Texas cuts social services/education while expanding $$ for charter schools

[Hannah Bell]

The only national peer-reviewed research study of charter schools concluded in 2009 that only 17% of corporate charter schools produce better test scores than matched public schools...The study also disaggregated their findings by state... Texas was among the worse.

Now Texas is facing big money problems, despite the fact that it has more than its fair share of millionaires and billionaires. Oh, I forgot, they don't pay taxes. Here is a partial list of the proposed cuts on Gov. Rick Perry's list (why does Rick Perry remind me of Jim Jones?): Medicaid, Independent living, deaf/disabled, at-risk children, higher ed, public ed, natural resources/pollution, legal aid, public safety/criminal justice, libraries, arts...

So with all these proposed slashes to public services, it must asked why Perry and his corporate stooges in the Legislature would consider underwriting charter school expansion, yes? I would suggest you ask the vulture capitalists and hedge funders who are bankrolling the KIPPs and the KIPP knock-offs, despite the fact that these corporate brainwashing camps for the poor have hundreds of millions in the bank. Insane? You bet--that's why they call it Texas...

In fact, charter schools, many of them now defunct, currently owe the state $21 million — some since 2001 — mostly because of discrepancies in student enrollment figures...

http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2011/02/texas-considers-more-corporate-welfare.html