The Chicago Sun-Times reported on a startling conflict of interest.
The rightwing, anti-union Walton Family Foundation has been funding the Illinois State Charter School Commission, a state agency, as well as many charter schools in Illinois. When the Chicago Public Schools recommended closing two charter schools because of their poor performance, the Commission blocked the closing. The two failing charters were also funded by the Walton Family Foundation.
Have you ever heard of a public agency that relied for funding on a private foundation with a political agenda of privatization?
Reporters Dan Mihalopoulos and Lauren FitzPatrick write:
A private foundation started by the late Walmart mogul Sam Walton and his wife has contributed heavily to the Illinois State Charter School Commission and to two charter operators whose schools the state agency has blocked the Chicago Board of Education from closing over poor student performance, records obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times show.
Even in the complex history of public education in Chicago, the situation involving the two charters, the Chicago Public Schools, the charter commission and the Arkansas-based Walton Family Foundation is unusual.
Unusual is an understatement.
For years, CPS has faced criticism for allowing the expansion and taxpayer-financed funding of privately run charters even as it shut down traditional public schools over low enrollment and bad test scores.
Aiming to show it expects charters to meet the same standards as CPS schools, the Board of Ed moved last November to cut off funding for three schools — including the Amandla Charter School in Englewood and Lighthouse Academies’ school in Bronzeville — over poor student performance. The charter commission overruled the Board of Ed and, in March, blocked CPS from closing the schools.
Beside Amandla and the Bronzeville Lighthouse Charter School, the commission also saved the Betty Shabazz International Charter School’s Barbara A. Sizemore Campus in Englewood from being closed. The Walton foundation hasn’t donated to Shabazz.
CPS responded later in March by suing the state agency over its ruling, which Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s schools chief, Forrest Claypool, called “ill-advised and destructive.”
Over the past 20 years, the Walton foundation has given more than $45 million to educational groups in Illinois, including charter schools and the state commission that regulates them, records examined by the Sun-Times show.
The biggest recipients were the Chicago-based IFF — which helps charter schools finance construction projects and got more than $9 million — and the Illinois Network of Charter Schools, an advocacy group that’s received about $8 million.
The Illinois charter operator that benefited most from Walton grants was the UNO Charter School Network, which got more than $3.5 million from the foundation. Its last grant was in 2012 — a year before Sun-Times reports exposed a contracting scandal involving the politically connected charter operator.
Though the commission is a government agency, its initial funding came from private organizations and individuals, including the Walton foundation. Current and former commission leaders say they sought grants because state lawmakers didn’t provide funding when they created the agency.
Members of the commission insisted that they were not influenced by the Walton Family Foundation to stop the closure of the two Walton-funded charter schools.
Whether they were or they were not, it is strange to see a state agency underwritten by the sponsor of the organizations that the agency is supposed to regulate. A classic example of regulatory capture.
A version of regulatory capture can be found in many states. This is certainly true in Ohio where the online charter school is demanding money for facilities. At the federal level KIPPs 2012 application for federal funds for facilities was redacted, preventing anyone outside of USDE from finding out the rates of attrition and closures. That is to say nothing of the near perfect alignment of USDEs policies with the agenda of the Gates Foundation.
Arkansas’ Revenge …
Charterbaggers Are The New Carpetbaggers
“Members of the commission insisted that they were not influenced by the Walton Family Foundation to stop the closure of the two Walton-funded charter schools.”
Well, duh. They’re ed reformers! They are BY DEFINITION good and honorable people.
They’re not subject to the ordinary ethics issues of mere mortals. They float above mundane concerns like “conflict of interest” and “no transparency” on a sea of pure science and data. All they have do is assert that there is no conflict and presto! Conflict doesn’t exist.
I’m outraged anyone would ask. I think it’s VERY divisive and probably means you hate children 🙂
No real surprise here. It’s spelled out in a general way in *Dark Money,* and another example of the evils of Plutocracy. With Rauner as Governor and the legislature locked in a duel to the (political) death, there is little chance of this clearly corrupt practice getting fixed soon. JVK
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé and commented:
The Walton (Walmart) Family Foundation is funding government agencies that end up supporting the Walton agenda to destroy community based, democratic, transparent, nonprofit public education.
And let’s not forget that Hillary Clinton is VERY close with the Walton Family:
http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/alice-walton-donated-353400-clintons-victory-fund
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/02/22/hillary-clinton-wal-mart-minimum-wage-layoffs-store-closures-column/80225734/
Thanks for the fun…..it is almost impossible to get people in St. Louis to say much about charter schools…A supreme court judge was quoted (I still suspect the newspaper of adding the error on their own) that there were 10,000 students in St. Louis Charter Schools when the actual figure seems to be 8100. I tried to goad them into saying something…..anything…..we’ll see….I gave it my best shot:”Walton child abuse in Illinois–blame democrats or GOP?”………My gut feeling is the democrats……they remain so reluctant to say an unkind word about Charter Schools….and worshipping Bill Gates has not been a good path towards freedom to speak. But he is not a member of the Walton family….he just shops in their stores. (just kidding)
http://interact.stltoday.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1178556&p=16057950#p16057950
after reposting the information from here in this thread, I added….
In Missouri, there is no danger of anything remotely like this.
We have an 8 member Missour charter public school association–(Doug Thaman)?
9:00am
MCPSA Spring Federal Program Workshop – St. Louis
When
Tue, June 7, 9am – 4pm
Where
Associated General Contractors, 6330 Knox Industrial Dr # 200, St. Louis, MO 63139, United
not to be confused with a nine member commission, which is nothing at all like an association….Mayor Slay’s education liaison to lead state charter school commission http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/educ … 3b741.html
Missouri Charter Public School Commission Website…
mcpsc.mo.gov
Missouri Charter Public School Commission Website … About the Missouri Charter Public Schools Commission. … Office of the Executive Director Robbyn Wahby, …
one little problem, with no media coverage that I have been able to find……
Missouri Charter Public School Commission Website…
mcpsc.mo.gov
Missouri Charter Public School Commission Website … About the Missouri Charter Public Schools Commission. … Office of the Executive Director Robbyn Wahby, …
one little problem, with no media coverage that I have been able to find……
There is a problem with this website’s security certificate.
This organization’s certificate has been revoked.
Security certificate problems may indicate an attempt to fool you or intercept any data you send to the server.
We recommend that you close this webpage and do not continue to this website.
Well…with all due respect….it is just their security certificate for the Missouri Charter Public School Commission Website…the whole idea of charters….freedom from too much supervision by state bureaucrats.
nothing is easy….Mayor Slay’s education liaison to lead state charter school commission http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/educ … 3b741.html
one more shot at posting the link to this 2015 story…. http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/education/mayor-slay-s-education-liaison-to-lead-state-charter-school/article_0fd0cc23-55ce-59c2-8eec-8fe1d1d3b741.html
I was talking to an 8th grader today about her choice to attend the traditional high school in our neighborhood instead of traveling to a private school with a strong basketball program and, in addition to complimenting her choice of academics over basketball, I said, (and I think this applies to charters too)
“It doesn’t matter where you go to school. It matters how you go to school.”
“It doesn’t matter where you go to school. It matters how you go to school.” that is a great sounding pair of sentences. The second one is certainly true…but the first one–it does matter where you go to school, and that is not always a good thing….if the cards are stacked in favor of, or against that school—and the impact of how the cards are stacked have an impact in both directions. The case of Roe versus Wade seemed to come down on the side of the attitude that it does matter where you go to school.
“Have you ever heard of a public agency that relied for funding on a private…”
Yes. ALL public agencies in the USA rely on funding by the private sector.
Our local public h.s. union president sits on that commission. Our union has not filed a single grievance in over 10 years.You get the picture. God help us.