Arkansas: Cathy Frye Offers a Who’s Who of the Walton Privatization Movement
Cathy Frye is a veteran journalist who joined the staff of the Arkansas Public Schools Resource Center as communications director for three years. She learned that APSRC was a shell organization funded by the billionaire Waltons to trick rural schools into joining the Walton crusade to eliminate public schools.
She begins:
Tonight, I am sharing a Who’s Who in the Arkansas education “reform” movement.
First – a reminder: The end game is not charterization. It is privatization. Charter schools are merely a bridge. Look at them as place-holders.
The Arkansas Public School Resource Center, where I worked for three years as the communications director, purports to support both open-enrollment charter schools and rural traditional school districts. In actuality, APSRC is one of many Arkansas-based and Walton-funded lobbying entities. Some of these organizations specialize in charters. Others exist to promote private schools and vouchers. One seeks to convince teachers that they don’t need to belong to unions. A couple others promote the alleged glories of school “choice.”
Here’s a list of such organizations:
- Arkansas Public School Resource Center
- Arkansas Learns
- The Reform Alliance
- Arkansas State Teachers Association
- RootEd NWA
