The Walton familys role in school re-segregation

April 23, 2014 By Cathy

Under the guise of reforming K-12 education, the Walton family, which owns a majority of
Walmart and has raked in unfathomable wealth off the backs of low-wage Walmart workers, has
poured over $1 billion into efforts to undermine public schools and promote a corporate-friendly,
privatized model of education.
The Walton familys work in education is both misguided and profoundly anti-democratic. Yet, as
Arkansas Times columnist Max Brantley wrote in a blog post discussing an Atlantic report on the re-
segregation of Southern public schools, there is a less-examined but equally serious consequence
of the familys interference with schools: The Waltons chosen approaches to school reform, namely
school choice and charter schools, are contributing to the re-segregation of public schools and the
potential resurgence of highly segregated apartheid schools.
For example, In Little Rock, the capital of the Waltons home state of Arkansas, Brantley notes that a
new Walton-funded charter school is expected to attract wealthier students away from the local
public schools, leaving behind poorer students. The family also backed state legislation that bars
school districts from considering race in its decisions about student school transfers. (For over
twenty years, in order to preserve the integrity of school desegregation efforts, districts were
permitted to consider race in transfer decisions.)
Scores of academic studies from a variety of states and countries demonstrate that the Waltons
approach to education is probably worsening segregation not just in Arkansas, but everywhere
they are funding education reform. As Iris Rotberg, a George Washington University education
policy professor, wrote for the Phi Delta Kappan, school choice programs and the expansion of
charter schools drive increases in school segregation by race, ethnicity, income, and other
characteristics.
In spite of this evidence, the Walton familyitself an emblem of income inequalityremains a
staunch advocate of school choice and is believed to be the countrys largest funder of charter
schools. Walton-funded reform organizations often make the audacious, arrogant claim that they
are leaders in the new civil rights movement. Actually, their efforts risk setting civil rights back by
decades.
Ending child poverty has been shown to improve childrens academic performance. Walmart, which
the Walton family controls roughly half of, continues to keep many of its associates in poverty, with
low wages, poor benefits and unpredictable schedules that make parenting even more difficult. If
the Waltons really want to make meaningful, substantive improvements in childrens education,
they could help combat child poverty by ensuring living wages for the 1.3 million Walmart workers
in the United States.
Filed Under: Distorting Democracy, Undermining Public Education, Updates
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