The Walton family’s role in school re-segregationApril 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 family’s 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 family’s 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 family—itself an emblem of income inequality—remains a

staunch advocate of school choice and is believed to be the country’s 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 children’s 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 children’s 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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