Wow!
I have seen billionaires put money into elections on behalf of charter schools
around the country, but this one takes the cake.
Alice
Walton and Jim Walton of Arkansas really want Massachusetts to have more
charter schools.
They must be very unhappy that the public schools of the Bay
State are #1 in the nation. Clearly, the state needs disruption and market
forces to shake up its highly successful school system.
Mercedes
Schneider writes that the two Waltons gave $1,828,770 to the campaign in
Massachusetts to increase the number of charters in the state by a dozen a year
in perpetuity.
Mercedes
writes:
According to the September 09, 2016, filing of the Massachusetts ballot committee, Yes on 2, billionaire Arkansas resident Alice Walton is one of two individuals providing the $710,100 in funding to promote MA Question 2, raising the charter school cap.
Alice
Walton provided $710,000.
A
second contributor, Massachusetts resident Frank Perullo provided $100 in order
to establish the committee.
And
then, the Alice Walton cash was moved to another Question 2 ballot committee:
$703,770.29 of Alice Walton’s Yes on 2 committee money was expended to fund
Question 2 ballot committee, Campaign for Fair Access to Quality Public
Schools, where it was combined with billionaire Arkansas resident Jim Walton’s
contribution of $1,125,000, thus making the total Walton contribution to the
two committees $1,835,000 (and total Walton contribution to the latter
committee, $1,828,770.29).
The
Campaign for Fair Access total on its Sept 09, 2016, filing was $2,292,183 for
43 contributors– with 79 percent of that money ($1,828,770 / $2,292,183)
arriving from two out-of-state billionaires.
In
other words, 95 percent of contributors (41 out of 43) provided only 21 percent
of the total funding on the Campaign for Fair Access Sept 2016 report.
I
can almost hear the conversation between Alice and Jim:
“You
buy this Massachusetts ballot committee, and I’ll buy that one.”
“Done.”
The
Waltons are not the only out-of-state billionaires using their wealth to
influence the charter cap in a state in which they do not reside.
According to
the September 09, 2016, filing of the Question 2 ballot committee, Great
Schools Massachusetts, other out-of-state billionaire/lobbying nonprofit
contributors include the following:
- John Arnold (Texas), $250,000
- Michael Bloomberg (New York), $240,000
- Education Reform Now (ERN) Advocacy (New York), $250,000
- Families for Excellent Schools (FES) Advocacy (New York), $5,750,000
She
points out that the lobbying groups need not report their donors, so no one
will know which billionaires chipped in to the campaign to privatize the public
schools of Massachusetts.
This
is a disgusting display of oligarchs undermining not only public education but
democracy.
People
of Massachusetts, send the Waltons and their ill-gotten gains, squeezed out of
the wages of underpaid employees at Walmart, back to Arkansas. Let them fix
their own state’s low-performing schools. Tell them to go away by voting NO on
Proposition 2 on November 8.
