GRAPHIC: Why Corporations Want Our Public Schools

[yurbud]

YES magazine has a couple of articles on this including a good history of the conservative assault on public education.

Corporate Democrats betray their true loyalties on this issue: they are like Abraham sacrificing our kids on the altar to their jealous god on Wall Street, and they can't claim Republicans are making them do it in heavily Democratic areas like New York and Chicago.

[Coyotl]

1. K&R

[madfloridian]

2. Love the graphic from Yes Magazine.

Thanks for sharing.

[Octafish]

62. Thought this was your OP.

yurbud cares, too, about education and where the piratizers are taking our nation's future.

Thanks to you both.

[elzenmahn]

3. That huge traunch of government education cash...

...is what this privatization scheme has ALWAYS been about.

Private markets should stay out of public education. If you want to send your child to a private or parochial school, fine. That's your choice. But the "invisible hand" needs to stay out of the classrooms.

[yurbud]

7. not only that, but if these guys really think they know how to do it better...

they would START by building entirely private schools, recruiting their rich friends' kids, and proving the model works BEFORE exporting it to public education.

The fact that they don't do this proves that they don't believe their own bullshit themselves.

[elzenmahn]

10. Good Point...

[Enthusiast]

29. They just want the money.

These people have not a shred of ethics.

[bemildred]

4. Precisely. The problem is they are lousy at it. nt

[woo me with science]

5. K&R. And let's again repost "The Big Enchilada."

Education: The "Big Enchilada"
http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com/2007/08/big-enchilada.html

Some years ago, a friend who works on Wall Street handed me a stock-market prospectus in which a group of analysts at an investment-banking firm known as Montgomery Securities described the financial benefits to be derived from privatizing our public schools. "The education industry", according to these analysts, "represents, in our opinion, the final frontier of a number of sectors once under public control" that "have either voluntarily opened" or, they note in pointed terms, have "been forced" to open up to private enterprise.

Indeed, they write, "the education industry represents the largest market opportunity" since health-care services were privatized during the 1970s... "The larger developing opportunity is in the K-12 EMO market, led by private elementary school providers..." From the point of view of private profit, one of these analysts enthusiastically observes, "the K-12 market is the Big Enchilada."

[yurbud]

8. wow--that is the like the Powell Memo and Pentagon Papers of education privatization

[jsr]

15. This stuff needs more exposure.

[Overseas]

37. K&R. True motives of more destructive privatization.

[Triana]

6. Dupe!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024547269

[Salviati]

9. Why?

Because the point of capital these days is not to create goods or services that improve the lives of citizens these days. The point of capital is to identify the largest pools of money in society, to leach onto them, with the aim of skimming off as large a percentage as they possibly can without killing the host, until they forget about that last part and decide to vivisect the goose hoping to get the next golden egg before the upcoming quarterly reports.

[Enthusiast]

28. I believe you have diagnosed this correctly.

[abelenkpe]

31. Yep. Nt

[SunSeeker]

11. Charter schools are a scam. nt

[truth2power]

12. yurbud, I want to print this graphic and put it in my file...

Do you know why only the top half (#1 & 2) will print?

It won't print if I copy it from your OP and even if I try to go to the link and copy to Word. Thanks.

[yurbud]

23. you might have to print it over two pages

[mike_c]

13. rec'd and shared....

Everything is for sale in America.

[bvar22]

14. Doese ANYONE here really believe that ....

...Millionaire Corporate Power Brokers like Rahm Emanuel and Arne Duncan give a SHIT about how your 5th grader is doing in school?

OR

are they concerned about How much Public Taxpayer Money can they divert to the private pockets of their well connected 1% friends?
The Feeding Frenzy is ON!!!

I have no problem with "Charter Schools",
as long as they do NOT receive a single penny of Public Money.
We already have a Public School System.
If it is broken, it is OUR responsibility to Fix It,
not steal the money from it.

If somebody wants a Charter School,
let them find their money from "Charter" (Private) sources.


[font size=3]Go ahead and Privatize the Schools
and Bust the Teachers Union.
What are they going to do?
Vote for a Republican?
Hahahahahahahahaha

[rwsanders]

16. Exactly what I've realized recently...

"capitalism" is no longer about making a product or providing a benefit to society. It is a process of finding revenue streams and diverting them into the hands of the 1%.

[JDPriestly]

24. Precisely!

[Enthusiast]

26. You seem to have nailed it.

+1

[antigop]

32. <<<<THIS>>> nt

[CFLDem]

39. Exactly

That's why companies no longer invest in infrastructure like they used to since they're goal is to maximize profit from existing capital, not create anything new.

[LWolf]

18. Apparently, some do.

They keep voting in politicians who enact these policies and appoint corporate toadies like Duncan.

[Enthusiast]

27. Plus plus plus ONE!

[L0oniX]

41. This should be its own op bvar22. +1

[woo me with science]

17. K&R

[Lifelong Protester]

19. And when all of the "no-security, poorly paid" teachers

or TFA folks leave after a year or so, and they can't find anyone that wants the job, will folks with kids in school FINALLY wake UP?? I think most folks with kids in school think 'nothing has changed' in the last few years, except "greedy" teachers get to pay more for their retirement and health insurance. OK, fair enough, we are paying now... but the demands just keep growing, and growing, and the deck keeps being stacked, and the game is continuing to be rigged.

[AnneD]

40. I am leaving public education this year....

I am a School Nurse that has finally had enough. This 'greedy' educator, that has put up with everyone else telling me how to do my job but someone with actual experience. Kids don't have respect because it is not modeled for them, either by the parents or by our administration at the top levels.

I have worked here for 25 years. In the private sector, I can easily make 20-30K a year more......and we are comparing apples to apples not apples to oranges. I have been underpaid all these years, but it didn't bother me because I enjoyed what I was doing and was respected. I no longer enjoy it so I am leaving to make some serious money.

If you think they will have trouble replacing the teacher, try finding a School Nurse. We had 10 openings that went unfilled last year. I don't need to look into my crystal ball to know there will be even more next year.

And our brilliant legislator is instituting a pay for performance where everyone gets a base salary, like beginning teachers pay and then you get extra, based on your students test scores. I have no idea how they will judge a Nurse, but that will make the pay so erratic that one cannot plan one's life. In the 12 years we have had bonus pay, I have only received it twice. The rest of the time it was either stolen or I work in such an undeserved area that they did not score well enough.

As I said, I am cashing out my chips and going back into the private sector.

[Lifelong Protester]

43. I am sorry that some kids will be losing you

But I completely understand. The disrespect is soul- crushing, and life is too short. There are several positions like yours that will be impossible to fill.

[AnneD]

44. You can only take so much....

I am eligible to retire but I had thought of working a few more years as I was healthy and all. But after this leg. session when they started doing all this foolishness-I decided to vote with my wallet and boost my retirement savings. They are setting our schools up for failure and I am tired of watching it. If this education reform were so good, how come the scores get worse every year. Testing is just window dressing to distract you from the fact that they are stealing funds from education. They want a nation of slaves.

[DamnYankeeInHouston]

52. It's a hard decision to make.

I left the Houston schools after 33 years. I still had some good years left in me. Retirement is heaven. I have the world's smallest preschool at my house. It broke my heart that I had to leave the public schools in order to teach. Good luck to you.

[AnneD]

53. I have followed your posts.....

with interest as I am in a similar situation. As a Nurse....I have always earned less than I could, but I loved what I do. It is and has been less rewarding over the last 5 years as more work is dumped on me. This year has been the worst. And this performance based compensation that they are going to enact was the last straw. They have had 10 unfilled School Nurse positions this year. I can assure you they will have at least one more next year. I have heard it from other teachers and Nurses....They are leaving the district and the Teach for America Kids aren't hanging around either once their contracts expire. Honestly, if my daughter were school age, I would home school her or we would be looking at private schools.

[DamnYankeeInHouston]

56. it tears my heart in two

to have to tell parents to do anything else now than put there kids in Houston's public school. You will be fine. You will be able to work full time or part time on top of your pension. It's the students and teachers we leave behind that worry me. And it's the future of our uneducated country that scares me. It was a personal health issue for me. I couldn't bear the stress anymore. I look after teachers' kids and they tell me it's even worse this year. Your life will be wonderful in a few months. Hang in there.

[AnneD]

61. It already has gotten better.....

when all these edicts come down from high, people start stressing and jumping through hoops. I just smile, knowing that my time is short.

[DeSwiss]

20. K&R!

[blackspade]

21. A crushing graphic.

[Recursion]

22. Don't forget who until recently owned the Washington Post

Kaplan

[kwassa]

64. no, the Graham family owns Kaplan.

Kaplan made a lot of money for them, until it didn't.

The Graham family owned the Post, until they sold it to Jeff Bezos of Amazon. The Graham family still owns Kaplan.

[Enthusiast]

25. The privatization of public schools is bullshit!

Hear that, Mr. Obama, Arne?

We don't want a Bush scheme run on us.

Mr. President, the reason we supported you as we did is because we hated that fucking Bush and his policies so badly. There are NO GOOD BUSH POLICIES.

[merrily]

30. Wild guess: money and brainwashing.

[xchrom]

33. du rec.

[niyad]

34. HUGE k and r!

[blkmusclmachine]

35. CorpUSA wants to train a generation of Wall Street dittoheads

[Overseas]

36. Sad K&R.

[jwirr]

38. Mind-control.

[ReRe]

42. Excellent OP!

K&R

[Egalitarian Thug]

45. The "private sector" was hollowed out years ago, those big piles of government money are

the only big prize left worth hanging around for.

[spanone]

46. m.o.n.e.y.

[Jefferson23]

47. Concise and on target. Bookmarked. K&R

Thanks for posting, yurbud.

[yurbud]

48. we're getting close to a tipping point on this. We need something like Occupy or a way

to shame Democrats from taking money, advice, or free advisors from these people.

[yurbud]

49. where are our moderate, centrist, DLC, New Democrat friends telling us how great corporate reform is

Sometimes, even they know the stink of corruption is too great to cover up with a few air fresheners.

[yurbud]

50. the financial elite don't realize the noose they are making for public ed will hang them

If they could just be content with enough money for ten generations of their descendants to never have to work, no one would ever bother them and they could continue their degenerate lives of jaded debauchery.

By wanting so many of the marbles that there are none left for anyone else to even survive, they are going to end up losing everything.

I hope it is done peacefully, so we all have a chance to ask people like the Koch brothers what the fuck they were thinking while they are picking through the garbage for bottles to return for the deposit.

[woo me with science]

51. Good posts,

and glad the thread is staying visible.

[woo me with science]

54. kick

[yurbud]

55. we should print this out and mail it Obama, Arne, and congress with a little note that says

"We know what you're doing and who you are doing it for. Stop selling our kids future to Wall Street sociopaths or we will replace you."

[treestar]

57. on the corporations mantra

does anyone seriously believe they cooperate with each other to rule us all? Don't they compete? Seems they would try to destroy each other more than have time to attempt to control the public school systems, which must be numerous.

[yurbud]

58. This is easier than competing for customers in the"free market"

They just have to make donations to the right foundations and politicians and they get the contacts with extremely lax oversight in nearly every place.

[treestar]

60. But how do they cooperate with each other?

If they are the snakes we think they are, they wouldn't do that.

[yurbud]

63. I wish you were right, but privatization of government services is a well-documented long term

project.

Think of it like defense contractors: we take it for granted that private companies build the weapons for our military. Sometimes they compete among themselves, sometimes one company buys up all its competitors, and sometimes they work as a cartel as in the market in overall.

But in general, being a defense contractor is a sweet deal because the people using your product don't make buying decisions, a small handful of legislators and Pentagon generals do. The contractors can legally bribe the decision makers with campaign contributions or high paying jobs when they leave government service.

And because the decision-maker is not the user, product quality and even price are not as important as they are for products sold to the general public.

It is the worst of the private and public sector.

[liberal_at_heart]

59. Thank you. K&R.

They are stealing my son's education and I can't tell you how much it pisses me off.