Wal-Mart Subsidizes a Charter School Near You

...NEWS FROM CITIZENS FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS ...
contact: Paul Dunphy, Marilyn Segal December 8, 2005

Robert Greenwald's expose on Wal-Mart, "The High Cost of Low Price," continues to be shown widely in Massachusetts. Moveon.org has devoted a section of its web site to listing area screenings and provides information on how to schedule a show.

Although long and detailed, the documentary offers little commentary on the political reach of the country's richest family. Scant attention is paid to how the Walton's have used their billions to push a political agenda that includes the privatization of public schools.

The tax-exempt Walton Family Foundation, fueled with Wal-Mart profits, is the country' largest source of funding for voucher and charter lobbying groups as well as individual charter schools, spending millions of dollars a year underwriting such rabidly anti-public school organizations as the "Center for Education Reform."

In Massachusetts, alone, the Waltons have steered more than $6.5 million to some thirty charter schools.

Meanwhile, the Waltons have poured more than $1 million into NewSchools Venture Fund which bankrolls the startup of networks or chains of charter schools. Board of Education chairman Jim Peyser heads up the venture fund's East Coast operations. Mr. Peyser at last month's board of education meeting rejected two urban districts' plans for school improvement and called instead for accelerating a process of turning districts over to private management companies and charter schools, and for scrapping collective bargaining agreements.

Could it be fairly said that the state's leading education policy maker is financially beholden to Wal-Mart and its agenda of opposing organized labor and trampling on democratically-accountable public institutions? Doesn’t Mr. Peyser have a profound conflict of interest between his promoting privatization and his responsibility as chairman of the Board of (public) Education?

The Wal-Mart strategy of exploiting American and foreign workers and forcing local stores out of business is well documented in the "High Cost of Low Price." Putting public schools at a disadvantage, crippling what many consider the heart of a community, is another unfortunate chapter in the story.


Figures on Walton's donations for 2004 are not publicly available. Below is a list of charter schools that received Walton money in 2001-2003:

Academy of the Pacific Rim Boston $131,000
Berkshire Arts and Technology Adams $210,000
Boston Preparatory $10,000
Boston Renaissance $175,000
Cambridge Community $10,000
Community Day Lawrence $135,000
Conservatory Lab Boston $132,000
Edward Brooke Boston $135,600
Excel Academy E Boston $137,000
Four Rivers Greenfield $190,000
Frederick Douglass Boston (now closed) $84,900
Hillview Montessori Haverhill $200,000
KIPP Academy Lynn $150,000
Lowell Community Ch Sch $95,000
McAuliffe Regional Framingham $148,619
Montessori of Haverhill $10,000
Media&Technology Boston $129,000
MetroWest Math and Science Acad $10,000
Mystic Valley Malden $45,719
Neighborhood House Boston $100,000
New Bedford Global Learning $44,000
New Leadership Academy Springfield $169,500
North Central Essential Fitchburg $189,400
River Valley Newburyport $150,000
Roxbury Ch Sc for Bus, Fin & Entrepreneurship $185,700 (charter revoked)
Roxbury Preparatory $215,000
Salem Academy $200,000
Smith Academy for Leadership Boston $210,000
South End Preparatory Boston $195,000
Sturgis Cape Cod $195,000
Uphams Corner Boston $160,000