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Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Wal-Mart in the news

Wal-Mart sinks millions of dollars into the balkanized quasi-public New Orleans school system.
Some of the biggest individual recipients have a major presence in the city: Teach for America, which has more than 200 instructors in local classrooms, received almost $17 million; and the KIPP Foundation, a charter school operator that will be running nine schools in New Orleans this fall, received about $9 million.

The Recovery School District, a state body that took over most New Orleans schools after Hurricane Katrina, received $667,000.

Among other local recipients: The Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools, a group that counts most New Orleans charter schools as members, got about $375,000; the Urban League of Greater New Orleans got $200,000; John Dibert Community School got $250,000; charter operator ReNew got a total of $500,000 for two schools that it runs; and the UNO Charter School Network got $230,000.


The Louisiana Legislature recently passed a law allowing corporate donors to sponsor charter schools in return for control over the allotment of admissions slots and governing board seats. Do these donations entitle Wal-Mart to anything?

Maybe they just wanted this guy instead.

BATON ROUGE - The head of the state's emergency services division is leaving his post to take a similar job with Wal-Mart Corp.

Mark Cooper, who has headed the Governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness since 2008, will become a senior director of emergency management for Wal-Mart International, Gov. Bobby Jindal announced Tuesday.

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