Kevin Ohlandt writes about the team that has assembled to sell social impact bonds, perhaps to take advantage of the Trump administration’s desire to promote public-private partnerships.
“Who is involved? The name Ridge-Lane comes from former Pennsylvania Governor and former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge and financier Brad Lane. Others involved include: Jack Markell (DE), Christie Whitman (NJ), Jennifer Granholm (MI), Beverly Perdue (NC), John Deasy (former Superintendent of Los Angeles Unified School District), James Douglas (VT), Gary Locke (WI), Jay Nixon (MO), Ted Mitchell (former U.S. Under Secretary of Education), Bill Ritter (CO) and a whole bunch of ex-federal figures. The goal of Ridge-Lane? According to ex-Pennsylvania Governor and former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, in a press release issued today:
“I am excited to have such distinguished leaders join us” said Governor Ridge, “as we expand the company in support of our mission to drive positive outcomes in society, at the intersection of private innovation, investment capital, and government. We are proud to announce our new team members.”
“Yes, because we need more corporate education reform leaning folks dumping AND hedging more corporate dollars into education. Because that has resulted in so much better education for kids. Some of these people are the same ones who pledged their souls to the almighty standardized test and sacrificed millions of public education children for flawed state assessments. But now, to fix those problems in education created by some of these very same people, corporations will profit off student outcomes by betting on the outcomes. I am utterly disgusted it has come to this.”
When it comes to profit, not many people say no.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“as we expand the company in support of our mission to drive positive outcomes”
Interpretation: positive outcomes mean profits not losses, and to make as much money as possible no matter how much damage they cause to the environment and the lifestyles of most people who end up being unemployed and/or paid poverty wages with no job security, safety net, or medical care.
I’m nominating this team to be in the running for my “flip the snake” award (you know, the universal display of the middle finger).
The damage will be to provide the same outcomes that we have now for far more money, getting far less for your tax dollars unless the areas of infrastructure improvement are in in wealthy areas, and such areas do exist.
This is exactly the Central and South American model, and it does not work because it’s heavily prone to corruption.
and “corruption” should be Trump’s middle name
With him as president, crooks now see a green light to speed toward fraud and crime … a green light that will almost never turn red.
Au contraire. It works perfectly well to do exactly what it was intended to do. It’s just that it wasn’t intended to actually improve education.
Good to remember that Obama gave $200 million of our dollars to “incubate” SIBS, and that these are financial products expected to bring a return on investment of 5% to 7% or more, depending on how clever the investors are in marketing the illusion that tax payers and government officials will “save money.”
SIBs are being used to finance preschool programs. These products, also called Pay for Success Contracts, will become the Trump and Republican solution to financing infrastructure projects.The projects will look “public” but they be privately owned and managed for profit. Norwegian Filmmaker has it right.
Also good to remember it was Arne Duncan who got everything he wanted in ESSA to continue the ed reform agenda. After passage Patty Murray, Lamar Alexander & DC insiders danced a wild rumpus about the glories of bipartisanship. See, we can get things done together!
SIBs were buried into ESSA as a legal method to run an end around IDEA funding requirements & cut SPED expenditures.
It’s also really important to know that the PreK start-up & PreK continuing grants were required to included SIBs as a financial mechanism.
SIB contract conditions can be written with any type of fee & bonus structure. Generally, PreK children are tracked to 3rd grade & if they are not in SPED or if they are in SPED & drop related services the bankers get bonuses.
In some contracts the banks track pre-k students all through high school. They get bonuses after 3rd grade and get yearly bonuses for for children through high school if they drop SPED services.
Social impact bonds=social, cultural and political gentrification.
I see several democrat names on the list.
These people would their own commodify souls, if they had any.
There’s one very big name on the list. He might run in 2020. He was Senator from Delaware before teaming up with Pres Obama. That’s Delaware, investment banking Mecca (Senator from Delaware’s mentioned in the article), https://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/07/01/business/how-delaware-thrives-as-a-corporate-tax-haven.html
Kevin Ohlandt recalls that these people used to label teachers “human capital” during the height of the corporate “reform” movement. I noticed yesterday that at the bottom of the Center for Reinventing Public Education’s website (funded by billionaires like Gates and Waltons and by the USDept of Education) they still call us human capital. They think of people as capital. Property. To be acquired.
Social impact bondage.
Sorry, would commodify their own souls, if they had any.
Outstanding.