Here’s the effort to kill public schools in action. There are 36,000 students in Minneapolis-St. Paul public schools, Ed Hive MN’s Rob Levine reports. There are about 25,000 students in charter schools in the area, and charter backers have a plan to create another 30,000 seats in charter schools in the next few years.
Where is all the money coming from to start these charter schools? A lot of different rich people and their personal foundations, but one name in particular stands out: Walton, as in the Walmart Waltons.
One foundation – the Walton Family Foundation – heirs to the Walmart fortune, has started or helped to start 70 Minnesota charter schools, or 28% of all charter schools ever opened in the state. Of those 70 startups only 46 are still operating, representing 26% of all charters operating in the state.
One in four charter schools in the entire state of Minnesota got Walmart money to start.
Does anything in their record, anything in how they do business, make you think the Waltons are doing this out of concern for Minnesota children? No. This is about privatizing America—and breaking down the idea that the government should work for the public good.