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Friday, October 26, 2012

Weekly Update: Class sizes of 36, 50 and 62, the Walton’s in Louisiana, a global education strike and more | Seattle Education

Weekly Update: Class sizes of 36, 50 and 62, the Walton’s in Louisiana, a global education strike and more | Seattle Education:


Weekly Update: Class sizes of 36, 50 and 62, the Walton’s in Louisiana, a global education strike and more

The Weekly Update for the news and views you might have missed
Alice Walton of the Walton family, who are big contributors to the proliferation of charter schools and vouchers, is the same Alice Walton who has contributed $1.7M, and counting, to the charter school Initiative 1240 in Washington State. The Walton’s are investing heavily now in Louisiana where school vouchers are now legal and the Walton’s, along with some of the other wealthy few, want to ensure that charter schools not only remain in place but proliferate as the article in The Nation below describes. See the Walmart 1% for additional information on the Walton’s involvement in public education.
From The Nation, an excerpt:

Why Do Some of America’s Wealthiest Individuals Have Fingers in Louisiana’s Education System?
Last fall, a coterie of extremely wealthy billionaires, among them New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, turned the races for unpaid positions on the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) into some of the most expensive in the state’s history. Seven pro-education “reform” candidates for the BESE outraised eight candidates endorsed by the teacher’s unions by $2,386,768 to $199,878, a ratio of nearly twelve to one. In just one of these races, the executive director of Teach for America Greater New Orleans-