Peter Greene has unearthed another libertarian, this one writing for CATO (founded by the Koch brothers), who explains why government should not run schools, but private corporations should.
Corey DeAngelis is a scholar (I know because he says so) who has had a busy couple of years suckling off various Libertarian teats. He’s a Fellow for the Cato Institute, policy adviser for the Heartland Institute, and a Distinguished Working-on-his-PhD Fellow at the University of Arkansas, all of this built on a foundation of a BBA (2012) and MA (2015) in economics from the University of Texas in San Antonio (because nobody understands education like economists). And while plugging away on that Masters, he worked first as the Risk Management Operations Coordinator and then the Fraud Coordinator for Kohl’s. So yet another education expert with no education background.
He also hangs out with the fine folks at the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE, not to be confused with the Jeb Bush FEE), where he writes pieces with catchy titles like “Legalizing Discrimination Would Improve the Education System” and “Governments Shouldn’t Even Certify Schools, Much Less Run Them.” So we should not be surprised to find his name attached to an article arguing that schools should belong to businesses.
A “Fraud Coordinator” for Kohl’s? Is that a security guard? Someone checking to see if customers are shoplifting? An accountant in the main office?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The Alt-Right fraudsters who want to get rid of labor unions and the public sector are recruiting slum lords (Trump and his family) and swamp vipers (Steve Bannon and Betsy DeVos) to work as the country’s education experts.
He posts a lot of photos of himself on his Facebook page.
He sounds like the next person Trump will nominate to be Secretary of Education or a federal judge.
And the next person that co-opted Republicans including Susan Collins will happily approve of.
It seems to me that being a “Fraud Coordinator” is the perfect training to opine about school privatization. Someone’s got to coordinate all that fraud.
So TRUE: “Someone has to coordinate all that fraud.” It’s just SICK. I keep wondering WHO RAISED these greedy idiots.
Uncoordinated fraud is so inefficient and messy.
Hello Diane: Is someone responding formally to this drivel?
And the more fundamental question is: Is the whole idea of “public” and “for the common good” disappearing from the dialogue? Who will speak for the public good when corporations and oligarchs rule and “disappear” that whole idea? They act like the idea of government working for “the people”, including taxing and regulations, and for the common good is not even a viable idea. It’s all politicized, and so the one with the most brute power wins. Are they stupid? Have they ever read a history book?
CBK, you are
Our society is on a course of self destruction
Peter Greene is
Amen, Catherine.
“They act like the idea of government working for “the people”, including taxing and regulations, and for the common good is not even a viable idea.”
It’s a very selective outrage on their part. If the spending (uncontrolled and out of controlled) is on “homeland security” and the death and destruction machine which garners huge profits for those businesses then, hey, it’s all fine and dandy.
Government spending on the peeons in providing for the common good??? That’s bad (unless they can figure out how to make a profit off of it-see education deform)!
When oligarchy eats democracy…
Good grief. This man has an ego problem.
There’s more where that came from, ladies! (If you go to his Facebook page. I won’t clutter the site with any more of them.)
that’s true about schools, though. Everyone thinks they can “fix” schools because nearly everyone went to school.
You would not believe how many people in this town think they can run schools better then the people who are running them- we had a series of meetings with local businesses and I don’t even run a school and I thought the business people were arrogant -the truth is they all think it’s easy and they are all convinced they could do an excellent job. If I heard “it’s simple…” or “all you need to do…” one more time I thought I would scream.
It’s not simple. It’s not easy. Not everyone can do it well. Just running a reasonably solid school is hard let alone creating an “excellent” school. It’s not the school that was out of touch with the businesses at our meeting- it was the business people who were delusional about their own wonderfulness.
There’s literally nothing on public schools at the “National Conference on Education Reform”
It’s hysterical. They hold conferences on “public education” and exclude 90% of public schools.
Why not just tell the truth and call it the “charter and voucher conference”? That’s what it is. Why pretend any of these people have any interest in existing public schools?
Public schools won’t even be mentioned at this high level meeting unless it’s to compare public schools unfavorably to charter or private schools. Why pretend?
I would bet anything he’s the guy standing at the front door wearing the uniform that says “security” and who says “Welcome to Kohls” to everyone who enters.
He used to say “Welcome to Kohl’s” and now he says “Welcome to Kochs’ ” (Cato Institute was originally named the Charles Koch Foundation)
So he’s moving up.
Those with brute power want more of it
dianeravitch Let’s expose the naked king: They cannot STAND democracy.
For those who don’t have the stomach to go to his Facebook page, here’s a brief overview.
I don’t even have the stomach for this. And who wears a tie clip this day and age? Or ever? I’m feeling so petty today.
A serious man with a Master’s degree and a beard, that’s who.
Is he just a “serious person” or a “Very Serious Person” (TM)?
Cuz if his is just “serious”, there is no reason to listen to him.
Narcissist?
You really didn’t have to do that to us FLERP!! But then again I should take the blame for looking, eh!
“A serious man with a Master’s degree and a beard, that’s who.”
Hey now!! I resemble that statement!
I’d gladly debate this charlatan. Debate titled “Two Serious Men with a Masters Degree and a Beard discuss Edudeforms”. Outcome: Older fart bearded serious man with a Masters destroys younger bearded crying man with a Masters.
Thanks for making me laugh, “older fart.”
Needed a good one today!
I didn’t know there was such a thing as an “older fart”. Does that mean someone trapped a fresh fart in a jar and sealed it in so it could age?
You may hint you are an older fart, but I remember the map on my classroom wall. We had only one continent then and out mascot was a triceratops.
Did you go to a fundie xtian school?
You’ve got the beard, Duane, but I don’t believe you satisfy the serious qualification.
You have to work at a wank tank to be considered “serious”, or even “very serious”.
I have a septic tank. Does that count?
ALEC is an overflowing septic tank filled with toxic waste. Do you really want to be in that septic tank?
Oh, I didn’t say I was in the septic tank, just that I have and use one. Think about it: septic tank = stink tank = think tank! Not that far of a stretch, eh!
Then we should all have septic tanks and when they fill up, we dump the contents on Trump and his administration, ALEC, The Koch Brothers, and the Walton family. I know this list could be much longer.
This is the short list. I wanted to start at the top and bury them first under a GREAT mountain of septic sludge. There will never be a shortage of septic tank sludge.
Ah! Another genius!
Greene gives us another look into the thinking of a libertarian ideologue, and the perception is narrow and biased. Poverty is not a “character flaw.” Corporations have provided no insights or innovations from all their meddling in public education. There is no mention of the millions of dollars in waste and fraud as a result of failed privatization, As far as teacher pay goes, salaries need to provide teachers with a decent living if they hope to attract good people to this challenging field. It should be noted that many of those at the top of the charter chains are paid six figure salaries, even when the schools they cobble together are a disaster. Charters spend significantly more than public schools on administration.
Public education is transparent, accountable and an expression of democracy in action. Public schools are a public service that serve the ‘common good.’ Monetization of education has offered no innovation, and every so-called gain has a story of manipulation and cherry picking behind it. Privatization is all about shifting wealth from working people to the wealthy. That is the end game, the loss of a public institution with the citizens silenced and powerless.
Not only is he an “education expert” with no background in education.
He’s a “business expert” with no background in business.
Economists are NOT business savvy. And working in Kohl’s risk department? That’s primarily time detecting credit card fraud not really running a company or doing real business.
A classic Cato member. And libertarianism is a type of utopianism – one that only works if everyone is able to make decisions today with enlightened awareness of the impact those decisions will have on their lives in 20 years. Except, of course, no one at all is able to do that. So, a pure libertarian world would be as dysfunctional as the Soviet Communist world – they just don’t understand that.
To your last thought: YEP!
The pure libertarian view is a smokescreen for the corporate attempt to carry out imperialism through business taking the place of government as occurred during the great age of European domination of the world. Without government, large businesses have no one to police them. They can dispense poison and call it plum pudding. They can force people to work for starvation wages. The powerful take advantage of the weak. I think we call that medieval society.
Roy Turrentine Reminds me of Sinclair Lewis’ “The Jungle.”
So, before I read the rest of Peter’s post and all the comments, I have to comment on the DeAngelis article linked:
Corey, grammar much?!
And after having read all, I will just concur with Mr. Greene and all the comments on his post. Can’t say it better.