Walton foundation pumps cash into vouchers
The Walton Family Foundation is pumping $6 million into a Washington-based group that promotes private school vouchers in D.C. and around the country — a donation that it hopes will double the number of students using tax dollars to pay private school tuition.
The foundation, created by the heirs of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, is giving the money to the Alliance for School Choice, a nonprofit that has been promoting and lobbying for school voucher programs in D.C., Ohio, Indiana, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Florida, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and elsewhere.
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Proponents of vouchers say they give low-income children the opportunity to escape troubled public schools. Critics say that tax dollars are better spent improving public schools.
The $6 million infusion will basically double the budget of the Alliance for School Choice, which reported total revenue of $6,380,488 in 2011, according to federal tax filings. The chairwoman of the organization is Betsy DeVos, a high-profile Michigan Republican leader who is married to Dick DeVos, heir to the Amway fortune.
The alliance shares staff, facilities and other resources with the American Federation for Children, a nonprofit also founded by Betsy DeVos and its political arm, the American Federation for Children Action Fund.
Together, these three organizations have lobbied state legislatures to create programs that allow low- and middle-income students to use public tax dollars to attend private schools,