Jeff Bryant has won one of the annual Project Censored awards for his brilliant article about the malign intrusion of Walmart into public education.
We may differ about which person is “the worst in the World,” but if there were a competition for the “Worst Corporation in the World,” Walmart would definitely be at or near the top. They treat their workers horribly. They fight unions. They fought paying a living wage or even a minimum wage. I have heard that Walmart workers are given advice about how to apply for food stamps and welfare.
But that’s not all. Walmart destroys Main Street. It undercuts all the Mom-and-Pop stores by offering shoddy foreign-made shlock and drives them out of business. Mom and Pop, who once lived in dignity, are lucky if they can get a job as a greeter at Walmart. The small towns of America are being hollowed out by Walmart’s cut-throat competition. If zwalmart doesn’t get the profit it expected, it closes, leaving behind the devastated small towns where the closed shops are for rent.
The Waltons, the richest family in America, have placed their bets and their billions squarely behind charter schools. They would support vouchers too, but charters are easier as their preferred method of cutting down public education, which the Waltons despise. They not only fund new charters and existing charters, they give millions to TFA and to mainstream media outlets with the hope that they can buy good coverage.
If I found a magic lantern and were granted three wishes, one of them would be that all our billionaires lost their billions. That would be the best hope for our democracy.
It is a fact that Walmart depends on food stamps and other social safety net programs to help the corporation boost its profits by paying poverty wages.
Walmart Wages Are the Main Reason People Depend on Food Stamps
https://www.thenation.com/article/walmart-wages-are-the-main-reason-people-depend-on-food-stamps/
Report: Walmart Workers Cost Taxpayers $6.2 Billion In Public Assistance
https://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/04/15/report-walmart-workers-cost-taxpayers-6-2-billion-in-public-assistance/#57dc74a0720b
New Report Shows How Walmart Forces Its Employees to Live on the Dole
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/06/report-walmart-forces-employees-dole-taxpayers/
I have heard that Walmart workers are given advice about how to apply for food stamps and welfare.” Don’t forget whatever version of health care for the indigent a state has — in lieu of employer-provided health care.
That’s what makes the whole “lower prices” think a joke. You’re still paying, but through your taxes.
It is a well known fact that the Walton Family Foundation is a tax avoidance strategy for the stingy Waltons. They get to avoid paying some taxes while they try to undermine public education and work against union employees. https://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2014/06/04/report-walton-philanthropy-a-tax-dodge-to-which-heirs-dont-contribute
While this is a good story, I believe there are several additional stories about privatization that should be told to a much wider audience than just those that follow this blog. I would like to see a story about the impact of other billionaires like Gates, Broad and DFER on privatization. I would also like to see story on the collusion between government, both on the federal and state levels and the wealthy to destroy authentic public education. I would also like to see more stories like the Burris’ expose on waste and fraud in charters in more mainstream publications. I would like to see a story on the human toll of privatization, and I would like to see a story that follows the dark money that attempts to buy local school board elections to control the privatization narrative and path. While the Waltons may be one of the big privatization cheerleaders, there are many more assaults on public schools that should be examined in the sinister plot to deny local communities their right to democratic input, and the future of public education.
This potentially good news is from William L. Phillis | Ohio Coalition for Equity & Adequacy of School Funding. William Phillis keeps up on Ohio policies and political shenanigans but he also has an eye out for nationally important developments.
“Voucher Watch launched
The New Jersey-based Education Law Center (ELC) and the law firm of Munger, Tolles and Olson LLP have formed an initiative to provide assistance to those who are fighting to stop the expansion of vouchers.
The Education Law Center, headed by attorney David Sciarra, provides legal counsel and support for the long-running school finance case in New Jersey and is a national network of advocates, law firms and civil rights advocacy organizations working to secure high quality educational opportunities for public school children.
ELC executive Director David Sciarra and Molly Hunter, an attorney with ELC, were actively supportive of the plaintiffs in the Ohio DeRolph school funding case. Recently, ELC and Munger, Tolles and Olson LLP represented public school parents, pro bono, in the Nevada Lopez v Schwartz case in which the Supreme Court found Education Savings Account vouchers unconstitutional.
Choice advocates argue that tax money for education belongs to the individual, not the school system. If that is true, why not eliminate all taxes for education and let each family pay for the education of their children. Of course, that would not be efficacious because some children would not be educated and thus the social benefit of education would be greatly diminished. The founders of the nation and various states understood the absolute necessity of a “system” to which all children are equally entitled.
Voucher supporters argue that they pay taxes and thus are entitled to school vouchers. This defies logic. Taxes paid for the construction and maintenance of the highway system are used by the federal government, states and political subdivisions for the system-not for vouchers to some individuals for their own road construction and maintenance.”
Without politicians and a silent press, the Walton heirs and Bill and Melinda Gates wouldn’t have the opportunity to dismantle public education. The Center for American Progress, funded by the Gates and Walton heirs has a VP of Education Policy that was formerly TFA. CAP’s prescription for student outcome measures in higher ed. (echoed in legislation introduced by Rubio) coupled with Gates’ Frontier Set indicates ed. plotting is expanding into universities.
If Rep. Lujan of New Mexico, who heads the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chose to signal change, it would put the Dems in the win column. The 3 busiest days in Capitol switchboard history were opposition to DeVos’ appointment. The Network for Public Education, without media coverage and without an advertising budget, grew its membership from 30,000 to 330,000 in the weeks following DeVos’ appointment.
The inescapable conclusion is the Dem. hierarchy cares more about money from Wall Street and the richest 0.1% than, they care about electoral wins.
OMG!
He revealed how awful the situation is. Still an OMG.
I wish he would visit St. Louis for a week or so…..I bet he could come up with another award winning article. Just a matter of finding a few good people to talk to…..
Because of Taft Hartley and Landrum Griffin the only realistic weapon, Labor had to fight these people was taken off the table. Perhaps the next time Capitalism collapses there will be someone in office who is up to the task.
IT is criminal that EFCA never made it out of committee. And that was chump change.
Ah but they also gave “free” breakfasts to title one public schools – don’t know if they still are doing this. Yes they do! I know first-hand as I was working at such a school several years back. And to add insult to injury, the food they provided was UNHEALTHY as can be (sugary and salty despite being labeled the opposite). There were shortbread like cookies for breakfast and labeled as “smart food” because they had pictures of presidents on the wrapping. There were burritos that had egg and a gray colored grizzly meat inside and were heated in the plastic wrapping in the microwave… and those are just a few of the “healthy” selections… loved the day glo yogurts too. One teacher counted the sugar and salt count in all the items on a breakfast tray and the sugar and salt contents combined were off the charts. Ughhhh. Wonder if Walmart is providing charters with “free” breakfasts of the same “nutritional” level!
artseagal,
Menus in Newark are similar.
:(…. these poor kids being given this horrible start to the day!
The ubiquitous menu item I do not understand it pizza and corn.
“The Walmart Way”
Walmart schools
Are Charter chains
Walmart rules
And Walmart gains
Walmart teachers
Walmart pay
Walmart features
Walmart way
Walmart towns
Walmart holdings
Shop shut-downs
And home foreclosings
Walmart this
And Walmart that
Walmart kiss
Of death, in fact
Nonetheless,
“Let us praise the Billyanaires”
Let us praise the Billyanaires
For all we have that’s good
Cuz Billyanaires have saintly cares
Like Noah in the Flood
Let us praise their every act
And follow each suggestion
Cuz every claim is purely fact
That none should ever question
Let us praise to the Billyanheirs too.
After Bill and Melinda pass, we have decades of potential meddling by their kids to look forward to. 🙂
I know Bill has promised to give away all his billions and (supposedly) set up the Gates Foundation for that purpose, but you have to ask yourself this: if he is really giving away all his money, how does he remain number one or two year after year among the wealthiest?
I’ll believe his claim to giving everything away when I see it.
Walletsmart Walmart smart cookies!
Get your free ones kiddies.
Diabetes awaits you!
But don’t die just yet.
Fill your hungry engines!
… And our coffers …
On your way to those pearly gates!
Although I haven’t earned my poetic badge SomeDAM…felt the need to add on😱
“The Midnight Blog of Diane Ravitch” (apologies to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
Hear ye, my teachers, of techy wares
The “teaching” inventions of billionaires
Of testing and Cores
Political whores
And a blogger with passion who really cares
She said to her friends, “If the billionaires roll
By software or hard, from your towns tonight
Hang a lantern aloft from the tall flag-pole
At the public school, as a signal light —
One if by Gates and two if by Broad
And I, on the opposite side of the road,
Ready to blog and spread the alarm
Through every American village and farm
For the parents and kids to march arm in arm
Then she said “good night” and with a blogger’s adieu
Warned to “Be watchful of ‘privatize’ clue'”
Just as the wealthy were meeting with pols
And paying the think-tanks and internet trolls
For “proof” that their methods were “tried and true” —
The Common Core and the testing too —
That only THEY know what to do
A propaganda that was magnified
By billions of dollars, far and wide
Meanwhile, her friends, through blogging and tweet
Wander and watch with eagle eyes
Till they read of the program to “personalize”
The learning, by students with tech, for sure
The smell of a hardware and software cheat
By usual folks, with their usual lies
Peddling wares at the techy store
They hoisted the lanterns up the poles
At the public schools, throughout the land
To the top of the masts, hand over hand
Unbeknownst to the blogger trolls
On the internet sites (paid as planned
By billionaires, who worshipped Rand)
Up the flag-pole, so steep and tall
The highest flagpole of them all
They raised the lanterns above the trees
Where Diane Ravitch saw with ease
And moved to action from the call
A flurry of blogs and a trumpet of tweet
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark
And beneath from her fingers, in passing a spark
Struck out by a blogger both fearless and fleet
That was all! And yet through the gloom and the light
The fate of a Nation was riding that night
And the spark stuck by the blogger in flight
Kindled the Land into flame with it’s heat
You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the brutish billionaires tired and fled–
How the parents gave them piece of mind
(And not of the peaceful restful kind)
Chasing the billionaires down the lane
Then crossing the field to emerge again
Under the trees at the edge of the school
To banish forever the billionaire rule
So through the night, she persevered
And so through the night went her cry of alarm
Through every American village and farm
A cry of defiance and not of fear
A voice in the darkness a knock at the door
And a word that shall echo forevermore!
For borne on the night wind of the Past
Through all our history to the last
In the hour of darkness and peril and need
The people will waken and listen to hear
Of the ominous danger of billionaire greed
Threat to democracy that we hold dear
Thank you, SDP!
Bravo!
cross posted at https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/How-the-Cutthroat-Walmart-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Children_Education_Education-Costs_Education-Funding-170625-662.html#comment664229
with a link to your post : Carol Burris: The Broken Promises and Scams of the Charter Industry https://dianeravitch.net/2017/06/23/carol-burris-the-broken-promises-and-scams-of-the-charter-zindustry/
Thanks Diane