Walton Family Foundation Gives $157 Million Toward Education Reform

The numbers are in: the Walton Family Foundation invested $157 million in grants for K-12 education reform in 2010, a $23 million increase over its 2009 total of $134 million.

The 23-year-old foundation, created by Walmart Founder Sam Walton and his wife Helen, is second only to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation in its spending on schools. Having spent over $1 billion to date on education reform, the Walton Family Foundation remains the largest donor toward initiatives supporting parental choice and encouraging competition in the education system.

The foundation's efforts take multiple forms: investing capital in passionate and promising groups seeking to start or expand quality schools; providing grants to shape public policy and give parents better information about their children's education; and funding improved performances of traditional, charter and private schools. For example, in 2010 Teach For America received $16,652,436. The Charter School Growth Fund received an additional $12,533,526, and the KIPP Knowledge is Power Program received $8,650,000.

Focusing on providing low income families with options beyond their zip code-assigned public school, the grant maker hopes to “spur increased achievement in several local public school systems”: Albany; Denver; East and South Los Angeles; Milwaukee; New Orleans; and Washington D.C.

The Walton Family Foundation started in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina in 2006. In 2010, the New Orleans community received over $4.8 million in funding. At present, 70 percent of public schools students are now enrolled in charter schools, and the proficiency gap between the city and the state of New Orleans has improved by 11 points over the last three years.

The foundation has been a presence in Washington D.C. for ten years. Between 2003 and 2009, Washington area schools exhibited the largest national improvement in Reading and Math at the fourth and eighth-grade levels. Two thirds of families are now choosing schools other than the ones they are assigned. Last year, the Walton Family Foundation gave over $16.9 million dollars to the D.C. community.

Comments

[RonoldisMagnus]

11:04 PM on 06/30/2011

Your right they’re evil. Giving millions to schools is evil. I get it though if money to schools doesn’t go to unionized teachers than its a waste and completion amongst schools is terrible as well (for public school teachers).

[T-Bone Apollo]

10:46 PM on 06/30/2011

That is pretty generous of the Waltons. The labor they use to make many of their products equates to $2.00 a day per worker overseas. $157 Mill could employ over 114 Billion workers for a year...

[changing]

10:17 PM on 06/30/2011

What a press release for Walmart. What baloney about the test scores in DC. Actually fell some the last year of Rheeform. Forgot to mention Rhee was ran out of town on a rail too.

[spoonbill1963]

01:07 PM on 06/30/2011

I just got back from shopping at Walmart. I spent $50 bucks but got some great buys. I love that place. When I die I want my ashes to be spread around various Walmarts in my area.

[JonAwbrey]

10:12 AM on 07/01/2011

I'm sure they'll be happy to resell the ashes for all the lead content they can extract from them.

[bbbbmer]

11:36 AM on 06/30/2011

The Walton's giving awards for education 'reformers' is a bit like HItler giving awards for best architect of the gas chambers....

[baybeebluz]

04:41 PM on 06/30/2011

Yes. I can see the comparison. Trying to ensure children receive a decent education is exactly the same as sending them to the gas chamber.

[bbbbmer]

03:26 PM on 07/01/2011

Interesting misinterpretation of my analog -- I take it you never passed the SAT...

[Dorothy Moody]

03:31 AM on 07/08/2011

It's that they're giving money, that's great. It's where they're giving it that's the problem. Teach For America sounds like a great idea, until you see these teachers in practice. No experience, mostly white, working in inner city schools with no clue how to cope with a classroom full of non-whites who have a completely different frame of reference and little parent interaction. Then you have KIPP, which requires teachers to work insane hours in order to have a job with them.

[eceresa]

06:14 AM on 06/30/2011

As if we needed more evidence that Wal-Mart was evil.

[spoonbill1963]

01:07 PM on 06/30/2011

You mean like Wall Street and rich people?
You people are something else.

[eceresa]

08:18 PM on 06/30/2011

We're people. You're something else.

[smileylib]

04:40 PM on 06/29/2011

The Wal-Martization of public education! I hope people realize you get what you pay for, and let's not forget you don't get any cheaper (both in price, but especially quality) than Wal-Mart. If we keep letting private corporations put in their two cents about education (when they are NOT educators), schools will look & be run like Wal-Mart (cheap, poor quality, and if you have a daughter...forget it) and our students will be treated like just another bottom-line item on the corporate balance sheet.

[hypnotoad72]

06:56 PM on 06/29/2011

Well said, thank you!

[David Nassar]

01:50 PM on 06/29/2011

This reads like it was written by the Walton Family press office. Despite the characterization contained within, the money the Foundation spends is not on "schools" it is on reforming schools or put another way, on destroying public education. The Waltons are committed to the idea that public education should be defunded. Perhaps they just hate paying taxes that much.

[Timothy D. Slekar]

02:12 PM on 06/29/2011

Agreed! This reads like a press release from the Walton Foundation.

[hypnotoad72]

06:57 PM on 06/29/2011

Agreed as well!

[historyrepeatsitself]

10:02 PM on 06/29/2011

Let me jump on the agreement bandwagon. I have worked in both the PR and journalism fields and know boilerplate when I see it.

[cmr86]

01:07 PM on 06/29/2011

Corporate education. Would you like a McHistory with that supersized Walmarketing scheme?

[spoonbill1963]

11:39 AM on 06/29/2011

You see. The Walton people aren't as bad as most of yu make out.

[eceresa]

06:15 AM on 06/30/2011

Working to weaken the education system under the guise of "saving" it is actually pretty bad. This doesn't shine up the Waltons' image, at least in the eyes of anybody who knows about education.

[JScott]

11:32 AM on 06/29/2011

Interesting tho Paige Laurie a Walmart heiress, paid another student to do her schoowork at USC while she partied. She had to give her diploma back. Seems she needs a little reform herself

[corwin]

01:09 PM on 06/29/2011

That's very germane.Many people tend to dismiss HP feeling their readers consist of ad hominem attacks in lieu of structured argument.Can I please quote you?

[Brokenduck]

03:37 PM on 06/29/2011

How about you go to michellemalkin.com and stay there. Trolls have absolutely destroyed this website.

[historyrepeatsitself]

10:11 PM on 06/29/2011

The truth hurts? I vividly remember the extensive LA Times coverage of the story. Old oligarchs such as Carnegie and Rockefeller may have just been nasty misanthropes who wanted to clean up their names, but at least the institutions they created to do so were genuinely philanthropic, despite whatever tax write-offs they may or may not have received. All of these educational "reformers" are billionaires whose motivations for wanting to privatize more and more of public education are not above suspicion.

[Ariel Bonzai]

02:12 AM on 06/30/2011

Hey, score one for the good guys in that round.

[am10]

09:36 AM on 06/29/2011

To think, I was debating going to going to Walmart or K-mart today. At least I got that questions answered.

[bmcombs]

08:05 AM on 06/29/2011

If it is good for walmart - it's probably bad for the rest of us.

[gravity defiant]

02:26 AM on 06/29/2011

Reason #138729475492 why I boycott WalMart. I've never spent a penny there, and I never will.

[spoonbill1963]

11:39 AM on 06/29/2011

You'll not be missed. I guarantee it.

[historyrepeatsitself]

10:14 PM on 06/29/2011

Good, and most likely neither will I, but I could almost give a... At least, I can be proud of myself for not giving that family a dime of my hard-earned, uninherited money.

[wvr12]

12:08 AM on 06/29/2011

As a retired teacher and union president who fought with the local Superintendent and Board of Ed over changes that teachers wanted to make in the ways our schools operated I object to some of the comments I have read here. We had a group of teachers willing to teach summer school for free to help students who were not up to grade level or prepared to move up to the high school. We were rejected and berated because the parents did not want their children to miss out on summer vacation. Instead, we were told to lower our standards and to promote students to "keep the parents on our side" during budget votes. Our team had our assignments changed so we could not work together with the same students. Instead new teachers were given our former classes and told to "find a way to pass the students". Our proposals were reseaarch based and valid, but not what the administration wanted to hear. Our plan called for shared responsibility by students, parents, teachers, administrators and school board. Outside funding is not the answer. Inside work is.

[Hlynn]

01:38 AM on 06/29/2011

This post is so well written!

The main objection in our district to a year-round school schedule has been parents saying they want their children to have summer vacations like they did. I also had a principal (in a previous district) tell me, because one of my students was misbehaving so much--to the point of violence--"Don't try to teach him so much". Of course, the principal just wanted to avoid having to deal with the student, so thought leaving him alone was the best course of action--but it was only best for the principal. And our principal also told us that our superintendent said if any teacher objects to teaching to the test that the principals are to to emphasize to their teachers very clearly why we *will* teach to the test.

The problem with outsiders to education such as the Waltons, and even our current Education Secretary, is they have never been teachers and don't know what teaching is like, but fancy themselves reformers of education. I don't know how anyone can consider themselves people who will help public education if they don't know what the reality of public education is.

[spoonbill1963]

01:16 PM on 06/30/2011

Year round schools is a very bad idea.

[Chartblogger]

09:22 AM on 06/29/2011

WVR12 -- Then you should really appreciate what the Walton foundation is doing - -making it possible for teachers like yourself to work in charter schools. Many of them have year-round schedules and/or extended time during the week, and if teachers come up with a great idea and want to implement it, they don't need to go through the endless permission loops of the local school district - -and maybe can start their own school. (If the "WV" means West Virginia, though, you may be out of luck until a charter law passes there.)

[Brokenduck]

03:44 PM on 06/29/2011

And more charter schools means an end to educating "undesirables". This would include special ed., English language learners, and many others. There are some good charter schools....I do not deny. However, this is not how one runs a good public education system. All charter schools do is give more leverage to corporate backers and not to the public.

[wvr12]

10:35 PM on 06/29/2011

I appreciate the thought. However, I disagree that the Walton Foundation is allowing what you suggest, Charter schools, by research, have not fared better than public schools in most cases despite some extra flexibility in scheduling and money. And recent investigation of certain schools in Colorado has, in fact, found that there is minimal improvement in charter schools vs. public schools. And even those statistics are being questioned by reputable researchers. My point is that there needs to be a coalition of teachers, parents, students and citizens working together to create the school structure, curriculum, discipline code, etc. I emphasize teachers with experience who are not afraid to put their heads on the block to improve, with support from the different groups necessary for success. That would include control over the budget as well. I do not see the Walton family or for that matter the Gates Foundation nor Teach For America supporting public schools, or allowing that kind of power to be given away. Unfortunately, I perceive them as looking for both glory and power to enhance their legacy. I also am open to correction or some sort of validation of an opposing view.