EduShyster, that merry prankster of edu-reform offers her predictions for the New Year.
She says 2013 will be the year of the edupreneur.
This is a new genus americanus, the ultimate result of turning the public education system into an emerging market.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
What? Oh no! Who will benefit? Who will make profits?
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Man, I want in on this! Working 2 part-time sub jobs – one long-term, the other catch-as-catch-can – just isn’t paying the bills like this could!
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On the flip side, for many years I dreamed of starting an arts-based school that would take all comers (including special ed and ESOL), and since there’s no way I could afford to start up a private school from scratch, charter would really be the only way to practically manage it – and I’d still love to do it. Does that make me one of the bad guys now? Might this be the time to run with my dream since for the time being I’ve pretty much written off working in a traditional public school classroom because a) nobody’s hiring music teachers here and b) I think it would crush what’s left of my soul?
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You could do it, but you’d have to weigh the benefits to you and your students against the siphoning of funds from the local public schools, and the further “crushing” of students and teachers in those schools.
There’s the zero sum paradox faced by well-meaning, mom-and-pop charters: their success equals the ultimate demise of public education. There’s no escaping the fact that for you to succeed, many others must be screwed.
That’s not said to insult you or question your good faith, but just to point out reality of the situation.
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Don’t tell me– none of these edupreneurs have any teaching experience or background in education, right?
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So when will Wall Street invite all of us into the Charter Market? Yes, we should invest for the short-term, but don’t put all your eggs in one basket. This will fall as deeply as Lehman Bros and the housing market did once this scam comes to light. And the big winners will be those that started these companies and the pols who helped them. The rest of the investors will lose their entire wardrobe.
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