am going to ask our IFT local to pass a resolution against partnering with one of
the top destroyers of public schools.
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Reblogged this on Jade Southwick.
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Walmart is clever at strategizing. They are a fox in the hen house – truly. They have been funding public school breakfast programs in many regions for a long time now. Title one public schools have become super reliant on the “free” breakfasts for a long while now. So it is not just funding of charters, vouchers and TFA. Also, a serious investigation should go into the breakfasts they are providing as THEY COMPLETELY FUEL JUNK FOOD CRAZE while crazily announcing they are highly nutritious. Children in my district in their breakfast bag get a package of sugary cookies (claimed to be made from whole grain and having less sugar). The cereals are incredibly sweet tasting. Non sweet items that are hot are microwaved in plastic sealed bags. WALMART IS HIDEOUS and has been allowed complete inroad to our public education system along with the likes of Bill Gates and other corporations or megabillionaires. I can dream that school supplies would be bought elsewhere this fall on a nation-wide level. Would this not “shout” to politicians that “we the people” do have a vote????
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I wonder if this the same outdated junk food that John Deasy insisted be food to little children in their classrooms at LAUSD?
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Thanks for posting my idea Diane. In a capitalist system, we have to vote with our pocketbooks.
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Providing $50 of school supplies for each of the roughly 60 million school children in the US would “cost” about $3 billion per year.
If Walmart billionaires were really concerned about education, they would make school supplies available to all of our nation’s school children for free. Walmart holds over $20 billion in offshore accounts and the lost tax alone would cover such supplies
Bill Gates could easily afford to do the same but he does not. Instead he “invests” in national standards that will position companies like his own to reap the benefits in the future — effectively standardizing students to allow companies like MS to “plug in” and start siphoning off the money.
If the $93 billion that Microsoft currently keeps in offshore accounts to avoid US taxes were kept in US accounts where it would be subject to tax, the collected tax could easily cover supplies for many years.(it’s estimated that the tax would amount to some $30 billion)
Apple, which is a $700 billion corporation which also has about $100 billion in offshore accounts could certainly afford to provide iPads to schools free of charge. but instead, Apple is trying to make money off the schools (in some cases — LA– with “questionable” bidding practices)
if you want to understand the motivations of these billionaires and their companies, simply look at at how they spend their money and the games they play to avoid paying the money that they actually owe for the privilege (not right) of calling themselves American companies.
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This report details the offshore holdings by US corporations and the tax avoided.
The $93 billion I listed above for Microsoft is the latest number (at the time of the linked to report, it totaled $76 billion, but has since increased)
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Thanks Poet…very important link here. Sending it off to others. In California, big oil producing state,Exxon Mobil is not required to pay any fees for drilling, and fracking. Only state in the union that does not charge them a cent to defile the atmosphere.
Every time I fill my car’s gas tank, pumping my own now close to $5 a gallon oil, washing my own windshield, etc, I lament the I grew this old, and worked in as an educator for over 45 years, only to become free help, slave labor, for Exxon Mobil.
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Pumping gasoline, that is, not oil.
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K-Marts could use some business.
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I have long avoided Walmart because of their aggressive anti-union activities.
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Kroger and Costco. I avoid Walmart. Also, our local Krogers go out of their way (Ohio) to hire disabled, older, and special needs adults as well as teens, and prices are competitive with good worker benefits and pay.
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Have NEVER shopped at Walmart. I can’t. Vote with your money.
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I’m in, I’ve never liked its labor policies, now this.
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I completely get why people are upset with Wal Mart, but Wal Mart wouldn’t have such an outsize influence on US policy if lawmakers resisted and instead sought out a more representative view.
In a way, I think this lets elected leaders off the hook. Are we really saying we can’t ask them to stop kowtowing to these business interests and DO THEIR JOB, which is acting as representatives of large groups of people instead of 150 powerful people?
That just seems like a really profound and truly hopeless concession because giant low cost retail chains aren’t really the issue. The issue is our lawmakers are captured. They don’t listen to anyone BUT powerful people.
.
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WalMart may not be The issue but it is An issue. Encourage all to read the book The WalMart Effect–your local library may have a copy. WM conducts itself as Powerful w. suppliers and may have as much influence on regular folks’ lives as legislators.
Because of circumstances and geography I don’t patronize WalMart. I’d cheer as many people who can buying elsewhere.
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OTOH, I do think public school districts should avoid contracting with companies run by people who seek to privatize public schools.
If you’re a district and you’re funneling public funds to a contractor who lobbies to END public schools, you’re nuts.
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Yes…it seems to have worked well in getting Rush Limbaugh to lose his advertisers. Good thing to work toward Chiara….now we have new work ahead to find which LAUSD companies support Waltons and privatizing. Oh boy!
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What a GREAT idea! If you can get the word out to TEACHERS , who might get it to parents as well, Walmart will feel the effect.
There are many other places to shop.
I will get it on FACEBOOK. Thanks!
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Reblogged this on National Mobilization For Equity and commented:
Don’t delude yourself into thinking the “only” threat is to K12…
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Never have and never will shop at Walmarts. I do hesitate to ask parents and kids to join in since we’ll be asking so very much of them in the future.
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Our students understand commercialism’s corruption pretty well: amazing essay! http://postmetakolsti.tumblr.com/post/103415330640/open-letter-to-superintendent-dr-susan
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Texas teacher…this remarkable essay by I assume a public high school student gives me hope for the future. Thanks for posting it.
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I already don’t shop at Walmart!!! Join me, working people.
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Walmart is overwhelming….I can’t stand that store! Never shop there either.
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Why call for just a boycott?
Boycotts by definition are limited and eventually end leaving the business still in business.
Why not call for an total end to shopping at Walmart and endorse other stores to shop at that are not waging war on the public schools? In fact, let’s create an alliance with the other stores that rewards shoppers who go cold turkey and stop shopping at Walmarts for as long as they live.
We could call it the “Boycott Walmart for Life” pledge.
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Time to roll out Walmart nuclear reactors nationwide before it is too late to stop charcoal irradiation that is poisoning workers, teachers, and schools on a daily basis.
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I haven’t shopped at Wallyworld in 12 years. We need to starve the beast. Every time I see a blue plastic bag on my campus my blood boils. What is wrong with teachers and parents? Is saving 5 cents worth your job?
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I started boycotting Walmart back in the 90’s after learning about the atrocious way they treat their employees. Which isn’t easy to do when you live in a semi-rural town outside Houston, Texas and they are the only major store in town.
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Has anyone seen the recent TV ad(s) Wlmart is running about what they are doing to improve working conditions? All those happy Walmart families! I believe they are bragging about spending over a billion dollars to raise salaries.
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I never under any circumstances shop at Walmart. They were at the forefront of the movement that has undermined our society–buy lots, cheap, exploit workers the world over, and grab what you can for yourself.
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