An earlier post described how Chinese investors can get green cards by funding charter schools. The article linked there said that wealthy Chinese had poured $30 million into charters in Florida.
A reader comments:
A Chinese investor gets a green card for investing $1 million in a project that will “create” ten jobs. The publicly funded charter fraud industry, however, doesn’t create new jobs. It converts well paying public sector jobs, with reasonable benefits, into low paying jobs without benefits. Let’s follow the money through this profit-generating machine.
The investors get 30 green cards, and their profits are guaranteed by the free services of well connected edubusiness lobbyists, working through organizations like ALEC, Students First, and Stand for Children. The US DOE cooperates, through Race to the Top, by requiring states to legally compel local districts to hand over their American tax dollars to private charter operators.
It’s all for the kids, as Jeb Bush likes to say.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Is this what Condi and Joel meant by national security threat? No, well here’s something for state and Federal officials to chew on. What safeguards are in place to prevent visa fraud and money laundering?
Oh, now, now, you’re just being paranoid. These are rich people – the job creators – we’re talking about here. I’m sure they have the best interests of America and her citizens at heart. When, after all, have rich folks ever done anything to harm us?
Ahem.
Having experience tracking such things professionally, let me just add that this is just the type of scheme you look for to launder money. I know, paranoia again, but it is a side benefit brought to us by the “job creators.” Al Capone got caught for not paying taxes, this set up is tax free.
Have you ever watched “Shark Tank” on TV? Somebody comes up with a wonderful product that is already making a profit and has great potential. The inventor wants a factory in his/her area to create jobs in the USA. The Sharks will refuse to invest unless the inventor agrees to have it made over seas. So the problem is the government that is an enabler for the rich folks. Then govern screams broke so it can raise taxes. If it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck, it is a duck. This is a take over of some kind. The little guy does not have a chance.
Does anyone have any information on the Rocketship charters.
They are slated to open 8 new charters in Milwaukee by 2017.
How do we find out how much profit they make? Thank you for
any help provided.
Another reason to be concerned about a national security risk is the curriculum being taught to American children in charter schools that are run by foreign entities. Not to sound overly paranoid but what’s to stop them from indoctrinating them with all types of propaganda? We’ve already seen that some charters are planning to teach creationism in lieu of evolution. What will the Chinese charters teach American children?
Education Profiteering: Wall Street’s Next Big Thing?
These “data-driven” investors are not so much interested in students’ scores, as in the opportunities to cut costs by using online technology. Ironically, while reformers insist their goal is to develop more skilled teachers, a goal of their financier allies is to get rid of them. The central question, says education entrepreneur John Katzman is “How do we use technology so that we require fewer qualified teachers?”
According to none other that Rupert Murdoch, the U.S. education industry represents a five hundred billion dollar opportunity for investors. In 2010, he hired prominent reformer Joel Klein from his post as chancellor of the New York City Department of Education to run Murdoch’s education technology company. A few months later the firm received a $2.7 million contract from the city.
Charter schools, for profit on-line universities and other forms of privatization may not in the end fulfill all the dreams of its Wall Street promoters. But there is clearly money to be made here. And where there is money to be made, we can be sure that there will be money to finance political campaigns, to support career ladders that move between government and business and to bribe the media into ignoring the data. So the war on public education will continue. All of course “for the sake of the children.”
http://truth-out.org/news/item/12117-education-profiteering-wall-streets-next-big-thing
I come to these comments for the optimism.
Yeah, some of us aren’t very optimistic, just realistic in seeing the harms done to students by the idiocies that are being promulgated by the edudeformers.
The latest ALEC scam from the Department of Education of Pa. Governor Corbett:
The Philadelphia Inquirer is finally reporting that the Pa. Department of Education manipulated charter results on the PSSA to make charters look better than public schools which Allentown’s Morning Call reported last week.
U.S. says Pa. moved too soon to change charter progress rules
from the Inquirer
“The U.S. Department of Education says the Pennsylvania Education Department “acted prematurely” when it changed rules for how charter schools can meet academic-performance standards on the annual PSSA achievement test.
The change makes it easier for most charters to meet the state benchmarks, known as Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP). Public school advocates call it an unfair way to make charters look better than regular public schools, to which they have typically been compared.
Instead of averaging the scores of all tested students to make AYP, under the new rules charters could average the test scores of only a few grades to meet state benchmarks, the way it is done for entire school districts.”
The article concludes:
“About 49 percent of charters statewide made Adequate Yearly Progress in 2012, compared with 51 percent of all Pennsylvania schools.
In Philadelphia, about 54 percent of charters made the grade, compared with only 13 percent of public schools.
The school boards association said that if the old rules had been used, dozens fewer charter schools would have made AYP and charters would have performed much worse on average statewide than regular public schools.
Under the old rules, the association estimated, statewide, only 33 of 156 charters with PSSA scores – 21 percent – would have gotten the “Made AYP” designation, instead of 49 percent. In Philadelphia, association figures showed, 20 percent of charters would have made AYP, instead of 54 percent.
State Education Department AYP figures showed more charters making the mark than the association estimate. No figures for Philadelphia charters were provided.”
http://www.philly.com/philly/education/20121015_U_S__says_Pa__moved_too_…
“acted prematurely”
Does this administration take the law, rule of law and/or the Constitution seriously.? Cripes. What spin. This excuse borders on the absurd. I hope people wake up- soon…real soon.