Alice Walton has donated $1.7 M to Initiative 1240 which would privatize our schools. If the Waltons are going to determine educational policy in our state, we should at least get to know them better.
WAL-MART: THE HIGH COST OF LOW PRICE is a feature-length documentary that uncovers a retail giant’s assault on families and American values.
The film dives into the deeply personal stories and everyday lives of families and communities struggling to fight a goliath. A working mother is forced to turn to public assistance to provide healthcare for her two small children. A Missouri family loses its business after Wal-Mart is given over $2 million to open its doors down the road. A mayor struggles to equip his first responders after Wal-Mart pulls out and relocates just outside the city limits. A community in California unites, takes on the giant, and wins!
For more on the Walmart Waltons and their interest in education, see the Walmart 1% on Education.
By the way, did you know that the developer who just bought the Red Apple property at 23rd and Jackson in Seattle is considering a Walmart at that location?
Dora
Seattle Education 
I have not looked into the PISA test scores but I did a post titled:
“Bill Gates needs to get his facts straight on test scores”, https://seattleducation2010.wordpress.com/2012/08/01/bill-gates-needs-to-get-his-facts-straight-on-test-scores/.
Here is an excerpt:
I came across an article that I had saved on the NAEP (pronounced “nape”) test results over the last 12 years and Bill Gates pronouncement that our school system is a failure based on his perception that students have not shown any academic gains over the last 40 years.
Au contraire Mr. Gates, not according to the NAEP test.
Mr. Richard Rothstein with the Economic Policy Institute states in a report last year titled Fact Challenged Policy:
The only longitudinal measure of student achievement that is available to Bill Gates or anyone else is the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). NAEP provides trends for 4th, 8th, and 12th graders, disaggregated by race, ethnicity, and poverty, since about 1980 in basic skills in math and reading (called the “Long Term Trend NAEP”) and since about 1990 for 4th and 8th graders in slightly more sophisticated math and reading skills (called the “Main NAEP”).[*]
On these exams, American students have improved substantially, in some cases phenomenally. In general, the improvements have been greatest for African-American students, and among these, for the most disadvantaged. The improvements have been greatest for both black and white 4th and 8th graders in math. Improvements have been less great but still substantial for black 4th and 8th graders in reading and for black 12th graders in both math and reading. Improvements have been modest for whites in 12th grade math and at all three grade levels in reading.
You will need to go to the link of my post to read the article in full.
Dora
I would like to see that independent analysis of those international tests too, for the same reasons. I have seen short squibs here and there noting some differences in populations, but no larger analysis.
We are rapidly becoming the United States of Corporate America, and most people don’t seem to care. I would love to find an indepth analysis of the PISA test, for I suspect that in many instances the student populations among the participating nations are significantly different. Yet, we are being told by the media that our schools are inferior, our teachers are incompetent and overpaid, and that charter schools are the answer. No one in the popular media (except for Bill Moyer) seems to be concerned that the moving force behind charter schools, digital textbooks and virtual schools is corporate greed. I am grateful to Seattle for letting the truth become known.