A Walmart Fortune, Spreading Charter Schools
That aid to education in areas needing it most is wonderful, the motives and directions of some of the people recruited from right wing stink tanks involved are questionable however.
A separate Walton foundation that supports higher education bankrolls an academic department at the University of Arkansas in which faculty, several of whom were recruited from conservative think tanks, conduct research on charter schools, voucher programs and other policies the foundation supports.
Last year, the Walton Family Foundation gave $478,380 to a fund affiliated with the Chicago public schools to help officials conduct community meetings to discuss their plan to close more than 50 schools at a time when charters were expanding in the city.
And Walton played a role in a recent battle in New York, giving a grant to a charter advocacy group that helped pay for advertisements attacking Mayor Bill de Blasio after he denied public space to three schools run by Success Academy Charter Schools, a network in which students have gotten high scores on standardized tests.