Is ‘Wal-Mart’Academy coming to New Jersey?

Reprinted from the NJEA Reporter, February 2004

John Walton, an Arkansas billionaire and heir to the Wal-Mart fortune, is arguably the most generous supporter of the voucher movement in America.

He’s certainly the major outside player in New Jersey, providing $500,000 a year to E3 and bankrolling the pro-voucher political campaigns of Bret Schundler and Cory Booker (see February story).

Walton has long been a player in right-wing politics, throwing millions at ballot initiatives for vouchers in California and Michigan (where they lost), and funding the notorious American Education Reform Foundation, which supports vouchers and anti-union “paycheck protection” initiatives that would limit the ability of unions to participate in politics.

Walton and New York financier Ted Forstmann launched the Children’s Scholarship Fund (CSF) in 1999, providing $160 million in private vouchers to 40,000 minority students nationwide. CSF was launched with a $10 million advertising blitz in over 30 cities, with the goal of creating widespread demand for “free scholarships.” More than 1.2 million families applied, creating a national base from which to organize.

Walton and Forstmann initially claimed their sole goal was charity, but it quickly became apparent that their true goal was to tap into the $400 billion public education “market.” An August 31, 1999 Wall Street Journal story reported that Forstmann and Walton “yesterday announced a parallel iniative to focus on the creation of schools to serve the burgeoning choice market.”

For Walton and his partner, vouchers are a business opportunity, pure and simple.

Given that his Wal-Mart stores are driving the competition out of business at an alarming rate – and that Wal-Mart is constantly being sued for abusing labor laws and cheating its employees out of earnings – it’s easy to imagine how “Wal-Mart” academies would be a cost-effective alternative to public schools.