"Bursting the dam" that protects public schools from commercial exploitation.

Crossposted in General Discussion hoping for more visibility.

Democrats for Education Reform is a political lobby financed by hedge fund millionaires. That is their stated goal.

The corporate reformers’ larger goal, to borrow a phrase from the Democrats for Education Reform (DFER), a political lobby financed by hedge fund millionaires that is a chief architect of the current campaign, is to “burst the dam” that has historically protected public education and its $600 billion annual expenditures from unchecked commercial exploitation and privatization.

For years corporate interests have been calling public schools a "government monopoly". The $600 billion is so tempting to them. They believe they should be making a profit from it. And they are.

There is a great post about this from 2011 by Stan Karp.

Stan Karp(stan@rethinkingschools.org) is a Rethinking Schools editor and taught English and Journalism to high school students in Paterson, New Jersey for 30 years. He is currently Director of the Secondary Reform Project for New Jersey's Education Law Center.

Who’s Bashing Teachers and Public Schools and What Can We Do About It?

..."In my home state of New Jersey, there’s a man named David Tepper who manages the Appaloosa Hedge Fund. Last year, Tepper made $4 billion as a hedge fund manager. This was equal to the salaries of 60 percent of the state’s teachers, who educate 850,000 students. But Gov. Christie rolled back a millionaire’s tax and cut $1 billion out of the state school budget, so people like Tepper would have lower taxes. It’s not only impossible to sustain a successful public school system with such policies, it’s also impossible to sustain anything resembling a democracy for very long.

He says that ultimately what is at stake is "whether the right to a free public education for all children is going to survive as a fundamental democratic promise in our society, and whether the schools and districts needed to provide it are going to survive as public institutions, collectively owned and democratically managed—however imperfectly—by all of us as citizens. Or will they be privatized and commercialized by the corporate interests that increasingly dominate all aspects of our society?

This is not some secret conspiracy. It’s a multisided political campaign funded by wealthy financial interests like hedge fund superstar Whitney Tilson and rich private foundations like Gates, Broad, and Walton. And it’s important to keep this big picture in mind, even as we talk about specifics like merit pay and charters, because these issues are the dynamite charges being put in place to burst the dam.

These are the goals for education reform of both parties right now. No, I am not being a "hater" or threatening not to vote or stuff. I am stating facts.

We should apply the free enterprise system to our education system by introducing competition among schools, administrators, and teachers. Our educators should be paid based on their performance and held accountable based on clear standards with real consequences. These ideas are designed to stimulate thinking beyond the timid “let’s do more of the same” that has greeted every call for rethinking math and science education.

Source: Gingrich Communications website, www.newt.org Dec 1, 2006

Congratulations Newt Gingrich, your free market dreams are coming true now....on the backs of students who are paying the price for all the unproven methods being foisted on them.