Last week we saw a report from Reuters about the conference for equity investors held at the posh University Club in Manhattan.
And we learned there about the many new frontiers for making a buck by jumping into the public education marketplace.
Here is another article from the same conference, this one in Education Week, reporting with a straight face that the equity investors see new opportunities to make money when the new national tests inevitably produce low scores.
Message: Never let an opportunity to make money off other people’s misery go to waste!
A bonanza, to be sure!
If we let this happen, shame on us.
Shame on state education departments.
Shame on the U.S. Department of Education.
Shame on Arne Duncan and President Obama.
And shame on the investors who want to take a cut of the dollars intended to educate America’s children.
Are they part of the reform movement too?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Shame requires a conscience.
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Yes, the problem is they have no shame — only aggression and greed.
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From the subprime mortgages to education. Profit at all costs and the heck with the people who are hurt by their aggressive tactics. What is this teaching our children?
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I assume these “reforms” are occurring mostly in urban areas with a significant percentage of minority students living in poverty. I don’t hear much about vouchers and charter schools in well-to-do communities. If so, this reveals how unethical these “reformists” are by seeking to profit from those already disadvantaged. This brings to mind a study financed by the pharmaceutical industry some years back that found to no ones surprise that blood pressure of 120/80 was inadequate and needed to be treated with medication!!! The public saw through this obvious fallacious ploy to fatten profits and it went nowhere. Too bad the people most in need for real help in education are also the most ill informed and represent a smaller portion of society allowing the educational snake oil sales people to enact their “reforms”. The blood pressure ploy would’ve affected all people not just the ill informed and therefore died down.
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Equity investors in education? Bain Capital? Planned bankruptcy?
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They see it as a war against their fellow citizens against whom which it is perfectly fine to lie and employ dirty tricks.
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