Since 2017 the Walton Family Foundation (WFF) has poured a minimum of $10.79 million (in reality, millions more) into the Waltons’ campaign to privateer Massachusetts’ public education system. That spending binge has garnered zero press attention. This news is banned in Boston. So, here is our annual report on Walton spending.
WFF is the IRS 501(c)(3) non-profit foundation of America’s wealthiest family, contributions tax deductible to them. Oligarchs like the Waltons and others use their non-profit corporations to pursue their preferred policy goals and lay off their deductions on the taxpayers.
You can read about why the Walton’s various lackeys are really interest groups in last year’s post.
I use a “a minimum of $10.79 million” because that figure represents entities that only operate in Massachusetts. The Waltons also fund non-profit interest groups that operate in several states, like DFER (Democrats for Enabling Republicans) and National Parents Union, run out of Woburn. We can’t break out the Massachusetts spending only for them. This year I added The Education Trust and Jeb Bush’s pay-for-play front ExcelinEd (aka Foundation for Excellence in Education) as the Globe’s fawning treatment of them caught my attention. The Globe granted Jeb Bush an op-ed just last week.
Amounts run from 2017-2023, seven years. I chose 2017 as the year after the Privateering Cabal’s losing campaign to increase the number of charter schools in Massachusetts (contribution from Jim and Alice Walton: $1.835 million). We end in 2023 because that is the last year for which accurate information from Form 990 tax returns exists.
| WFF Donee | 2017-2022 | 2023 | 2017-2023 |
| Latinos for Education | $1,728,958 | $0 | $1,728,958 |
| Latina Circle | $250,000 | $0 | $250,000 |
| Massachusetts Parents United | $2,266,000 | $0 | $2,266,000 |
| Pioneer Institute | $325,000 | $0 | $325,000 |
| Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education | $1,250,000 | $475,000 | $2,250, 000 |
| Massachusetts Charter Public School Assoc. | $3,574,500 | $400,000 | $3,974,500 |
| Total | $9,919,458 | $875,000 | $10,794,458 |
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In a period in which the Waltons poured vastly more than $10,000,000 into K-12 interest groups in Massachusetts, no Boston Globe staffer has ever reported that fact.
If the Waltons used for-profit corporation WalMart to attempt a hostile takeover of Market Basket, the local media would cover it in a frenzy. The Waltons use non-profit WFF spending over $10 million to privateer K-12 public education and we get nothing. Worse, we get cheerleading from the Globe for the Walton-funded interests.
Why?
Money Never Sleeps. Follow the Money.
“Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead.”—President Joe Biden.
“Imagine movie critics who either did not know, or did not care to know, that movies have producers, script writers, directors, financiers, or casting directors, and so based their reviews on the premise that it was the actors alone who created the storyline, dialogue and mise en scene, and that the most successful actors were those who best understood the audience. That is essentially how all politics is covered in 21st century America.” – Michael Podhoretz, “How White Christian Political Might Made the Republican Party Hard Right, in 8 Charts”
Upcoming: Banned in Boston Globe: Coverage of Barr Foundation Spending on K-12 Interest Groups, 2023 Edition
Upcoming: Banned in Boston Globe: Coverage of Boston Philanthropies Spending on K-12 Interest Groups, 2023 Edition
[Full disclosure: as a (now retired) educator in the UMass system, I am a union member. I write about dark money, democracy, and oligarchy. My book, Dark Money and the Politics of School Privatization, is in print.]
Walton foundation funded a whole department at University of Arkansas; Jay P Green there pushed ESA, charter, and vouchers (anyt privatized). Then because he performed so well for Walton he got a huge propmotion and moved to HERITAGE where he was insrumental in Project 2025 … I have watched this for a decade. Walton has also funded “fake” Montessori schools and if you check you will find they are in the YMCA/YWCA and other groups pretending to be a “philanthropic” corporate but they are not. I smell mendacity (or at least “Fakery”). @Andy Vargas
In 2023 WFF dispensed almost $580,000,000 in grants. They are using their private financial power to overtake the democratic control of our schools. How that is not newsworthy is a mystery to me.