Indianapolis has developed a plan that they call “neighborhoods of educational opportunity.” Every child in the future will go to a high-quality school, which is sure to be a charter school that destabilizes the neighborhood and excludes students who are not likely to get high scores.
It is the usual Reformy con job. Promise the moon, shutter public schools, hand the money off to private operators who are free to set their own admission policies and discipline policies.
At some point soon, the American public will stop buying pie-in-the-sky promises and ignore these hucksters who want to privatize our nation’s public schools.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Remember Indiana State is where the state government agreed to sell a state toll road to a private company. The company promptly raised tolls. More importantly the company negotiated a provision in the sales agreement that requires the state to pay the company for any losses in income that may happen if the state builds another highway that results in a loss of income for the privatized highway. Incredible!
Yes, another privatization move by Mitch Daniels. The quality of the roadway is terrible & the bathrooms at rest areas are awful now. The Indiana toll road used to be a nice road on which to travel. My family drove from Gary to Cleveland when I was a kid to see family all the time. It was worth paying the tolls in order to drive on a nice road. No more.
It’s amazing how the public would rather pay more for lower quality as long as it’s a private business such as the toll road example.
I drive the toll road every day on my commute. Yes, the rates were raised by the private company, after not raising for years under the states supervision and the toll road running at a loss. The private company also immediately installed Izoom (automated payment) rather than making every user stop and get a ticket from a person and pay a person at arriving. I feel bad for the people who lost their jobs, but I appreciate saving 10 minutes a day on average on my commute.
The private company has also been repaving sections of the road since the took ownership and have generally improved the condition of the road, after years of the state letting it deteriorate. Privatizing the toll road is a far cry from privatizing schools.
So your okay with a private company being guaranteed a profit at taxpayers expense? Incredible!
Michael Brocum: it goes by various names, including “socialism for the rich,” “welfare for the rich” and “socialized risk and privatized profit.”
In the ed biz, it can lead to lots and lots of $tudent $ucce$$.
Rheeally.
🙂
Here is what they were sold by the Vallas/Canbiunm turnaround group. See claims on pages 10-12:
Click to access revised-reco-and-provider-info.pdf
I asked for clarification. Thanks Mercedes:
Here is the deception: “combined school districts” means RSD and the 17-school Orleans Parish Schools (OPSB), which was primarily magnet schools turned into selective admission charters. Attempts to make RSD look better by combining its data with that of OPSB is nothing new. See this post:
Also, the “50% decrease in dropout rate” is an inflated stat; also, it does not include the fact that the definition of “dropout” was changed to exclude students who after dropping out decided to attend education programs (like night school). See this link:
http://www.thepelicanpost.org/2011/04/11/louisiana-dropout-rate-falls-31-percent/
Another word regarding Edison Learning (pg 13 of report): Jeb Bush used the Florida teacher pension money to bail out Edison, a company that never succeeded in what it said it could do: raise student scores for less money:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leonie-haimson/chris-cerf-there-you-go-a_b_835180.html
Same ‘ole plan, Sell the valuable city school property in the city to investment bankers & rebuild a school on the outskirts of town. Erode any sense of community.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
the reformers plan clamors for preschool but after the reformers were elected to the school board last November they voted to roll back Eugene White’s preschool initiative!
As a former Indiana public school teacher (history, government, Spanish) I am embarrassed by my native state’s disdain for public education and religious freedom. Its supreme court’s recent ruling upholding the Republican school voucher plan was a disgusting regurgitation on Article I, Sections 4 and 6 of the state constitution. Will Hoosiers ever wake up? — Edd Doerr (arlinc.org)
Just look at Chicago for the effects of privatization. You sell for some amount of money now for the loss of revenue for 99 years. You spend all the money in one year and there is no more for 98 years. The privatizers raise the fairs and provide worse service and continue to do so for 99 years. How is the public supposed to make out with this happening to formally public services and revenue sources which were constant and predictable? This is how corrupt the whole thing is. So why not repeat in Indianapolis?
People simply do not know enough or understand charters to know to protest.
We have to get it to be common household knowledge that charters are not a good idea in the big picture or the long range.
Since I am the metaphor girl, my newest one is public transportation. Consider a city bus or metro line: driven by qualified drivers (usually), safe enough for daily trust, clean enough for most folks for the purpose, carefully planned out according to population needs, not discriminatory (anymore), get you where you need to go (although you will need to know how to navigate and possibly use more than one for a journey), not lucrative in and of themselves but where would we be without them?
Now imagine we decide people should have choice in their mode of PUBLIC transport–everyone has that right. Just because you live in Harlem doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be able to ride in a Rolls Royce if that is what will help elevate your status. Listen up government, instead of running city buses and metro lines, let our company provide rides of choice to all people. Just give that money to us and with our team of brand new drivers we picked up at the DMV (just turned 16!!) we will transport you anywhere (for free–tax payer dollar)–it is your right to ride like you feel you deserve! Are you a parent who can’t afford a new Mercedes Benz for your child’s ride? No worries. We will come in the stretch limo. But don’t touch that! Oh no a scratch! What? Driver arrested? What? Wreck? What? Just give us our money. It ain’t our problem if we cut your street off our limo route. City you owe us!!! You signed a contract. Now pay up for the wax job we just got on the car, not to mention the grills. —
And on and on. As always, no metaphor is perfect but sure brings it on home!! City bus and all.
Is a city bus a bad way to ride? Well, if you can afford your own luxury ride and driver, no. If the wealthy want to provide luxury cars and drivers for those who cannot afford it, go ahead. But don’t take the city bus system down just son your benevolence churns a profit. Besides, luxury rides get old. Sometimes you just want to get where you want to go. City buses provide that.
And with proper support and no vultures trying to find their benevolence, so can public schools.
Last sentence: FUND their benevolence.
Also should have answered “yes” to one of my illustration questions. . .
AND sometimes we take the old city bus and pimp it up with some nice sub woofer for your riding pleasure–long as the city pays us we will give pimped out rides to those who need choice in their public school rides!! Hold on now. Wait. You need to get off this bus. Public? What? This is a charter bus paid for by public schools! Don’t you get it?
You can’t ride on this bus!