Hopefully, you read Owen Davis’ story about what was driving charter expansion in Newark. It precedes this one in the queue.
In this post, EduShyster interviews Owen Davis about his investigation of the Newark situation. What’s the story? Money and real estate. Gentrification. What used to be called “slum clearance.” $5 billion in bonds for charter construction. I have reached a point where I long for a financial writer to take an interest in this burgeoning industry.
The education side is almost as puzzling as the financial side. Most of the teachers in the new charter schools are Teach for America recruits, so they are likely in their first or second year of teaching, then they will be gone. How can this kind of teacher churn produce sustainable change? Why do conservatives want to eliminate public education?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
See this too:
Scamming the city. Its parents. Its children.
“One Newark” is illegal. It’s illegal because it discriminates on the basis of race. It is illegal because it violates a raft of state laws and regulations.
And it is illegal because it violates the charter school law.
But, in a New Jersey operated by Gov. Christie’s Mafia, illegal is only what the governor says it is. And Hespe and Anderson do his bidding.
http://bobbraunsledger.com/how-hespe-and-anderson-scammed-newarks-children-to-help-charter-school-friends/
LikeLike
I also don’t understand why aspects of sustainability have not been factored into the equation in terms of education. How can someone advise on sustainability in investing and be anti-public school? Short-sighted.
It’s the new breed of conservatives and liberals who are skeptical of public education. Again, short sighted
LikeLike
“Why do conservatives want to eliminate public education?”
For the wealthy, it is a way of preserving privilege. If middle and working class kids don’t have the same chances to become educated as their own children, privilege is much more easily sustained. This is not about competition or meritocracy, it’s about unchallenged dominance. The middle class has bought into the propaganda that education is only about their child, that the goal of an educated public is not their problem. It is one of many aspects of social responsibility that have been abandoned in a society in which consumerism has replaced citizenship as a means of belonging. It’s why a largely meaningless mantra of “choice” permits the most egregious of decision making. For the working poor, public schools have been abandoned by local governments and their taxpayers and thus charters and privates are dangled over their heads like the carrot while sticks are used to beat those special need students who will never be admitted to charter or private schools. For the religious conservatives, their interest is largely indoctrination rather than education. As the Catholic Church interacted with Galileo or Dayton, TN with Mr. Scopes, the primary concern is preserving a belief system which a true education often threatens.
Thus, why the heathen rage.
LikeLike
“Why do conservatives want to eliminate public education?”
I think the answer is simple: though control leading to drone trained consumers and profits.
Why the Right Hates Public Education: http://www.rethinkingschools.org/special_reports/bushplan/righpro.shtml
In an article about education, it’s appropriate to start with a pop quiz. Today’s question: Republican strategists want to privatize education because:
a) Education is a multibillion dollar market, and the private sector is eager to get its hands on those dollars.
b) Conservatives are devoted to the free market and believe that private is inherently superior to public.
c) Shrinking public education furthers the Republican Party goal of drastically reducing the public sector.
d) Privatization undermines teacher unions, a key base of support for the Democratic Party.
e) Privatization rhetoric can be used to woo African American and Latino voters to the Republican Party.
f) All of the above.
OK, I admit it, the answer’s obvious: all of the above. But in the debates over education policy, the Republican political agenda (see d and e) is often invisible. – Barbara Miner
LikeLike
“Why do conservatives want to eliminate public education?” Because most people with an education and the ability to think- might- just might vote against them. Just my two cents.
LikeLike
I saw a headline in the Buffalo News that chilled me: ‘Newark’s jobs training is a model for Buffalo schools’
http://www.buffalonews.com/city-region/buffalo-public-schools/newark8217s-jobs-training-is-a-model-for-buffalo-schools-20140817
While I agree that we need good vocational schools, the article is full of the same old reform-y talking points.
LikeLike
Colleen,
Warmest regards to Buffalo from Newark.
LikeLike