A reader discovered the agenda for a big conference of equity investors, technology corporations, and supportive foundations.
A high-level official of the U.S. Department of Education will be there too.
Folks, read the agenda.
Public education is up for grabs.
Lots of corporations are licking their chops.
This is scary.
Remember reading about “the Great Barbecue,” in the late nineteenth century?
That’s when greedy men plundered the public treasury. .
Are the public schools now on the spit?
So much money, all guaranteed by the government.
Now we will see how entrepreneurs reform our schools and get rich too.
The reader writes:
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Look at some of the topics by session:
What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy?
A matter of degrees..will degrees matter?
The NO MONEY class – can budget crises spur innovation?
The fall of the wall – Capitol flows to education sectors and companies
How the JOBS act impacts capital markets for entrepreneurs
ClassLess – corporate form over over substance?
Hmmm? When exactly do they talk about children? Lots of discussion about $$$$$$
The more things change the more they . . . .
“Conditions were ripe to spawn a ruthless era in which special interests, spoilsmen, and corruption seemed to ooze out the doors of every government office. There was, in fact, nothing new about the essential elements at work in Washington that gave rise to these unseemly years. The “lousy combings and born freedom stealers of the earth,” as Whitman had called the evils threatening good government in the 1850s, predated even his generation. But the confluence of so many factors encouraging corruption, the scale and audacity of the ensuing scandals [of the charter and online schools], the extravagant sordidness of the decade [2010-2020] to come, those were new.
The coals were hot and ready for an unprecedented feeding frenzy in Washington [and throughout the land, especially in the large cities]– what came to be called “the Great Barbecue.” The most sought-after dishes at the feast were [public education contracts and prime public school real estate locations]. ”
Quoted (with my updates [. . . ]) from “King of the Lobby: The Life and Times of Sam Ward, Man-About-Washington in the Gilded Age”, by Kathryn Allamong Jacob found at: http://www.nationaljournal.com/njonline/no_20100312_8760.php
“Remember reading about “the Great Barbeque,” in the late nineteenth century?”
Come on folks we can come up with a great BBQ menu for this conference. None of that rubber chicken stuff. I’ll start with dessert:
Student Brain Sorbet, flash frozen in liquid nitrogen, topped with a delightful Chocolate Blood Sauce sprinkled with flash frozen Student Tear Drops.
Watch this video posted on the 2013 summit website. There are five venture showdowns…which one do you want to fund? The woman who introduces the presenters says they are multi-taskers as they will be presenting hungover. Notice how rarely they mention children, students, learning. It is $$$$$$$.
http://edinnovation.asu.edu/2012-media/venture-showdown-video/
Right now Sylvan Learning centers is making a nice profit off of the failures in public ed. Why not draw attention to that?
Actually, in my area Sylvan is used for after school homework monitoring. Parents are either too busy with their careers or can’t be bothered to set up a routine at home to monitor homework. So the profits here are due to the failures of parenting. Why not draw attention to that? All of your posts drip with disdain for public schools and teachers and your conclusions are not always correct. Try to learn something new today.
Not to mention that much of the time these tutoring programs are simply to increase test scores on standardized tests. You usually complain about standardized tests, with good reason. But that’s what the whole tutoring companies do: increase schools’ scores so that they don’t look “failing.” NCLB requires districts to pay for tutoring for “failing” schools.
K12 figures out a way to come under the auspices of a county or city school system, selling them on the extra gov’t money they can draw for the K12 enrollment of kids who do not reside anywhere in the district or even area. Strapped systems take the bite, going for the short term gains that will eventually choke public education out of existence. Between vouchers, charters and k12, the greatest venture of the humanist movement will soon be teetering on extinction.
Wenn ich es nicht wirklich wissen würde, dann würde
ich ohne Weiteres darauf tippen, dass der Beitrag “Profiteers Circle Schools | Diane Ravitch’s blog” glatt von mir geschrieben ist so detailliert wie der hier steht.
Alle Finger nach oben und weiterhin viel Erfolg weiter so in Zukunft!