In the Public Interest is one of those rare organizations that is what it says: it identifies efforts to privatize the public sector and exposes them. To be a healthy society, we need a vibrant private sector and a healthy vibrant public sector.
For years, we’ve heard the same false claims behind the push to use public-private partnerships to build new infrastructure, like toll roads and prisons.
Private equity firms and Wall Street banks say public-private partnerships are cheaper, which is flat-out wrong. State and local governments can borrow money using low-cost municipal bonds. Why should we, the public, pay extra to make private investors rich?
They say they’re “free money,” which is false, or that they’ll require “no tax increases,” which is also often dishonest. Public-private partnerships are complex contracts that put taxpayers on the hook often for decades. The money has to come from somewhere, whether new taxes or cuts in spending on education, public safety, or other public services.
Now we’re hearing these same claims about using public-private partnerships to build the centerpiece of many communities nationwide: public schools.
Prince George’s County in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C., was the first. Now, Stamford, Connecticut, an affluent suburb of New York City, is thinking about taking the plunge.
Stamford is facing a mold crisis at half of its public schools. Its director of administration wants to use a public-private partnership to build and maintain five new school buildings. He just so happens to be a former Wall Street banker who once worked for a hedge fund that was busted for insider trading. (He himself was never accused of wrongdoing.)
The underlying math, or at least the little that’s been publicly released so far, appears shady. But regardless, a public-private partnership isn’t the answer. Not only will it be more expensive, but it could also hand over public control to private contractors.
Alberta, Canada, signed a public-private partnership to build 18 schools in 2007, only to find out later that costs had tripled from the original estimated budget. The contract also strictly limited access to the new school facilities. Community groups learned after the ink was dry that the schools couldn’t be used for after-hours uses, like child care and sports leagues.
Who knows what will be in Stamford’s deal if they decide to roll the dice? We may not find out until years into the estimated 45-year contract.
Let us know if you hear about your local school district or government considering a public-private partnership. Keep your ear to the ground.
Jeremy Mohler
Communications Director
In the Public Interest
In the Public Interest
1305 Franklin St., Suite 501
Oakland, CA 94612
United States
Vultures at work. Indeed BAD IDEA.
Marketing public private “partnerships” is just that. The private interests have the big money and will take over any hint of public oversight or interest. These public/private financial arrangements almost always mean that the “public purpose” is used to give credibility to a project that will raid the public purse and bring profits to the private sector.
Exactly stated: “…the “public purpose” is used to give credibility to a project that will raid the public purse and bring profits to the private sector.
Sweep away all the subterfuge and we have only private capital looking for places to invest and make money at taxpayers expense. Such “partnerships” also support the false belief (not evidence-based) that government is hopelessly inefficient. Too bad this has been a bipartisan effort. Maybe this is election is an opportunity for a change.
“Who knows what will be in Stamford’s deal if they decide to roll the dice? We may not find out until years into the estimated 45-year contract.”
I certainly don’t expect the district adminimals (or the lawyers they overspend on) to even begin to have a clue how to read the contract and figure out the bad parts
Wait until you get into Philly for the NPE Conference and try to park to understand just how ugly those private/public partnerships are.
Wall Street isn’t interested in Public Ed. There’s no $$$ in for them!
Anything Wall Street wants in on is a bad idea.
Wall Street is basically a parasite on our economy.
It produces nothing of any value and lots of disvalue.
It was responsible with it’s massive fraudulent mortgages and derivative dealings with bringing the world economy to the brink of collapse in 2007-2008 and the big banks on Wall Street would have gone belly up if they had not been bailed out to the tune of trillions (TARP plus quantitative easing) by the Federal government (effectively, by the American taxpayers)
Wall Street is corporate welfare run amok with peop!e like Jamie Dimon and Lloyd Blankfein the welfare queens.
Trash collection was recently privatized here in Los Angeles. Now we’re paying more with higher prices and hidden fees, and poorer service. And I think the residents of Flint, Michigan might have something to say about the privatization of water service. Privatization is a scam. Period.
Privatize the planet”
Privatize the planet
Plunder it for gain
Light the fire and fan it
Mine the golden vein
Privatize the water
Sell it to the poor
Privatize your daughter
Sell her as a whore
Privatize the wildlife
Charge a viewing fee
Like a Wall Street low life
That is what you’ll be
Don’t forget about the military, for that’s where the big money lies. Amurica will pay an Eric Princely sum to make sure everyone dies. With the GDP remaining stagnant for decades while the stock market gains record highs, the only way for the rich to make more is to cut from the laborer’s hide.
That falls under “plunder if for gain”
This is another example of socializing the risk and privatizing the profit. It will not end well for the schools. The construction company will cut corners to maximize profit margins, and the taxpayers will be on the hook for the overages. Most likely the building will be expensive with subpar construction.
If they follow the usual Wall Street recipe, the construction companies owned by the Wall Street financiers will build with substandard methods and materials and then come back to ” fix” things after the school building has been condemned — for a large fee of course.
That is precisely the pattern that was followed in the case of the mortgage crisis. The very people who caused the problem were brought in to “solve” it. Of course, they reamed the public both coming and going.
Same as it ever was.
To: SomeDAM Poet
January 24, 2020 at 12:49 pm
I really respect your sense of reality for the past 5000 years +. Yes, I completely 1000% agree with your conclusion – “Same as it ever was.”.
In short, please spare your precious skills in composing wonderfully accurate poems to expose public sorrow about being lured in empty promise by greedy corporate and by mouthy billionaires and bad politicians regardless what party or religions they pretend to be named and associated with.
Please be support Dr. Ravitch regardless any bad mouth from some celebrated PhD or current hot shot entrepreneurs criticize our fully dedicated Dr. Ravitch to public education in North America specifically and in global countries generally.
Happy Lunar Chinese New Year to you. May God bless you and your loved ones and all of your good friends with health, happiness and smoothly successful spread your sense of justice to public education throughout year 2020.
Respectfully yours,
May King in Canada