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Tuesday, October 8, 2019

The Walton takeover of public education continues - Arkansas Times

The Walton takeover of public education continues - Arkansas Times

The Walton takeover of public education continues


Shorter headline proposed for Hunter Field’s fine article in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette this morning on bids to study school funding adequacy in Arkansas:
The fix is in.
Arkansas is sliding annually in meeting adequacy of school funding mandated by the landmark Lakeview decision. The legislature finally has been prodded into an assessment. But Republican legislators, who don’t want to spend a dime more than necessary, are busy putting fists on the scale.
We learn from Field’s excellent article that inside information from an unnamed legislator or legislators led to the single-purpose creation in Missouri of a company that has submitted the lower of two bids received to do this study.

And who might the leaders of this enterprise include? Answer: devotees of school vouchers and charter schools. The leader of the company is a University Arkansas graduate, a participant in a right-wing (excuse me, “free market and individual liberty”) think tank.  He proposes to partner with the Office of Education Policy at the Walton Family campus of the University of Arkansas, a unit stocked with people whose CONTINUE READING: The Walton takeover of public education continues - Arkansas Times