Walton Foundation pours millions into school voucher crusade

Church & State, Feb 2001

An Arkansas foundation formed by Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton continues to pour millions of dollars into the private school voucher movement.

According to the Arkansas Democrat, the Walton Family Foundation is now worth nearly $1 billion and continues to grow. Established in 1987, it has enjoyed explosive growth. Walton, who died in 1992, left the foundation a trust worth $172 million that became its basis for operations.

While the foundation funds some museums, symphonies and community projects in Arkansas, the lion's share of its money goes to "school choice" initiatives. Recipients of Walton's largess include voucher front groups such as the American Education Reform Council, Floridians for School Choice, the Mackinac Center and the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation.

Of the $66.5 million in grants the Walton Family Foundation distributed in 2000, $33.4 million went to fund the voucher movement, and $14.2 million went to charter schools or organizations supporting them. The foundation's largest single grant, $24.8 million, went to the Children's Scholarship Fund, a Washington, D.C.-based group that pays for tuition at religious and other private schools. (Fund backers hope the effort will convince politicians to support tax-subsidized voucher plans.)

In other news about parochial school aid:

* Voucher strategists are looking for new approaches after the crushing defeat of two voucher referenda last November. According to the Family Research Council's Ed Facts bulletin, some voucher groups plan to push a "universal tax credit" instead. Under the proposal, parents, individual taxpayers and businesses would receive a dollarfor-dollar tax credit for money spent to pay for any student's private school tuition. Backers believe this proposal would skirt the church-state problems that have sunk some voucher plans in the courts.

* Maryland Gov. Parris N. Glendening (D) has proposed spending $8 million in state funds to buy textbooks for private schools, even though not enough private schools applied for books to use up $6 million allocated for them last year.

Some state legislators are skeptical of the plan, noting that they approved last year's request only because Glendening told them it would be a one-time allocation.

"I was comfortable with it as a onetime thing," Sen. Barbara A. Hoffman, a Baltimore Democrat, told The Washington Post. "I really can't support funding for private schools again this year as long as I feel the public schools are underfunded."

* New York City Mayor Rudolph Guiliani is still pushing vouchers, undeterred by a recent federal appeals court ruling declaring Cleveland's voucher plan unconstitutional. Guiliani said he believes the U.S. Supreme Court will uphold the Cleveland plan on appeal and accused voucher opponents of "fooling people" with scare tactics.

Schools Chancellor Harold Levy has not taken a stand on vouchers but says he doubts they would be permitted under the New York Constitution.

* Faced with a swelling student population and a reluctance to raise taxes to build new schools, some Utah lawmakers have come up with a novel solution: send children to private schools with state money.

Rep. John Swallow, a Republican from Sandy, says he will introduce legislation to give taxpayers a $2,500 tax credit if they send their children to private schools. "We need to get our children taught on someone else's nickel," Swallow told the Salt Lake Tribune. "It's one way to save public schools."

Public education officials say the plan is faulty and will end up costing public schools tax revenues in the long run.