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Tuesday, October 29, 2019

The Walton Family: Ungrateful Graduates of Public Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog

The Walton Family: Ungrateful Graduates of Public Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog

The Walton Family: Ungrateful Graduates of Public Schools

No philanthropy has spent more money to undermine and privatize public schools than the Waltons. The Waltons are the richest family in the U.S., possibly in the world, with a net worth in excess of $200 billion.
The Walton Family Foundation claims credit for launching at least one of every four charter schools in the nation. The foundation aims to eliminate public education, crush teachers’ unions, and destroy the teaching profession. The foundation has given nearly $100 million to Teach for America to supply inexperienced, ill-trained teachers to public and charter schools.
It is hard to understand the Waltons’ animus towards public schools, since the patriarch Sam Walton, his wife Helen, and all of his children were graduates of small-town public schools.
Sam graduated from David H. Hickman High School in Columbia, Missouri. His wife Helen was the valedictorian of her public high school in Claremont, Oklahoma.
John Walton (who died in a plane crash in 2005) graduated from the Bentonville High School in Bentonville, Arkansas.
Alice Walton, the richest woman in the world, graduated from Bentonville High School in 1966.
Jim Walton, net worth exceeding $40 billion, graduated CONTINUE READING: The Walton Family: Ungrateful Graduates of Public Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog