Search results for: "walton"
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Maurice Cunningham: Waltons Target Warren Because of Her Proposed Wealth Tax

By dianeravitch
November 22, 2019 //
11

Maurice Cunningham, a political science professor at the University of Massachusetts, is a specialist in “follow the money.”

He writes in his latest post that the Waltons are targeting Elizabeth Warren not so much because of her stance on charter schools but because of her proposed wealth tax.

He writes:

If the Waltons hate anything so much as unions, it would be taxes. The family and WalMart are huge into tax dodging. And guess who has a plan for that? Elizabeth Warren. So yes the Waltons are big into charter schools but they are bigger into their own wealth. Disrupting Warren on any grounds is a good thing to them. Remember, dark money is never what it seems.

Here in Massachusetts the Waltons have their own political operation as I showed in The Walton Family’s Massachusetts Political Team, 2019.

And the beauty of these political operations the Walton Family Foundation backs in Massachusetts and around the country? They are mostly tax deductible at the top rate of thirty-seven percent. The Waltons pick up about sixty-three percent of this and you, the grateful taxpayer, pick up thirty-seven percent.

When the Waltons push charter schools, what they really mean is lower state and local taxes on Wal-Mart. When the Waltons try to shout down Elizabeth Warren, it’s about the wealth tax. The Waltons do all this with tax deductible political fronts. Taxes, taxes, taxes.

What happened in Georgia is that a taxpayer subsidized unit of the political front of one of America’s richest families attempted to shut down a political candidate. Expect more of this.

Money never sleeps. Follow the money.

At this very moment, Walmart is suing various states (even Arkansas) to lower their property taxes! That means less money available to support public schools and other public services! This is a family whose collective wealth is more than $160 billion, and they think their property taxes are too high!

Maurice Cunningham played an important role in the referendum about charter school expansion in Massachusetts in 2016 by revealing Dark Money and its sources; I write about him in my forthcoming book SLAYING GOLIATH. And the first page of the book quotes his memorable line: “Money never sleeps. Follow the money.”

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Dark Money, Education Reform, Funding, Privatization, Walton Foundation

Walton Billionaires Fund Disruption of Warren Rally

By dianeravitch
November 22, 2019 //
20

Twitter lit up this morning with news of a disruption of an Elizabeth Warren rally by charter school “parents” in matching T-shirts. Hovering in the background was Howard Fuller, whose Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO) received millions during its lifetime of advocating for vouchers from billionaire foundations such as Bradley, Walton, and Gates.

Peter Greene has gathered the story of the funders of the “parent” disruption of the Warren rally. 

The usual billionaire-funded suspects. The disrupters came from Walton-funded organizations, representatives of DFER, and other pro-charter groups, whose purpose was to embarrass Warren for having the audacity to propose a massive increase in funding for poor kids and kids with disabilities and a cutoff of Betsy DeVos’s slush fund for corporate charters known as the federal Charter Schools Program (which currently spends $440 million annually).

He writes:

As [Ryan] Grim [of The Intercept] tweeted, “A group funded by some of the richest people in the world, the Waltons, just disrupted an @ewarren speech on the 1881 Atlanta washerwoman strike. Can’t make this stuff up.” It’s not a new game; charter advocates have often loaded up parents and students, made them some t-shirts, and deployed them as citizen lobbyists.

There’s a lot of money and power behind the charter school movement. Expect more of these shenanigans if Warren continues to lead the Democratic pack. The charter industry is not gong to let her go without a fight.

 

Categories Accountability, Black Alliance for Educational Options, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Democrats for Education Reform, Disruption, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Vouchers, Walton Foundation

“LilSis” Maps the Walton Billionaires Who Are Crushing the Teachers, Parents, and Public Schools of Little Rock

By dianeravitch
November 17, 2019 //
10

LilSis (also known as the Public Accountability Project) pays careful attention to the networks and money behind nefarious efforts to destroy the public sector.

In this report, LilSis describes the corporate backers of school privatization against whom Little Rock teachers went on strike. The money behind this network of interlinking organizations and individuals is the Walton family, whose wealth clocked in at $163 Billion (that’s Billion with a B) in 2018.

LilSis writes:

A major backer of the anti-union, pro-charter agenda in Arkansas is the Walton family, whose foundation is a huge funder of the school privatization infrastructure that exists across the state. In addition to the Waltons, corporate elites from Murphy Oil, the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce, the Arkansas Democrat Gazetteand others are backers of the school privatization efforts. These corporate interests are close to Governor Hutchinson, who supports their agenda, and they have close ties to the state Board of Education. In addition, they are also interlocked with a host of lobbyists and academics that push their agenda…

The Waltons are major advocate of charter schools nationally, and they carry out their school privatization agenda through their Walton Family Foundation, which showers hundreds of millions on pro-charter groups and schools. The foundation claims it has invested a whopping $407 million into pushing charter schools since 1997.According to a recent report put out by the Arkansas Education Association, the Waltons pump millions into propping up the state’s school privatization infrastructure – or what the report calls the “Arkansas’s School Privatization Empire.” 

It’s not just that the Waltons give big money to a few groups – it’s also that these groups then distribute that money to other organizations, lobbyists, consultants, and academics, creating a vast network of billionaire-funded activity to attack unionized teachers and push charter schools. 

For example, the Walton family Foundation gave $350,000 to the Arkansans for Education Reform Foundation (AERF) in 2017 – around 80% of all the contributions the organization took in that year. 

The AERF board includes other powerful funders and advocates of school privatization in the state, such as Claiborne Deming, the former CEO of Murphy Oil, a big backer of charter schools in Arkansas; William Dillard III, part of the Dilliard family that owns the Dilliard’s department stores; and Walter Hussman, publisher of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the state’s flagship newspaper. Jim Walton is also on the board.

In addition to the $350,000 that the Walton donated to the AERF in 2017, Deming gave $60,000 and Dilliard III gave $10,000, while the National Christian Foundation gave $15,000, according the the group’s 2017 990 form.

AERF has in turn used the money it receives from the Walton billionaire fortune and other Arkansas elites to fund other school privatization efforts. For example, it gave $115,000 to Arkansas Learns, which describesitself as “the Voice of Business for excellent education options – including industry-relevant career pathways…” The CEO of Arkansas Learns, Gary Newton, is also the Executive Director of the AERF (for which he earned $189,639 in compensation in 2017). 

In turn, Arkansas Learns has the same board members as AERF, and Randy Zook, the CEO of the Arkansas Chamber of Commerce, whose wife Dianne Zook is on the state Board of Education that decided to end recognition of the Little Rock teachers’ union, is also a board member. Dianne Zook is also the aunt of Gary Newton.

What a cozy and mutually beneficial arrangement: The Waltons have a lot of money to hand out to achieve their goal of privatizing public schools and breaking unions, and the recipients take the money and carry out the Waltons’ wishes.

Any time you see a group called “XXXXXXX for Education Reform,” you can be sure it is committed to charter schools, union-busting, and privatization, and the odds are high that there is Walton money behind it.

The Waltons have claimed credit for subsidizing one of every four charter schools in the nation.

LilSis creates wonderful graphical depictions of networks.

Here is the LilSis graphic of the Little Rock school privatization network. 

Categories Accountability, Arkansas, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Little Rock, Privatization, Teachers, Unions, Walton Foundation

Walton Foundation and UNCF Collaborate to Lure Young African Americans into Disruption Movement

By dianeravitch
November 14, 2019 //
17

A friend share this link about a program in which the United Negro College Fund is funded by the far-right Walton Family Foundation to give summer internships to young African Americans to work in organizations that undermine public education, unions, and the teaching profession. The purpose of the program is to build a “robust pipeline of African Americans engaged in education reform in America.”

All of the summer interns will serve with trusted arms of the ultra-conservative movement.

Summer Internship – One of the principal elements of the paid summer internship program that exposes fellows to professional careers at leading K-12 education organizations and schools focused on education reform. Specifically, fellows are deployed as interns to organizations and schools located in such cities as Boston, New York, Washington, DC, Atlanta, New Orleans, Chicago, Indianapolis, Memphis and Nashville. Examples of internship host organizations include Teach for America, New Schools Venture Fund, Paul Public Charter School, BUILD, Black Alliance for Educational Options, Thomas B. Fordham Research Institute and Stand for Children. During their internships, fellows apply what they have learned, acquire new skills, gain an understanding of the professional needs of education reform organizations and make meaningful contributions.

You can be certain that none of these bright young people will be assigned as interns at the NAACP, which called for a moratorium on charter schools in 2016.

Nor will any be detailed to work for Journey for Justice, a grassroots civil rights group that fights for democratically controlled community public schools.

Nor do I expect that any will have a chance to learn about the Walton assault on public education by spending a summer as an intern for the Network for Public Education.

They are not likely to have the chance to offer their services at any of the scores of local and state organizations that are fighting the power of billionaires like the Waltons and could really use their help.

Instead they will be trained up by the faithful servants of the privatizers and the oligarchy.

 

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Race, Walton Foundation

The Walton Family: Ungrateful Graduates of Public Schools

By dianeravitch
October 29, 2019 //
26

No philanthropy has spent more money to undermine and privatize public schools than the Waltons. The Waltons are the richest family in the U.S., possibly in the world, with a net worth in excess of $200 billion.

The Walton Family Foundation claims credit for launching at least one of every four charter schools in the nation. The foundation aims to eliminate public education, crush teachers’ unions, and destroy the teaching profession. The foundation has given nearly $100 million to Teach for America to supply inexperienced, ill-trained teachers to public and charter schools.

It is hard to understand the Waltons’ animus towards public schools, since the patriarch Sam Walton, his wife Helen, and all of his children were graduates of small-town public schools.

Sam graduated from David H. Hickman High School in Columbia, Missouri. His wife Helen was the valedictorian of her public high school in Claremont, Oklahoma.

John Walton (who died in a plane crash in 2005) graduated from the Bentonville High School in Bentonville, Arkansas.

Alice Walton, the richest woman in the world, graduated from Bentonville High School in 1966.

Jim Walton, net worth exceeding $40 billion, graduated from Bentonville High School in 1965.

Rob Walton’s wikipedia entry does not say where he attended school, but very likely it was the Bentonville public schools, like his siblings.

Why do the Waltons hate public education? Why do they feel no gratitude towards the free and democratically controlled public schools that educated them? Why no gratitude towards the experienced public school teachers at Bentonville public schools?

When a Walton store moves into a small community, it destroys Main Street by undercutting the prices that mom-and-pop stores need to survive. Mom and pop may get hired to be Walmart greeters or stocking clerks. Main Street dies as Walmart thrives. If the Walmart doesn’t show a profit, it closes, leaving the region without commerce.

On the website of the Walton Family Foundation, this saying by the matriarch is posted:

“It’s not what you gather but what you scatter that tells what kind of life you have lived.”

Favorite saying of Helen Walton
The Waltons have exemplified greed, hostility to the common good, ingratitude, selfishness. What a legacy.
 

Categories Accountability, Arkansas, Walton Foundation

Arkansas: Cathy Frye Offers a Who’s Who of the Walton Privatization Movement

By dianeravitch
October 28, 2019 //
6

Cathy Frye is a veteran journalist who joined the staff of the Arkansas Public Schools Resource Center as communications director for three years. She learned that APSRC was a shell organization funded by the billionaire Waltons to trick rural schools into joining the Walton crusade to eliminate public schools.

In this post, Frye names names.

She begins:

Tonight, I am sharing a Who’s Who in the Arkansas education “reform” movement.

First – a reminder: The end game is not charterization. It is privatization. Charter schools are merely a bridge. Look at them as place-holders.

The Arkansas Public School Resource Center, where I worked for three years as the communications director, purports to support both open-enrollment charter schools and rural traditional school districts. In actuality, APSRC is one of many Arkansas-based and Walton-funded lobbying entities.  Some of these organizations specialize in charters. Others exist to promote private schools and vouchers. One seeks to convince teachers that they don’t need to belong to unions. A couple others promote the alleged glories of school “choice.”

Here’s a list of such organizations:

Remember, Arkansas is not the only state being targeted by American billionaires who seek to do away with public education and those pesky teachers’ unions. The Waltons are among those leading the charge. Curious, isn’t it, that the Waltons and other billionaires who are supposedly concerned about education haven’t donated a dime to public schools. Instead, they’re focused on supporting charters and private schools. 

 

Categories Accountability, ALEC, Arkansas, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Walton Foundation

Massachusetts: Waltons Spend Millions to Block New Funding for Public Schools

By dianeravitch
October 24, 2019 //
43

 

Maurice Cunningham, a professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts, is renowned for his practice of “following the money” in Massachusetts. He naturally keeps encountering the Walton money that flows generously to torpedo public spending for public schools in Massachusetts. Maurice Cunningham is one of the heroes in my forthcoming book SLAYING GOLIATH.

In this post, he identifies the malign tentacles of Walton money that is currently engaged in trying to block legislation to increase the funding of public schools in the Bay State.

You can’t tell the players without a scorecard, and Cunningham provides the scorecard. The name of the organization is less important than the source of the money. If you spot a group called Latinos for Education, remember they are a Walton front.

When you think of the name Walton, think of a family that has accumulated over $150 billion but abhors unions, detests the minimum wage, and likes to keep their workers underpaid and tightly controlled. And think of a family that is intent on destroying the public schools that 85% of American children attend. How would you describe them? Avaricious. Greedy. Selfish.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Hoax, Privatization, Walton Foundation

Max Brantley: The Waltons Vicious Assault on Arkansas’ Public Schools and Its Teachers’ Union

By dianeravitch
October 19, 2019 //
4

 

Max Brantley, the editor of the Arkansas Times, is a journalist who fearlessly stands up to the all-powerful Walton Family in the state they think they own. Brantley is a hero of the Resistance in my forthcoming book SLAYING GOLIATH.

In this post, Brantley describes the Waltons’ efforts to destroy the Little Rock School District and to crush the Little Rock Education Association.

He writes:

They are doing to Little Rock schools what the foundation of the family fortune did to small towns all across America — hollowing them out. It’s a years-long, billion-dollar effort that favors “choice” — privately run charter schools, vouchers for private schools, taxpayer support for homeschoolers and a diminishment of the role of elected school boards.  Parents know best, the Walton acolytes assert, even when the studies show little proof that the various choices beat conventional public schools. They are still searching for the magic bullet for the grinding reality of the impact of poverty on standardized test scores, the misleading standard by which “failure” is determined…

Little Rock teachers are…complaining of a mass e-mail from the anti-union Arkansas State Teachers Association last night warning teachers against striking. This group had a $362,000 startup grant from the Walton Family Foundation, no surprise given how notoriously anti-union Walmart has always been. ASTA also has ties to a national anti-union organization founded by like-minded billionaires.  Teachers weren’t too happy to be spammed by the group. ASTA also has been peppering state newspapers with op-eds touting their anti-union views. Its leader, Michele Linch, was the lone public voice on the other side of an outpouring of public opposition to the attack on the LRSD and its union by the state Board of Education.

Teachers in Little Rock ARE talking strike. I confess misgivings. There’s not a readily attainable goal as seen in other states, such as a pay increase. Nor is there any realistic hope for a change of heart in the Asa Hutchinson- (and thus Walton-) controlled education hierarchy. As Ernie Dumas wrote this week, racial discrimination and union hatred (tied historically with racist thinking) have always been with us in Arkansas. The recent LRSD takeover was nothing more than a combination of both by the white male business ruling class, with the primary immediate goal of union wreckage.

The Waltons collectively have a fortune in excess of $100 billion. They buy people, they create organizations to implement their evil schemes, they think they can squelch democracy by the power of money.

Those with the courage to stand up to them—journalists like Max Brantley, the teachers of the Little Rock Education Association, the parents and activists of Grassroots Arkansas—are the heroes of our time. They oppose autocracy, plutocracy, and a vast conspiracy to destroy democracy.

 

Categories Accountability, Arkansas, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Democracy, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Resistance, School Choice, Unions, Vouchers, Walton Foundation

Maurice Cunningham: Waltons Are Trying to Block Funding Increase for Massachusetts Schools

By dianeravitch
October 19, 2019 //
4

 

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.

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Dark Money, Democracy, Education Industry, Funding, Massachusetts, Privatization, Walton Foundation

Mercedes Schneider: Billionaires Jim and Alice Walton Seek to Purchase Louisiana State Board

By dianeravitch
October 8, 2019 //
8

 

The Walton Family is collectively worth more than $150 billion, and their hobby is undermining and disrupting public schools across the nation. Since Louisiana has an election for the state board of education in a few days, you will not be surprised to learn that Jim and Alice Walton dropped $200,000 on candidates pledged to support charter schools, vouchers, and Teach for America.

Mercedes Schneider reports in this post that the Waltons waited until close to Election Day so that Louisianans would not have time to learn that out-of-State billionaires were trying to buy the state board elections.

The Waltons are determined to harm the public schools that educated their father Sam Walton and most of them.

The family belongs on the blog’s Wall of Shame for their ceaseless attacks on public schools, unions, experienced teachers, and communities.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Louisiana, Privatization, Teach for America, Vouchers, Wall of Shame, Walton Foundation
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »