Billionaire Reed Hasting, founder of Netflix, announced that he will create a fund with $100 million for the “reforms” he favors. He is a huge supporter of charter schools. Reed Hastings doesn’t like public schools. The CEO of the new fund will be Neerav Kingsland, who formerly ran New Schools for New Orleans, the charter-promotion agency in that city. In the past, Hastings has expressed his hope that one day almost every school in the nation will be a charter school and that local school boards will disappear. This is the culmination of the reform dream of abolishing local democracy and supplanting it with consumer choice.
This is why I canceled my subscription to Netflix.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I wish they’d stop promoting it as for “public education”. These organizations fund and promote charter schools, exclusively. In fact, isn’t Hastings the ed reform billionaire who said his goal is to eradicate public schools?
Just call it a charter school promotion org. Truth in advertising.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a subscription to Netflix. But if I could I would ban all billionaires from imposing their biases on education and all other public matters that should be decided by the general public through voting.
I have to say, I admire that he tells the truth:
” So what we have to do is to work with school districts to grow steadily, and the work ahead is really hard because we’re at 8% of students in California, whereas in New Orleans they’re at 90%, so we have a lot of catchup to do…So what we have to do is continue to grow and grow… It’s going to take 20-30 years to get to 90% of charter kids….And if we succeed over the next 20 or 30 years, that will be one of the fastest rates of change ever seen around the world for a large system, it’s hard. [applause]”
His goal is to eradicate public schools completely, other than I guess a 10% share for “safety net” public schools.
I’d genuinely appreciate it if the ed reform politicians would reveal their plans in this manner. Then we could have a real public debate on whether we want to privatize US public schools instead of this “agnostic” baloney.
Thank you, Chiara, for sticking to your mantra, ‘what about the public schools [who educate95% of our kids]? I am convinced, this is the point that will eventually convince the public to see through Ed-reform & support their community schools.
Just what the US needs, huh? More power for billionaires.
They already bought most of our government. They need our schools too?
Yes, because they want to dictate what our children will be allowed to learn: complete deference to authority, civic disengagement, and fear … lots and lots of fear.
To paraphrase the song, I want it all, I want it now. They think so.
It worries me to no end that the tech billionaires are running “blended learning” because it doesn’t just affect charter schools- they’re pushing it into every public school. There will literally be no way to avoid their influence and clout.
Chiara- BS! The public is beginning to cotton onto the billionaires’ agenda! Why else would they be buying into Trump’s & Sanders’ [populist] platforms?
Ever notice how many of the supporters of charter schools did not attend public schools? E.g., Mr. Hastings graduated from Buckingham Browne & Nichols. Tuition today ranges from $30,890 (K-3) to $42,320 (9-12). Average class size 11.7 – 20 (home room elementary; however, 10 for math and language arts and some others). Teacher student ratio 5.9 to 1 upper classes to 6.7 to 1 lower. There are 4 libraries (spread over 3 campuses). 31% of students are “of color”.
Has anyone compiled a data base showing how many of the charter advocates attended public/private schools? We know Mr. Gates and the Koch brothers were privately schooled. My gut feeling is that at least 80% of the “reformers” have no clue about the real world and depend on the not-so-independent foundations for their information.
BTW: Since Mr. Hastings taught math for 2 years in the Peace Corps, does he have any words of wisdom for teachers who will face similar, if not worse, conditions than he did? Check out Swaziland demographics — compared to many US inner cities, it appears that Swaziland values its PUBLIC education more than the US does.
They have disdain for that which they do not understand! Now that our imbalanced tax system has allowed him to have too much money, he wants to hijack democracy like all the other oligarchs. He wants to impose his non-evidence based bias on other people’s children. As for his own, he’ll just send them to a posh private school.
This uncalled for “bashing” of public schools and public school teachers sickens me. Oh, I forgot … it’s about $$$$$, not our young.
Thanks for this information about Netflix. For those who would like to cancel Netflix, let them know that you object to Reed Hasting’s politics.
In order to replace Netflix, you may want to subscribe to a not-for-profit service that rents DVDs that are sent through the mail. They are Facets Multi-media in Chicago. They have a terrific selection—much better than Netflix, especially if you are interested in independent and foreign films.
We have been paying a monthly rental fee for about ten years and have been very happy with their service.
http://www.facets.org/, DVD Rentals.
Then let’s talk about how to stop using Microsoft!
Thank you for this. I’ve been looking for an alternative to Netflix, which I shun because it attacks public schools, but also because it’s a virtual monopoly so lucrative that it’s spawned one more meddling hubristic billionaire. A plague on these billionaires!
“K12 Inc. Tries to Pivot from Virtual School Failures to Profit from ‘Non-Managed’ Schools”. The Center for Media and Democracy-PR Watch posted this article today.
Thank you for this information. I just canceled my Netflix subscription today. It is our responsibility to spread the word however depressing it may be.
Corporate CEOs! Stay out of our schools! Have you no shame? Your behavior is sociopathic just like some of the characters in Jessica Jones. Yes, Jessica Jones. The show I will give up from now on.
“This is the culmination of the reform dream of abolishing local democracy and supplanting it with consumer choice.”
Consumer choice, HA!!! That is pure BS.
The real so-called reform movement is a war against the people, parents and children and any public institution that the people control through the ballot box. Billionaires like Hastings are autocratic, corporate dictators and they clearly detest democracy and any power the public has through the ballot box and the representatives the people elect.
If he were a philosopher king, I might not mind his autocracy so much. But he’s a businessman king. Ugh!
The autocratic, private sector, billionaire oligarchs funding the war to destroy the U.S.’s community-based, transparent, non-profit, democratic public schools are no different than Mussolini, Hitler, Mao or Stalin. Yes, I used the politically incorrect use of Hitler’s name in a comparison because it fits.
You can pry my Netflix subscription out of my cold dead hands.
http://nytime.com/2016/01/14/technology/why-media-titans-need-to-worry-about-netflix.html
Looks like I’m not the only one.
Sorry for the broken link above.
http://nytimes.com/2016/01/14/technology/why-media-titans-need-to-worry-about-netflix.html
Tim, why don’t you take out a dozen Netflix subscriptions to prove your loyalty to those who would privatize public schools?
While Tim is at it, he can also shop daily at Walmart for everything he buys, including Microsoft products, and socialize only on Facebook while investing his money in Hedge Funds. But be warned, Tim, Hedge funds are very risky because the men behind them are greedy and will do almost anything to get your money.
But that’s okay, because, “Hedge funds’ unregulated use of derivatives helped cause the financial crisis of 2008.”
http://useconomy.about.com/od/themarkets/f/hedge_funds.htm
Nobody’s going to pry Netflix from your cold dead hands. Instead, the 99% will be begging for food, from the oligarchs.
I would happily pay more than $9.99/mo for my Netflix subscription. And more than $99 for Amazon Prime (this in particular feels like stealing).
But thanks to the power of the market, I don’t have to. Two programs that I joined voluntarily and can leave any time I want, and who have to “capture” subscribers by offering an appealing product at a reasonable price.
But this is the really great part: even if you conscientiously and righteously choose not to join Netflix or Amazon, you still benefit from their presence! Other sources of goods and services will lower their prices, improve their customer service, or otherwise work harder for your business.
Thank goodness for choice.
Why are you here dear Tim? To stir the pot? To say black when someone else says white? Good luck to you and your netflix. As my friends say GFY – Goof For You.
In Ohio, customers in deregulated (competitive) utility markets paid more for their energy use than the communities that retained their municipal-owned utilities. The Dayton Daily News was one of the papers that covered the story.
Back to the 99% for a minute, Thomas Picketty’s book proves the point I made, as does the theft of labor’s rewards for their productivity and, the suicide nets, hung from the tech workers’ dormitories, operated for Silicon Valley, in China. Tim, your gadgets, bought for a song, come at a high price to humanity.
Just cancelled my subscription!
Reblogged this on 21st Century Theater.
Diane,
Can you post a list of deformers so people know where NOT to shop? Netflix, Walmart, etc.
Cross posted at http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Charter-Cheerleader-Reed-H-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Charter-Schools_Democracy_Education_Fraud-160114-682.html#comment579054
with commentary that has embedded links
And on and on it goes — as the conversation in the media they own, is about ‘schools’ and ‘choice’ while the billionaires of the EDUCATIONAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX who own the media, have used the rhetoric of reform to Bamboozle the people with lies, and sell magic elixirs .
Go to my series on charter schools, to get an idea of the truth or go to the Ravitch site and put in ‘corruption’ in the search field or ‘privatization’ and see how the ONLY ROAD TO INCOME EQUALITY AND REAL DEMOCRACY the INSTITUTION OF public education IS UNDER ATTACK!
I have no problem with charters – so long as they are called PRIVATE schools, or academies, or scholar-domes or whatever the heck the reformers want to call them – so long as they accept private tuition. I object to my tax dollars going into the hands of privatized profitized charters, and the white house’s obsession with tax breaks for the start ups, and the diversion of my federal tax dollars going to any charter school, in tandem with reducing dollars to true public schools. If these billionaires want so desperately to save children from the public schools, then why don’t they open up their schools free of tuition to the children who attend, out of their own billions? Because, it never was about the children….it is about the tax credits, and return on investment that will keep rolling in from the rest of us who pay our fair share of taxes and don’t hide our monies outside of the USA. Shame on them.
Diane,
Reed Hastings needs to be inundated with letters from the public who drop their subscriptions. Can you publish email and snail mail addresses?
Good idea, Gail. I don’t have any address for him but perhaps one of our readers does. Canceling your subscription speaks.