Charter School Scandals Resemble the Subprime Mortgage Crisis..short but powerful video.

[madfloridian]

Mark Naison (1970), Fordham University Professor of African and African American Studies, Chair of African and African-American Studies and Co-Director of the Urban Studies Program. Ph.D., Columbia. African-American history; 20th century social and labor history.

Some background from Naison's blog.

Why Charter School Scandals Resemble the Subprime Mortgage Crisis

....But inevitably, the boom turned to bust. When the high rates on the mortgages started kicking in, millions of people defaulted on their loans, not only losing their homes but setting in motion a chain reaction which destabilized not only the banks which had written the mortgages, but the financial institutions which had bundled them, along with their customers. Some of the largest banks and insurance companies in the nation failed and went under, and others had to be rescued through an injection of funds from the federal government at huge expense to tax payers. And as the economy plunged into near Depression, the residential housing market was shattered, and along with it the dream of widespread home ownership among the poor. Today, there are 13 million abandoned homes and commercial properties in the US, while large numbers of families live doubled and tripled up in properties which were designed to be private homes

While the comparison is not exact, there are some powerful similarities between what happened to subprime mortgages and what is currently taking place with charter schools, another “short cut” to opportunity which has been seized upon by elites for financial and political gain, to the detriment of those for whom the charter school was initially designed to help.

Charter schools, which are public funded schools which have their own boards of directors and can set their own hiring policies, curricula, and patterns of student recruitment and discipline independent of the regulations governing public schools , were initially created to promote greater experimentation and innovation in public education. Many early charter schools were created by teachers and parents and promoted innovative pedagogies. Some still do.

But somewhere along the line, public officials began to see charter schools as a way of circumventing expensive labor contracts with teachers unions and of providing an alternative to public schools in inner city communities which had been battered by disinvestment, job losses and drug epidemics. They invited foundations and the private sector to come in and create charter schools on a far larger scale and with a very different model than parent/teacher cooperatives, using private money as well as public money. The professed goal was to give inner city parents and students safe alternatives to battered, underfunded and often troubled public schools, something many parents welcomed, but inviting powerful interests to help shape what was essentially an alternate school system free from public regulation and oversight proved to be as dangerous as it was tantalizing.

[immoderate]

1. The Daily Scam!

Thanks, MF.

--imm

[Starry Messenger]

2. Marking to watch later.

It's the same fucking banks who are involved in charter school loan schemes too.

[madfloridian]

3. Here are 2 well-known well-researched blogs that explore similar themes.

ABCs of DumbDown

THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF CHARLOTTE ISERBYT. Also see: http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com and http://www.americandeception.com. Iserbyt is the consummate whistleblower! She served as Sen.Policy Advisor in the OERI., U.S. Dept. of Ed., during the first Reagan Administration, where she first blew the whistle on a major technology initiative which would control curriculum in America's classrooms. Iserbyt is a former school board director and co-founder of Guardians of Education for Maine (GEM). She served in the American Red Cross on Guam and Japan during the Korean War, and in the US Foreign Service in Belgium and in the Rep of South Africa. Iserbyt is a speaker and writer, best known for her 1999 (2011) book the deliberate dumbing down of america. She also wrote Back to Basics Reform or OBE: Skinnerian International Curriculum (1985) and Soviets in the Classroom: America's Latest Education Fad (1989). She has published numerous articles in major news outlets.

Another:

On Data, Part Three: Comparing Wall Street With Public Education

[MinM]

4. Detroit Free Press

had an excellent exposé on the charter schools here in Michigan..

@MichiganRadio · Charter school supporters’ response to investigations is "Soviet" in style -- from @JackLessenberry http://ow.ly/yRzws

WDET 101.9FM @wdet · Big investigation at the @Freep on charter schools and we bring in the two reporters working on it to chat: http://ow.ly/yxopl

State of charter schools: How Michigan spends $1 billion but fails to hold schools accountable

[madfloridian]

5. Thanks so much for those links.

Heading to read them now.

[sabrina 1]

6. The privatization of the Public Schools. All those funds for those profiteers to get their hands on.

It is a dream come true for those who have been trying for so long to get their hands on ALL public funds. What is sad is that it is speeding up under a Democratic Administration. I know I thought Bush's Ed 'policies' would be the first to be addressed considering how opposed most Dems were to the obvious grab of public funds he initiated using NCLB as a pretext of 'reform'.

Instead it has only become worse.

Thanks for keeping the focus on issues that matter MF.