Billion-Dollar, Publicly Traded Scholastic Gives Profits to Its Shareholders

“How could they,” the Occupiers would ask. News of Scholastic’s December issue and its blatant biased coverage of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) and Tea Party movements made waves across the blogosphere thanks to Michelle Malkin. Malkin highlighted the differences in coverage between the two movements and points out what Scholastic ignored:

Perhaps the next edition can provide kids with a full accounting of the Occupy-related illnesses, vandalism, rapes, deaths, and other criminal violations — and a related pop quiz on John Nolte’s Occupy arrest rap sheet.

The kids deserve the whole truth. The teachers unions‘ Alinsky brigade won’t give it to them.

However, while Scholastic continues its love affair with OWS, it also has a hypocrisy problem (go figure). It seems Scholastic senior editor, Natalie Smith, who wrote this OWS puff piece dated well after this gem of a photo, conveniently forgot that her company is a $1.9 Billion publicly-traded company on the NASDAQ exchange. Smith writes:

The Occupy protesters argue that large companies like those on Wall Street are making too much money while millions of Americans are struggling just to put food on the table. The protesters say they want average Americans to have more job opportunities and share in companies’ prosperity. They want their voices to be heard. (emphasis mine)

What Smith fails to report is that Scholastic is in quite good shape financially:

In fiscal 2011 operating income was $100.7 million on revenue of $1,906.1 million, primarily reflecting lower sales of educational technology relative to a year ago, when the Company benefited significantly from the federal stimulus program, as well as increased strategic spending on digital initiatives in the children’s book business. Free cash flow was $120.5 million, which exceeded net income, compared to $171.6 million a year ago, which reflected that year’s strong educational technology sales. The Company also returned $176.4 million to shareholders in the form of share buybacks and dividends in fiscal 2011.

Last year we celebrated the 90th Anniversary of the founding of Scholastic. From the launch of a single classroom magazine in 1920, Scholastic has grown to become the world’s largest publisher and distributor of children’s books and a leader in educational technology and children’s media.

Ah, yes, the sweetness of a capitalistic economic system, vision, ingenuity, and success. Scholastic has been able to grow due to the very capitalistic system OWS condemns. It’s mind-boggling, to say the least, how Scholastic can support a movement that validates and teaches children class warfare, lawlessness, and lewd behavior. But then again…