Paul Wilczynski's Observations

Sojourners on the Walton Family Foundation

An article in The Sojourners discusses the Walton Family Foundation (of Wal-Mart fame) and their support of conservative private schools.

... To deliver on its “We Sell for Less” pledge, Wal-Mart leverages its tremendous market power to squeeze its suppliers to produce for less. This forces producers to seek the lowest possible environmental and labor costs and often to shift production to sweatshops in China and other countries where workers have little power. With their controlling interest, the Walton family could be a moral force for good, urging the company to end such practices and raise wage and benefit standards for their own employees. Instead, they remain silent.

The 2004 election campaign cycle revealed that Alice Walton has begun to champion conservative candidates and causes. She was in the top 20 biggest contributors to right-wing “527” lobbying corporations. Her largest donation of $2.6 million went to Progress for America, which sponsored the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth attack on candidate John Kerry and lobbied for the privatization of social security and repeal of the estate tax.

The Waltons’ most significant legacy, however, may come from the family’s charitable giving and the hundreds of millions of dollars channeled since 1998 toward conservative school privatization efforts. As Jim Hopkins observed in USA Today, the Waltons “have begun focusing more giving on private-school scholarships, charter schools, and vouchers—revealing clues as to how they’ll target giving as their family charitable foundations grow.” Walton funds support projects that weaken public schools and shift public resources to private schools, undermining a cornerstone of equality of opportunity and democracy in the U.S. ...

posted by Paul Wilczynski @ 5:44 PM