I noticed in the Sunday Globe that Governor Baker has proclaimed this “School Choice Week” and I thought, what better time than School Privatization Week to re-up some of my favorite dark money and the politics of school privatization posts? Today let’s take another look at this one from 2019, The Walton Family’s Massachusetts Political Team 2019. I promise to update it soon so you all know exactly how much dark money spending the media is ignoring as the Waltons try to gain control of Massachusetts’ schools. You can find the original link here.
The Wednesday vote in the House on the Education Funding bill is a crucial test for interest groups opposing the Senate version, and all of them are influenced or controlled by the Walton Family of Arkansas. Let’s meet The Walton Family’s Massachusetts Political Team, 2019.
The selected groups all have some political purpose and all are funded by the Waltons. By political purpose I don’t mean anything that would jeopardize a non-profit’s IRS status. But there are things that can be done like advocacy, issuing reports, community outreach, rallies, etc. that can have a political impact. This view is just 2017 and 2018—the years after Jim and Alice Walton sunk over $2 million in dark and gray money into the losing Question 2 ballot question on charter schools. The 2017 numbers are from the Walton Family Foundation’s Form 990 tax return or annual report. The 2018 numbers are from the annual report. We have no information on 2019 yet.
| WFF Donee | 2017 | 2018 | Total |
| Latinos for Education | $ 210,500.00 | $ 267,000.00 | $ 477,500.00 |
| Latina Circle | $ 150,000.00 | $ 150,000.00 | |
| Massachusetts Parents United | $ 366,000.00 | $ 500,000.00 | $ 866,000.00 |
| Pioneer Institute, Inc. | $ 160,375.00 | $ 164,625.00 | $ 325,000.00 |
| Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education | $ 200,000.00 | $ 150,000.00 | $ 350,000.00 |
| Massachusetts Charter Public School Association, Inc. | $ 300,000.00 | $ 874,500.00 | $ 1,174,500.00 |
| $ 1,236,875.00 | $ 2,108,143.00 | $ 3,345,018.00 |
The Waltons invested at least $3.3 million into Massachusetts politics in 2017-2018. Take the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education. It got no money from the Waltons from 2008-2016. But after the 2016 loss, the money started flowing, up to 30% of receipts for MBAE in two years (the figures are not exact because WFF is on a calendar year and MBAE a fiscal year). MBAE is one of the interests opposing the senate bill. Another opponent is Massachusetts Parents United, founded in 2017 and the immediate recipient of $366,000 from the sons and daughters of Wal-Mart, with another half million in 2018. (All but $20,000 of the 2017 amount was funneled through Education Reform Now). MPU is the second of three interests opposing the senate bill. It is an AstroTurf front and a direct agent of the Waltons.
Latinos for Public Education is a pipeline for LatinX to get in education leadership positions, a key strategy for education privatizers, and it is a Teach for America offshoot. Latina Circle is new and it has already spun off a political group named Amplify LatinX. Pioneer is an advocacy organization and regular recipient of Walton bucks. Massachusetts Charter Public School Association has an advocacy function too.
But it is MBAE and MPU taking the lead on the senate bill, along with Democrats for Education Reform. I left them out because DFER MA gets its money from Education Reform Now Inc. of New York, which operates in seven states and DC, so it’s impossible to know how much of that money makes its way into Massachusetts. ERNI gets about 30% of its funding for from the Walton Family Foundation. In 2017-2018, the Waltons dumped over $5.9 million on DFER’s parent ERN; it’s fair to assume a good chunk of those Walton dollars were transferred to DFER MA. Thus the above underestimates Walton spending in Massachusetts significantly. (Education Reform Now Advocacy lobbies on Beacon Hill; the funding for that effort would be separate. It was $140,000 in 2018).
There are other multi-state organizations active in Massachusetts similarly situated as ERN. For example, in 2017-2018 the Waltons donated over $2.5 million to Educators for Excellence, a pretend teachers’ organization intended to undermine unions. In 2017 the Waltons gave $5,000,000 to Leadership for Education Equity, a TFA political spinoff. Again, we don’t know how much of those investments were funneled into Massachusetts.
Families for Excellent Schools, the 2014-2016 faux grassroots education operation in the state is gone, collapsed in corruption. Stand for Children, which ran ballot campaigns in 2009-10 and 2011-12 is also gone, abandoning the state in August. The Waltons just open business on a new corner under new names. A very conservative estimate would be that the Waltons have pumped at least $6 million into shaping Massachusetts education policy since the 2016 defeat of Question 2. That buys a lot of Massachusetts influence for the Wal-Mart heirs of Bentonville, Arkansas.
Wal-Mart’s workplace practices include “a vociferous anti-unionism, embedded gender discrimination, compulsive cost cutting, and near-comprehensive control over workers and the workplace.” – Prof. Thomas Jensen Adams
[Full disclosure: as a now retired educator in the UMass system, I am a union member. I write about dark money, not education.] And, my book Dark Money and the Politics of School Privatization is now available for purchase.
