2010 Walton Foundation...$16,652,436 to TFA, $12,533,526 to The Charter School Growth Fund...

[madfloridian]

and the KIPP Knowledge is Power Program received $8,650,000.

They are second only to the Gates Foundation apparently in giving to education reform.

It's hard to beat that kind of money, especially when both parties are on board. Money talks. Teachers with years of experience are losing their careers and pensions, but the rapid advance of the reforms continues.

Walton Family Foundation Gives $157 Million Toward Education Reform

The numbers are in: the Walton Family Foundation invested $157 million in grants for K-12 education reform in 2010, a $23 million increase over its 2009 total of $134 million.

The 23-year-old foundation, created by Walmart Founder Sam Walton and his wife Helen, is second only to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation in its spending on schools. Having spent over $1 billion to date on education reform, the Walton Family Foundation remains the largest donor toward initiatives supporting parental choice and encouraging competition in the education system.

The foundation's efforts take multiple forms: investing capital in passionate and promising groups seeking to start or expand quality schools; providing grants to shape public policy and give parents better information about their children's education; and funding improved performances of traditional, charter and private schools. For example, in 2010 Teach For America received $16,652,436. The Charter School Growth Fund received an additional $12,533,526, and the KIPP Knowledge is Power Program received $8,650,000.

..."Focusing on providing low income families with options beyond their zip code-assigned public school, the grant maker hopes to “spur increased achievement in several local public school systems”: Albany; Denver; East and South Los Angeles; Milwaukee; New Orleans; and Washington D.C.

As I read about all this money and power, I remembered a blog post I read last year called Waiting for Superfraud

Just a few excerpts..

Public schools have to fail. There is no alternative. So give up trying to argue otherwise with facts and logic.

The mockumentary Waiting For Superman made this clear. Funded by millionaires, the movie told the story of some privatized schools in Harlem portrayed as saviors of children otherwise condemned to public schools. Privatized schools mostly funded by hedge fund millionaires on Wall Street. They spent two million dollars to promote the film nationally. Another major film titled “The Lottery” told a similar tale: children in Harlem desperate to escape public schools. Funded by more millionaires.

.."Public schools HAVE to fail in order to crack open this egg and give these financiers access to the $360 billion they are after (estimates are that it is around $700 billion today). No matter what logic you use to explain the problems or successes of public education, it will be of no avail: public schools HAVE to fail. Whatever it takes. In a 2007 appellate court decision ruling that Merrill Lynch could not be sued by Enron stockholders for facilitating the fraud of Enron, the dissenting third member of the judicial panel wrote: “The majority immunizes a broad array of undeniably fraudulent conduct from civil liability.”

Big money wants the public schools to fail and they are quite willing to engage in “undeniably fraudulent conduct” to ensure it. One prescient book titled “The Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Fraud, And The Attack On America’s Public Schools” told the tale back in 1996 but logic and facts won’t stop big money.

Read the whole thing.

And then read this article about how the Gates Foundation is giving even more to the same groups.

More on how the Gates Foundation funds school performers

Many good links and lists are available there.

Just a sample.

Don’t you wonder why journalists are so reluctant to acknowledge the good work of other journalists? Why does Valerie Strauss remain unnamed?

In June 2006, Joshua Benton of the Dallas Morning News reported that within the Texas Education Agency, contracts often were not competitively bid but depended on whom one knew at the Gates Foundation.

Diane Ravitch was on target in a July 30, 2006 Los Angeles Times piece: "In light of the size of the foundation's endowment, Bill Gates is now the nation's superintendent of schools. He can support whatever he wants, based on any theory or philosophy that appeals to him." This was positioned as an opinion piece and there was no follow-up from the education press.

They are buying up public education. They are setting up battles between long time public school teachers and the recruits coming out of the reform movement.

Right now it seems the public school teachers are on the losing end....money prevails when no one in power in on your side.

[madfloridian]

1. Guess what Gates' website is no longer visible.

https://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/gates-sp...

I have tried every way to find the webpage, but I can't.

Here is the WP Valerie Strauss article about Teaching First.

https://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/gates-sp...

"The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is spending at least $3.5 million to create a new organization whose aim is to win over the public and the media to its market-driven approach to school reform, according to the closely held grant proposal.

The organization is tentatively called “Teaching First,” and already has a chief executive officer: Yolie Flores, a member of the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education, who has championed such issues as public school choice and teacher effectiveness. Flores did not immediately return phone calls for comment. A Gates foundation spokesman said she would take over the job fulltime when her board term is up in June.

Williams said that the organization is only tentatively named “Teaching First” and that it still has no date for its official launch. On the Web, there is page at http://www.teachingfirst.com/, but there is no information attached.

...Here is what the grant lists as “the most significant grant outcomes in the first two years of Teaching First”:

“1. Establish Teaching First as a new entity with sufficient capacity to succeed in its mission and to sign off as an independent 501(c)(3) organization within 18 months.

“2. High credibility as a trusted source of information on issues related to teacher effectiveness and equitable access to effective teaching in each of the intensive partnership districts, and/or the enablement of local organization(s) to play the role of trusted expert in each locale."

The Gateskeepers website refers to the Teaching First group as a puppet for Gates to work on its behalf.

http://gateskeepers.civiblog.org/blog/_archives/2011/3/...

Since March the group has either disbanded or changed its name...or just is not publicly available.

This Teaching First document in pdf format clearly says not to share it, that is a confidential document.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/teaching%...

I get nervous when so much secrecy surrounds the hostile takeover of public education.

[madfloridian]

8. Gates financing "Teach First" in UK..

http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6071818

"Bill Gates bankrolls 'reverse Teach First' as English scheme crosses pond"

"Billionaire funds initiative to develop 'missing link' in US teacher training

The world's second richest man, software billionaire Bill Gates, is bankrolling the introduction of an English educational programme across the United States. Teaching Leaders, a scheme to increase the effectiveness of department heads and other 'middle leaders' in England's secondary schools, has caught the eye of education reformers in America.

The principle behind the project - developing the middle "missing link" in teacher training - was given the blessing of President Obama's education team in December 2009.

Now the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has stepped up to finance a pilot that should make the concept a reality in 12 US regions over the next five years. The American programme, dubbed Leading Educators, is also being supported by Ark, the hedge fund-backed charity that sponsors academies in England, and US charity the New Schools Venture Fund."

My head is spinning trying to keep up with the organizations the billionaires are founding to take over public schools.

[sinkingfeeling]

2. Wal-Mart destroying the nation....always.

[madfloridian]

4. Buying up public schools.....

Never thought I would see this happen in my lifetime.

[madfloridian]

3. Great comment from a retired teacher at Huff Post...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/wvr12/walton-famil...

“As a retired teacher and union president who fought with the local Superinten­dent and Board of Ed over changes that teachers wanted to make in the ways our schools operated I object to some of the comments I have read here. We had a group of teachers willing to teach summer school for free to help students who were not up to grade level or prepared to move up to the high school. We were rejected and berated because the parents did not want their children to miss out on summer vacation. Instead, we were told to lower our standards and to promote students to "keep the parents on our side" during budget votes.

Our team had our assignment­s changed so we could not work together with the same students. Instead new teachers were given our former classes and told to "find a way to pass the students". Our proposals were research based and valid, but not what the administra­tion wanted to hear. Our plan called for shared responsibi­lity by students, parents, teachers, administra­tors and school board. Outside funding is not the answer. Inside work is.”

[madfloridian]

5. Walton family gave 5.6 million to Milwaukee education...selected groups.

http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/124655268.html

I just read in LBN that Milwaukee is laying off 354 teachers. Guess who is coming to town.

"The Walton Family Foundation gave more than $157 million to education reform initiatives last year, including $5.6 million to Milwaukee organizations. The foundation, started by Walmart founder Sam Walton and his wife, Helen, gave 20 Milwaukee organizations grants to create quality schools, shape public policy and improve existing schools, according to the foundation’s website.

The foundation’s goal is to give parents in high-poverty areas the ability to choose among quality, publicly funded schools, according to the news release. Albany, Denver, Los Angeles, Newark, Washington, D.C. and New Orleans also received grants.

The Milwaukee recipients receiving more than $300,000 are IFF, University of Arkansas Foundation, Inc., Teach for America (National), St. Anthony School of Milwaukee and School Choice Wisconsin.

The organizations receiving funds are either charter schools, voucher schools or organizations that promote school choice. IFF is a nonprofit lender and real estate consultant that helps charter schools with financing and their real estate needs, according to the IFF website. The Walton grant financed research by the University of Arkansas on Milwaukee's voucher program."

[Dawson Leery]

6. The billionaires do not want higher taxes. They want to keep

every last cent in order to control the agenda.

[madfloridian]

7. Yep, and money controls the agenda for sure.

It's a shame.