The Walton Family Foundation is the fruit of the Walmart chain. It was created by the Waltons, one of the richest families in the world. The three senior members of the Walton family–Alice Walton, Jim Walton, and Rob Walton–have a collective net worth in excess of $150 billion. There is a younger generation of Waltons whose wealth is not included in that total. The Walton family increases its wealth by $4 million an hour, every hour of every day.
The Walton Foundation has a few causes in which it concentrates its giving. Reforming K-12 education is one of the major areas for giving.
The Walton Foundation is the biggest single private funder of charters schools and vouchers in the United States.
In 2018, it gave $210 million to a long list of grantees to promote its K-12 goals, especially privatization of public schools via charters and vouchers.
In the same year, it increased that giving by another $238.6 million, in a section of its website called “Special Projects,” many of which went to the same K-12 charters and vouchers, or advocacy for charters and vouchers.
I am leaving it to you to review the list of grants. What do you see that is interesting or surprising? Some years I read the entire list. Now I am asking you to do it and report back.
The only other source of funding at this scale is the U.S. Department of Education’s Charter Schools Program, which gave $440 million in 2018 to launch new charter schools, most of which went to large corporate charter chains like KIPP, IDEA, and Success Academy in New York City. The original federal program, created in 1994, was intended to launch start-up charters that needed a financial boost, not to build financial behemoths to replace public schools. Under DeVos, the CSP has become a juggernaut to disrupt communities and states, whether or not they want charters. New Hampshire, for example, got the largest single state grant of $46 million, and its Democratic-controlled legislature has thus far refused to accept the money, which would double the number of charters in the state and knock a huge hole in the financing of public schools.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
They’re smart though, the Waltons. They buy both conservative and progressive ed reform groups to ensure everyone says the same things.
I wonder that the Center for American Progress ‘K-12 programs” might be. Has anyone ever seen one of those in real life?
I thought you would enjoy seeing that the Waltons are open handed with those allegedly on the left or at least the center.
Silences any criticism. Low cost.
Education First Consulting, LLC
To support grantee’s initiative to lead the development of a comprehensive strategic plan for the Indiana Department of Education (IDOE) that will inform the design and implementation of new programs, policies, and services.
Clever of Indiana lawmakers to outsource their jobs to a contractor hired and paid by the Waltons. Done.
I wonder what they do all day. Raise money for reelection, probably. Couldn’t we just skip the middlemen and get rid of them completely?
One thing I noticed on quick review is how many of the “charitable” grant money was given to charters and their organizations “TO ADVOCATE”. It wasn’t going to pay for meals or teaching supplies or anything that directly helps children in charters. It was a grant so that charter or the charter cheerleading advocacy organization could ADVOCATE so that their charters could take more taxpayer dollars out of the mouths of public school students.
In other words, “charitable” grants for “advocacy” to undermine public schools. I wonder how much of that “charitable” money is subsidizing the public relations efforts where overpaid shills for large charter networks demand that severely disabled children be evicted from their public school because their charter wanted to spend their donations on “advocacy” to undermine public schools instead of using it to privately run a school.
One thing I notice is that the Waltons are able to find enough people who work in the charter industry who clearly lack any kind of empathy or conscience. What’s good for my bank account is good for charter children seems to be their driving mantra.
How else to explain the kind of people who seem to express so much delight when they “advocate” with their charitable money to evict some of the most severely disabled children from their public school when they could spend it to simply find their own private space to open a charter school?
I noticed that Success Academy got millions and millions for “advocacy” and I did not find any grants to Brooklyn Prospect Charter School. When Success Academy had a choice to use their lavish donations to find private space or to evict severely disabled children, the people at Success Academy knew exactly what they should do. Evict severely disabled children. I think what shocks me is how fast the top brass and the middle brass and even the bottom brass at Success Academy snap to it whenever Eva has a demand that hurts children who aren’t in the charter. Eva’s minions perform it without question Whether it is to release a young child’s private records in an attempt to destroy his life because his mom wouldn’t stop telling the truth, whether it is remaining silent and complicit while Eva uses their school to lobby to demand Betsy DeVos be confirmed, or whether it is the eviction of severely disabled children from their public school. If Eva says Betsy DeVos must be Secretary of Education or that severely disabled children must suffer so she could use the millions she has for “advocacy” and not to simply find her own space, then she has found lots of greedy minions to work for her who seem to lack even an ounce of compassion or empathy. They claim they don’t support Trump while embracing all of his values. Winning is everything. Nothing else matters unless you defeat and smash your “opponent”.
When Brooklyn Prospect Charter needed more space but getting “free” space from Mayor Bloomberg would harm public school children, that charter found their own space. The people at Brooklyn Prospect did something that is an anathema to the folks at Success Academy. They chose the moral choice that still allowed them to do what their mission is — teach students in their charter. Success Academy chose the Trump choice — the choice that harms their “opponents” (children in public schools) the most. Perhaps that is why Brooklyn Prospect isn’t getting the same “advocacy” money that charters like mega grant recipients like Success Academy get from Walton. Those “advocacy” grants seem to be given to the people who embrace that “advocacy” isn’t just running your charter for your kids, it is advocating to undermine and destroy the public schools and the most vulnerable kids. It is the reward for those who would rather evict the most severely disabled children from their school than to do what a charter with far less money did and find private space.
It is the reward for having your CEO “advocate” for Betsy DeVos’ confirmation when it was in doubt. It is the reward for being silent and complicit knowing your generous salary might be in danger if you question releasing a 6 year old’s private records to publicly destroy him. As Trump has shown, having no conscience can be financially rewarding.
Waltons love to fund advocacy. They love KIPP and TFA.
KEY point: In other words, “charitable” grants for “advocacy” to undermine public schools.
$1 million dollars to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation in 2018! I wonder what the Waltons get for their money? Looking at the vast number of recipients of Walton cash across the country, I can see the Waltons have a widespread impact in every corner of the nation. While the Waltons may be among the wealthiest of the villainthropists, it is easy to see why we have the “best” democracy money can buy.
Look for the media the Waltons fund.
Politico- $200,000
Axios- $75,000
Chalkbeat $435,000
I noticed that, too! And also money to Chalkbeat, an on-line news site that covers K-12 education! And the Waltons gave to the National Resources Defense Council and The Nature Conservancy! And a Habitat for Humanity!! (Isn’t that Jimmy Carter’s favorite program?)
And sadly, the Waltons also gave $1 million to National Public Radio. And grants to Doctors Without Borders and The Smithsonian Institution.
And..this has to be the most shocking grant of all:
$25,000 to the Committee to Protect Journalists!
I don’t think that simply receiving a Walton grant means that an organization is corrupt. After all, they even gave a grant to the NAACP (!!) and the NAACP came out with the report demanding a moratorium on charters.
But when an organization is getting a lot of money AND pushing – against all rational thought — an agenda that leads charter CEOs to loudly demand at every public forum they can find that Betsy DeVos be confirmed, then one wonders how much the money corrupts those charter CEOs.
Because anyone who says money doesn’t corrupt those charter CEOs has to argue that those charter CEOs would be worshipping DeVos even if they weren’t getting huge grants from the foundations that wanted her to be Secretary of Education.
One would have to say that they didn’t embrace DeVos because they were getting grants, they were embracing DeVos because they simply adore everything she stands for and share every one of her values. And that, perhaps, is even worse.
Did a charter CEO empower DeVos for the money or because they are two of a kind who share the exact same vision for schools?
CAP-$275,000, Third Way funded also.
Reason and Heritage got $1/2 mil.
Democrats are mostly too gutless to recognize that “the U.S. Department of Education’s Charter Schools Program, which gave $440 million in 2018 to launch new charter schools, most of which went to large corporate charter chains like KIPP, IDEA, and Success Academy in New York City” is re-institution of segregation…..on a scale which requires too much explanation to not be dismissed by “what do you mean segregation—look how many black students are included?” The planning necessary is sinister, but not always effective where it is fought.
Dear Walton Family: Here’s something you could do that would actually make a HUGE difference to the present and future of U.S. education. Send to the family of every poor child in America a little home library consisting of free copies of the following books:
Bemelmans, Ludwig. Madeline. Viking, 1967.
Brown, Margaret Wise. Goodnight Moon. HarperFestival, 2007.
D’Aulaire, Ingri and Edgar Parin d’Aulaire. D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths. Delacorte, 1992.
Felleman, Hazel, and Edward Frank Allen. The Best Loved Poems of the American People. Doubleday, 1936.
Freeman, Don. Corduroy. Viking, 2014.
Geisel, Theodor Seuss. Oh, the Places You’ll Go! Random House, 1990.
Geisel, Theodor Seuss. One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish. Random House, 1960.
Geisel, Theodor Seuss. The Cat in the Hat. Random House, 1957.
Johnson, Crockett. Harold and the Purple Crayon. HarperCollins, 2015.
Keats, Ezra Jack. The Snowy Day. Puffin, 1976.
Piper, Watty. The Little Engine That Could. Grosset, 2001.
Potter, Beatrix. The Tale of Peter Rabbit. Warne, 2002.
Sendak, Maurice. Where the Wild Things Are. HarperCollins, 2012.
Wright, Blanch Fisher. The Real Mother Goose. Cartwheel, 1994.
Essential, of course, are the d’Aulaires’s myths book and the Mother Goose rhymes. It makes a HUGE difference for kids actually to own their own copies! And this would be a lot cheaper than many of your other initiatives are.
Thank you.
Or, Michael Bloomberg, you could do this instead of running for president. Or Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, you could do this. Or Jeff Bezos. How about it?
This would change EVERYTHING.
And your name would be long, long remembered for this GREAT ACT of compassion and reason.
Or, Michael, do this AND run for president. If you did this out of the gate, you would be a shoe-in.
P.S. A follow-up a few years later with copies of The Little Prince and A Wrinkle in Time would be great.
“Ohio Excels” is a recipient. This is a group led by State Sen. Peggy Lehner’s BFF Lisa Gray — who has zero teaching experience in Ohio. She worked for Fordham at one point I think. There isn’t one educator on their Board – it is made up of Ohio businesspeople. This group was instrumental in hijacking our new High School grad requirements and derailing legislation that would have ended school takeovers. It is despicable that the Ed chair listens to these people.
Fordham got $400,000
If I’m not mistaken, Non-Partisan Education Review wrote something about Ohio’s superintendent in the telling of the chronology of Fordham’s funding.
The Catholic school chain, Cristo Rey, received more than $400,000. Media reported the chain buys Common Core curriculum and utilizes computers. The Christiansen Institute reported about a Cristo Rey prototype school with classes of 60 students. Bill Gates also funded Cristo Rey. The chain has spread to 17 states. It appears the brand is for schools in poorer areas. Ohio has three, Cincinnati, Columbus, and Cleveland. Ohio has many Catholic schools in the suburbs, enrolling children of higher income families which appear to operate differently than Cristo Rey.
Ohio taxpayers give the schools $6,000 per student. Media reported the Cristo Rey model requires students to work 1 week a month (e.g. for private companies) and return the pay to the school.
As a taxpayer I feel morally terrible that I am forced to fund this model. And, if the school is cherry picking students and spending my tax dollars to promote the school, I’d feel even worse.
The Gates funded Pahara got $750,000.
Credit where credit is due- the Waltons funded a little known, branded college which finds itself in reduced financial circumstances- President and Fellows of Harvard College, $400,000, $556,000, $645,000.
And, the Koch’s State Policy Network (SPN)
For a hoot, the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices
Funded, the impoverished Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York
Funded- Parent groups who are far removed from the Arkansas colony- those in Greater Camden, Massachusetts Parents United, Memphis Lift Parents, etc.
I didn’t see Pastors for Texas Children listed but, Georgetown and Trinity Universities got money.
And, Howard Fuller’s Marquette.
I presume obfuscation was the intent of the listings’ lack of order (probably not random).