{"id":412,"date":"2012-10-16T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-10-16T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/10\/wall-streets-next-big-thing-privatizing-public-education.html"},"modified":"2012-10-16T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-10-16T12:00:00","slug":"wall-streets-next-big-thing-privatizing-public-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/10\/wall-streets-next-big-thing-privatizing-public-education.html","title":{"rendered":"Wall Street’s next big thing: privatizing public education"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nWhat’s really behind the charter school amendment referendum?\nCorporate greed.\n<\/p>\n

\nJeff Faux wrote for AlterNet 15 October 2012,\n\nEducation Profiteering: Wall Street’s Next Big Thing?\nWall Street’s involvement in the charter school movement is presented as an act of philanthropy, but it’s really about greed.<\/a>\nHe reviews some of\n\nthe evidence that charter schools don’t improve education<\/a>,\nespecially when forced on states.\nThen he gets into why so much money is flowing into charter schools\nanyway.\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nEducation privatization would not, per se, create a net new stimulus\n\n\"Wall<\/a>\nfor the economy. But by diverting large existing flows of money from\nthe public to the private sector it would create new profit-making\nventures that could be capitalized and transformed into stocks,\nderivatives and leveraged securities. The pot has been sweetened by\na 39 percent federal tax credit for financing charter school\nconstruction that can double an investor’s return in seven years.\nThe prospect of new speculative opportunities could well recharge\nthe animal spirits upon which Wall Street depends.\n<\/p>\n

\nSome “liberal” privatization promoters claim that charter schools\nshould not be considered private. But that’s an argument the\nmanagement companies that run the schools only use when they are\nasking for more government funding. At the same time they argue in\ncourts and to legislatures that as private enterprises they should\nnot be subject to government audits, labor laws and other\nrestrictions.\n<\/p>\n

\nThese companies rent, buy, and sell buildings; make contracts for\nconsulting, accounting and legal services, food concessions, and\ntransportation; and pay their managers far more than public school\nprincipals earn. In cases where city governments have given land to\ncharter schools, for profit real estate companies have ended up\nowning the subsidized land and buildings. In states where charter\nschools are required to be nonprofit, profit-making companies can\nstill set them up and then organize a board of neighborhood\nresidents who will give them the right to manage the school with\nlittle or no interference.\n<\/p>\n

\nIn 2008 Dennis Bakke, CEO of Imagine Schools, a private company that\nmanaged 71 schools in eleven states, sent an email to the firm’s\nsenior staff. It reminded his managers not to give school boards the\n“misconception” that they were “responsible for making decisions\nabout budget matters, school policies, hiring of the principal, and\ndozens of other matters.” The memo suggested that the community\nboard members be required to sign undated letters of resignation.\n“It is our school, our money, and our risk,” he wrote, “not theirs.”\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nYet in Georgia it’s our tax money they want to use to fund those\n“public” private charter schools.\nThat’s the “large existing flows of money” they want to divert\ninto their profiteering pockets.\nNo wonder ALEC is so big into charter schools!\nAnd look who else:\n<\/p>\n\n\n

\n

\nAccording to none other that Rupert Murdoch, the U.S. education\nindustry represents a five hundred billion dollar opportunity for\ninvestors. In 2010, he hired prominent reformer Joel Klein from his\npost as chancellor of the New York City Department of Education to\nrun Murdoch’s education technology company. A few months later the\nfirm received a $2.7 million contract from the city.\n<\/p>\n

\nCharter schools, for profit on-line universities and other forms of\nprivatization may not in the end fulfill all the dreams of its Wall\nStreet promoters. But there is clearly money to be made here. And\nwhere there is money to be made, we can be sure that there will be\nmoney to finance political campaigns, to support career ladders that\nmove between government and business and to bribe the media into\nignoring the data. So the war on public education will continue. All\nof course “for the sake of the children.”\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n\n\"VoteSmartGeorgia.com\"<\/a>\nIf you care more about your local tax dollars than about\nprofits for Rupert Murdoch and Bill Gates and Alice Walton;\nif you care more about the children of Georgia than about turning public schools into Wall Street’s next big thing:\nvote No on the charter school amendment!\n<\/p>\n

\n-jsq\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What’s really behind the charter school amendment referendum? Corporate greed. Jeff Faux wrote for AlterNet 15 October 2012, Education Profiteering: Wall Street’s Next Big Thing? Wall Street’s involvement in the charter school movement is presented as an act of philanthropy, but it’s really about greed. He reviews some of the evidence that charter schools don’t […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[140,14,15,49,70,8,21,22],"tags":[8744,1390,1371,8704,8705,8721,8728,8701,1576,8702,12,7,8711,8712,218,1486,60,6,1388],"class_list":["post-412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alec","category-economy","category-education","category-elections","category-ethics","category-georgia","category-planning","category-politics","tag-alec","tag-alice-walton","tag-charter-schools","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-elections","tag-ethics","tag-georgia","tag-k12","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-planning","tag-politics","tag-profit","tag-referendum","tag-tax","tag-valdosta","tag-walton-family-foundation"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-6E","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}