Maurice Cunningham is the ghostbuster of Dark Money in education. He is a professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts. He is a hero of the Resistance in my forthcoming book SLAYING GOLIATH.
In this post, he details the efforts of the Walton Family of Arkansas to block the Massachusetts’ legislators who are trying to increase funding for the public schools of their state.
He writes:
The three interest groups pushing to undermine the Massachusetts senate’s education funding bill are all Walton funded, two of them essentially full-time agents of the Waltons. They have to solve a problem for the right-wing Wal-Mart heirs: not that funding public education might fail, but that it will succeed.
The Waltons, who contributed over $2 million in dark and gray money to the pro-charters side in 2016 through mechanisms set up by Democrats for Education Reform Massachusetts, would prefer to promote charter schools and charge toward a fully privatized system with employee relations mimicking those of Wal-Mart itself. But the political momentum now is all in the direction of a vast increase in public funding, and the Waltons’ best hope is to throw sand into the implementation gears.
He quotes from two books that explain the Walton ideology. This is one:
This is the ideological mind set of the Waltons, as explained by historian Nelson Lichtenstein in The Retail Revolution: How Wal-Mart Created a Brave New World of Business. Of The Walton family’s interest in education, Lichtenstein writes:
Because so much of Walton and Wal-Mart philanthropy is crudely self-interested, critics are tempted to find a pecuniary motive for the Walton family’s interest in education. But their support for competition and privatization is an entirely ideological project, based on a desire to enhance the social and cultural value of a free market in which government is weak while public goods like hurricane relief, education, and health care are the fodder for entrepreneurial transformation. Since public schools are by far the most pervasive of public institutions, and highly unionized to boot, this “$700-plus-billion-a-year industry”—John Walton’s phrase—has been a good place to start.
If you think all this sounds somewhat Koch-like, Charles and the late David Koch committed to K-12 education reform too –by which they also mean to destroy public education. The Kochs and Waltons have kicked in $5 million each as partners in a project called 4.0 that will be an ideas factory for privatization. Also, never untangle the Kochs or Waltons ideology with their fervor for low taxes on themselves.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Kochs and Waltons = Thugs and SWINDLERS.
They’re not just anti-public school. They’re anti-public school STUDENT.
They actively work against students who attend public schools. That is just a fact. They can try to bury it in a cloud of misleading nonsense about supporting “students and not buildings” but the practical and immediate result of the work of many ed reformers is to harm students in public schools.
I know it’s part of a Grand Plan! Privatization or “choice” or lower taxes or an ideological opposition to labor unions – whatever.
Watch what they do, not what they say. There’s two groups of ed reformers- the “agnostics” who provide no practical value to public school students and the charter and voucher cheerleaders, who work against public school students.
Either way, public school students get screwed.
If your state or city or school is looking to hire one of these people ask them to show you what they have actually accomplished that benefits students in PUBLIC schools. They’re sneaky! They WILL change the subject to charters and vouchers. Force them to answer the question.
Yes. They are not redefining how to have excellent schools, but only how to keep certain kids from having an education.
And the whole ed reform echo chamber will continue to be dependent on Walton money and will continue to back them enthusiastically as they attack the schools public school students actually attend.
None of them will break ranks. Public school students just go easily under the ed reform “movement” bus. Collateral damage.
You won’t find a single criticism of any of the billionaire backed “ed reform” initiatives among any of the ed reform groups who take their funding. The Waltons could work to shut down every public school in the state and they whole echo chamber would continue clapping in unison.