http://www.educationsector.org/usr_doc/CTDWalton.pdfp. 4:
In 2004, the Walton foundation gave $66 million to education, mostly to charter & other "choice" initiatives.
p. 5:
It spent $150+ million "incubating 600 charter schools" since 1998.
It's developed a network of initiatives to promote & support charter growth:
p. 6:
Funds organizations that manage or develop networks of charter schools under brand names: KIPP, Achievement First, Aspire Public Schools, Leadership Public Schools, Lighthouse Academies, Propel Schools.
p. 6:
Funds intermediaries that invest in management co's, e.g. NewSchools Venture Fund, “venture philanthropy” which itself funded Aspire, Lighthouse, Green Dot Public Schools, High Tech High, Partnership to Uplift Communities.
p. 6:
Founded & financed the Charter School Growth Fund, a nonprofit seeking to assemble $100 million to develop networks of charter schools.
p. 7:
Funds support organizations, e.g. California's Charter Schools Association & similar organizations in Colorado, Florida, New York, and Illinois.
"Walton hasn’t hesitated to influence the organizations it has helped to create. The foundation,
for example, has required state-level charter-support organizations to engage in strategic planning as a condition of Walton financial support, and the planning often has been facilitated by consultants hired by the foundation.
In California, Walton has shaped the nature of statewide charter school support. There were two statewide charter support organizations in the late 1990s, a membership association and a university-based Charter Schools Development Center (CSDC)....the new Walton-backed association is by far the more influential voice for charters in the state today."
p. 8:
Builds a national charter school infrastructure, e.g. funding the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, a research and advocacy group...
p. 8:
Funds leadership, e.g. "Building Excellent Schools (BES)", which recruits and trains “fellows” to start charter schools in Massachusetts, Cleveland, Denver, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, New York City, and Washington,
Fund New Leaders for New Schools (NLNS), which "cultivates" administrators for traditional public schools and charters.
p. 8:
Funds facilities via its Educational Facilities Financing Center.
p. 8:
Funds charter school authorizing bodies: $2.5 million to the National Association of
Charter School Authorizers (NACSA).
p. 8:
Funds advocacy: National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, the national “voice” of the movement, which lobbys for pro-charter policies & responds to critics.
Choice advocates more generally, e.g. Black Alliance for Educational Options, Center for Education Reform.
Pro-charter political initiatives and other charter advocacy organizations; e.g EdVoice, Washington State charter initiative.
p. 9:
Funds pro-charter research: e.g. $500K/yr to the University of Washington’s Center on
Reinventing Public Education, an education research center sympathetic to charter schools, for the National Charter School Research Project; web rating sites, Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes.
Why do rich people & slave-wage, manufacturing-exporting pirates like Walmart get to direct US Education policy?
Oh, that's right: they own the country, we are their livestock, to be herded into pens of their devising.
http://www.educationsector.org/usr_doc/CTDWalton.pdf