In honor of School Choice Week (yes, that’s really a thing), I’ll be writing a few posts about charter schools. Today’ post: The Walton Family Foundation plans to spend $1 billion on charter schools and other items on the school choice menu over the next five years.
Don’t worry about the foundation funded by the Walmart fortune going broke spending all that money. It’s already putting out about $200 million a year to promote the privatization/”education reform” agenda. Over the years, about one-quarter of the nation’s charter schools have been recipients of Walton Foundation startup money. The foundation may be deciding to focus more of its regular expenditures on the charter sector, or maybe it’s planning to pitch in a little more on top of what it’s already giving.
The Foundation says it’s planning to target low income communities in urban areas like Los Angeles and new Orleans, meaning it has a dual purpose of expanding charters in places like L.A. (the Waltons aren’t the only philanthropists working on that, they have company) and tweaking the program in places like New Orleans which are already dominated by charters.
Which makes me wonder. Lots of big-bucks philanthropists along with mid-level players like hedge fund multi-millionaires and billionaires (yes, in today’s wonderful world of growing income inequality, just having a billion or two makes you a minor player) are giving lots and lots of money to charters and the groups that support them. Yet one of the original selling points for charter schools was that they can do more than the bloated school districts, with their administrative overload and teacher union bosses, with less money. But if you look at the charters that get press for their accomplishments (some deserved, some not), they all get money beyond their state allotments, sometimes lots of it. Do charters, even successful charters, have any right to claim they’re getting more educational bang for the buck, or are they proof that you can’t do education on the cheap?
A “No, I Don’t Hate Charters” Note: No, I don’t hate charter schools. Some do a good job, some do an excellent job, some do a lousy job. But the charter school sector needs to be scrutinized more carefully in the press than is happening at the moment. No stone has been left unturned in criticizing what are usually referred to as “traditional schools,” meaning schools run by school districts. There’s a multi million dollar industry whose purpose is to portray those schools as failures—probably a multi-billion dollar industry if you start back in the Reagan years—and all too often, the media reads their press releases and “research papers” and reports on them like they’re objective truth. And those same dollars are also being used to spread the idea that, “Traditional schools are the disease. Charters and private school vouchers are the cure.” There are plenty of problems with charter schools that need to be exposed and explored, but no one is putting millions and billions into the process. So it falls to folks like me to point up some of the things going on in the charter school sector, hoping the national media will become more aware and will report on the entire spectrum of K-12 education more accurately.
This article appears in Jan 21-27, 2016.
It looks like THEY are spending THEIR money where they expect to get the best results. What a windfall for students. Thank you Walmart. America needs more corporations like you.
David, in reference to your last paragraph (the “No, I Don’t Hate Charters” Note):
If there were any media source in Tucson that found itself capable of providing impartial, balanced coverage of both charters and public district schools — strengths and weaknesses, examples of successes and failures on both sides — it would not only be a tremendous public service, it would improve the reputation of the media source providing a sort of coverage that to date NONE of the local rags reporting on education have provided.
You are smart enough and well-informed enough to do it, but you undermine your own credibility when it comes to charters by pulling virtually every punch when it comes to TUSD, and by, if you ever do state a criticism, carefully following it up with a “but that doesn’t mean I don’t think the current leadership is doing a good job” caveat. In light of what the leadership behaviors in the district have been for the past few years, that behavior is hard to justify, and when people see you doing it, they’re less likely to believe you when it comes time to state, as you do, very valid criticisms of the charter sector.
Your overall goal, in my humble opinion, should be to paint a rounded and balanced picture that in the final analysis looks as much as possible like the whole truth, not to provide in this publication the “con” to the privatizers’ “pro.”
Problems in some public schools are well established, and we all know that larger urban districts here and in many other cities abused their majority status with multi-layered bureaucracies and “good old” networks that were not very transparent. Overall, charter schools have yet to stand the test of time. I know many, many very successful graduates of public schools – graduates who may be solid blue-collar or wealthy professionals, but they are all dependable, contributing members to our society and culture. Give charter schools time and responsible analyses and we’ll all know if they can yield as good or better results. But in the meantime, too many charter schools take public tax money and demonstrate far less transparency or accountability than is routinely required in any public school business office. Publish all administrative salaries.
Unfortunately with the state unable to fix school systems like TUSD that values administration over teachers and students. I cannot see giving public schools more funds. The many will suffer because of the few. When was the last time they won a national award for education?
I, too, do not object to charter schools that are rooted in – owned and run by – local people in the community.
I do object to tax laws that allow corporations and wealthy individuals to slide money to private for profit whatevers instead of paying their fair share of taxes – taxes that provide critical funding for pubic whatevers like public schools.
The laws regulating charters need to be strengthened to require the same level of transparency that any public institution is required to provide to its funders (taxpayers).
When it comes to our public district schools, the constituency needs to be educated about what the law requires of these institutions, and it needs to become more vigilant in monitoring performance and speaking up when compliance with transparency laws does not occur.
The problem with the commentary of many critics of the charter system, like David Safier, is that they get all hot and bothered about the absence of laws that require transparency in charters, but they fall down on their job when it comes to monitoring whether these beneficial laws are actually followed in public districts.
Unfortunately, the question that comes to mind when we observe this lack of consistency is this one: do they really care about transparency, or is it something else they care about, for example, maintaining the political networks that are connected with some large urban public school districts, which have traditionally been Democratic party power bases?
In that there are some very grave problems with the charter system and the wealth networks that back it, it would be helpful if there were some news outlets that had a uniform and consistent concern with transparency providing impartial commentary on both charters and public schools, so that when they spoke about charters, people would believe them, rather than interpreting what they say as another tainted partisan line of argument.
Liberals can’t stand parents having choice to remove their children from the indoctrination centers called public schools.
Why would any legal resident send their kids to TUSD which under the rule of the Grijalva’s and their $400,000 tool H.T. Sanchez is no more than a radical chicano jihadist indoctrination camp. Who wants their kids taught to hate America?
Liberals.
A poster writes regarding the author of this propaganda.
“You are smart enough and well-informed enough to do it”
Nope, wrong on both counts.
Yes, hard to believe that this horrible group would give money to Arizona groups like these (list is not all inclusive)…
2012 Walton Family Foundation Grants
…
Arizona Autism Charter Schools, Inc. $30,000
Arizona Community Foundation 306,164
Arizona Land and Water Trust Inc. 221,224
Arizona State Parks Foundation 129,187
University of Arizona Foundation 75,000
University of Arizona Foundation 75,000
ASU Foundation for A New American University 5,502,500
Nature Conservancy – Arizona 25,000
Museum of Northern Arizona Inc. 10,000
2013 Walton Family Foundation Grants
…
Arizona Autism Charter School 220,000
University of Arizona Foundation 177,992
Arizona Science Center 300,000
ASU Foundation for A New American University 5,950,000
Arizona Foundation for Women, Inc. 50,000
Girl Scouts – Arizona Cactus-Pine Council, Inc. 12,500
Salvation Army Colorado/Arizona 50,000
Thank you Cynthia. Some people here just hate the truth.
Might I add that the politically correct term fair share is total Barbara Steisand. Only petty jealous people believe in class warfare and punishing success. The government has created the boondoggle that I’ll served us.
If it comes to defending Walmart or Safier, I am walking away from that fight, swiftly.