Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette is a wholly owned subsidiary of the DeVos family. They have given him about $140,000. That’s real friendship. Now he is running for Governor of Michigan, to lock in the damage that rightwingers have inflicted on what was once a union-friendly State but is now completely controlled by the Greed Industry. Trump has already endorsed Schuette.
Schuette just released a ruling that will please Billionaire Betsy DeVos. No surprise. He decided that it is okay to keep privatizing the public schools of Detroit. It doesn’t matter that the charter sector in Detroit has not performed better than the struggling public s hoops. Detroit may be the next New Orleans, a playground for TFA and charter entrepreneurs.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Sad Michigan! Where are the professors of Education?
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This article outlines how DeVos and her cronies intend to continue their forced march on Detroit Public Schools in order to create a “privatized nirvana,” like New Orleans. When the the bottom 5% is always subject to takeover, eventually the entire school system will be in the crosshairs of privatization. The end result will be a total disenfranchising of minority parents when corporations and politicians will determine where the funds go. Total access to public money is the end game.
I recently read this article about the limitations of privatization. It outlines how essential services are better off when treated as government services for the common good. While he have listened to the right wing propaganda about the pitfalls of “Big Government,” there are actually many things the government does more efficiently and ultimately better. The highest rated government service is Medicare, and believe or not, the second is the VA. Governments wastes less on administering and implementing programs because there is no profit, little advertising and no golden parachutes for program directors. The plight of education is mentioned as well. This article is well worth reading, and it complements this post. https://www.salon.com/2017/10/07/why-privatization-is-a-disaster-for-any-democratic-society_partner/
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I’ve been out of commission. What is happening with the shadow government, in general and specifically, in regard to a department of education working in exile for the new progressive government after the liberation from radical neoliberals and neoconservatives?
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Let’s hope Schuette losses to an actual progressive candidate. Do we know who is running against him yet? It would be great if candidates Trump anoints with his great, god-like approval start falling to the ground like shedding, dead skin.
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I am done with complaining and complainers. We need fact checked, well researched reporting on current manipulations of key policies and acts of injustice (as this blog does quiet well) Then, each person must proceed with development and building support for specific, progressive regime changes for the public good. I am currently working with my local chapter and state to bring about healthcare for all, state by state until the whole nation gets on board. HCAO.org
Choose at least one issue:
education, healthcare (including mental health) free press and internet, immigration and de-privatization of prisons systems… and then network.
I recommend the book “Capitalism 3.0: a guide to reclaiming the commons” by Peter Barnes. I wonder if he would write an updated revision.
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Detroit was one of the experimental sites for cheap garbage “online learning”. They spent millions on a rip-off program out of some education grifting “start up” in Utah.
The experiment failed but I’m sure DeVos and Co want to expand it- hugely profitable. The kids in the schools are the unwitting subjects in these experiments- you won’t find any of this crap in high income districts.
This is a site the US Department of Ed is promoting.
It is basically an advertisement for Google Education:
https://sites.google.com/a/ccpsnet.net/anytime-anywhere-learning/
Why are ed reformers promoting commercial products and services under the guise of “improving public schools’?
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The goal is to privatize all public schools:
“In 1997, Paul Hill published his book Reinventing Public Education: How Contracting Can Transform America’s Schools (the center where I work at the University of Washington was founded on the ideas presented). With his co-authors, Lawrence Pierce and James Guthrie, Hill proposed that all schools in a city should be contracted out to school-based nonprofits as a means of improvement. He contrasted his proposal with the concurrent charter school movement, in its infancy at the time. He wondered about the then-limited scope of the charter concept. Often seen as “piloting” new ideas for the public school system at large, would charter schools ever grow to serve every child in a city?”
They were more honest about it back in 1997- they called it government contracting which is exactly what it is.
I love how ed reformers continue to insist charter schools are all “nonprofits” – it simply isn’t true. It isn’t even true IN Indiana, which is supposedly the state they’re studying.
Yet. They repeat “nonprofit” over and over and over. It’s a blatant lie.
https://www.the74million.org/article/district-schools-charters-in-indianapolis-partnership-schools-offer-a-third-way/
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It is unbelievable that public education could be stolen by those who have lots of money and the power to place public education into the hands of those who have programs to sell, and the money to dictate how children will be educated… whether in the city i.e. Detroit, or in other parts of our country. With various activities and choices for creative teachers to make available for students being active learners, they will be involved in making decisions… making choices and having ownership of their own learning situation…not sitting behind a computer, everything presented to them as they sit for endless hours, wondering WHEN will this disappear?!
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Remember when Arne Duncan came to Detroit and said Detroit needs a Katrina so it start over i.e. so all public schools could be wiped out?!?
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Arne was wishing to wipe out every public school. How sad for him that he failed. But he tried.
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