“When it comes to K through 12 education, we see a $500 billion sector in the U.S.”
—Fox Network magnate Rupert Murdoch, commenting in 2010 on the enormous business opportunity in public education awaiting corporate America. http://www.inthepublicinterest.org/blog/jeb-bushs-education-nonprofit-really-about-corporate-profits?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+itpi-blog+%28ITPI+Commentary+Feed%29
“Testing companies and for-profit online schools see education as big business.” said “For-profit companies are hiding behind FEE and other business lobby organizations they fund to write laws and promote policies that enrich the companies.”
—Donald Cohen, chairperson for In the Public Interest, commenting on coordinated efforts by corporations, the Foundation for Excellence in Education (FEE) and ALEC to pass legislation favorable to corporate investors in public education. http://www.inthepublicinterest.org/node/2747
Louisiana Voice 
Government run education has been a failure and so we are trying a new approach and it only follows you’re going to get businesses to try to do a better job and make money doing it. Why are you seeing a problem with that??? The old system has not worked . . . get on with the new approach . . . if it doesn’t work we’ll find another approach.
It’s not that we have a problem with trying to improve educaton; it’s the manner in which the politicians are trying to allow their corporate campaign contributors to move in and profit at the expense of real reform. It’s also about the way in which our governor attempts to paint all teachers with the same broad brush, which is patently unfair.
And it’s because for all its faults, government is altruistic in nature. It exists to provide for the public welfare. It will do things for the public good whether those things are profitable or not. Profit-driven entities will not do that. Anything unprofitable will soon no longer be provided.
Government-run education has its problems, yes, but it has not completely failed. It did not fail me nor my children. It did not fail my nieces and nephews nor my grandchildren. Nor most of my friends’ children and grandchildren. We should ID and work the problems.
I often wonder what we would be like today, had all the parents and civic leaders of the 50s and 60s embraced integrated education with a sense of pride, and tried to make the societal change go as well as it could and the resulting education system be the best it could be — you know, had been adults — instead of, well, everything I saw, heard and lived, where they resisted and fought back against every. single. thing.
So you’re fine with double standards? No accountability for charter schools? Made up statistics?
If this is to be done, the accountability standards should apply everywhere.
Vultures circling over the spoils is what it amounts to.
Poppycock. Louisiana undermined its own public education system when it chose the short-sighted goal to maintain segregation through a system of private schools. Communities with strong public support of its public schools have strong public schools. Instead, Louisiana’s public school system is fragmented and “parochial,” in the sense that the community as whole does not have “ownership” or vested interest in the strong performance of its public school system.
The continued fragmentation of the school system through privates, charters, home-based schools, random garages set up with a couple of desks will do nothing but further undermine both education and communities. Instead of knowing that their children will be going to PS101, parents now have to “research” where their children have to go and then hope for the best. How is this a better model? You’re going to wind up with a system of luxury schools and lemon schools with high teacher and administration turn over rates.
Goodbye to the thirty year class reunion when schools are transformed into fly-by-night for-private businesses that open up, make a buck for a couple years from tax payers, and then go bankrupt, get booted for failure to perform, or just go out of business.
Not all public schools are failures. Not all charter schools are successful. As a taxpayer, I don’t want to fund a private, for profit charter school that teaches junk to our kids. Certainly, there is room for improvement and we have made strides in that direction. We need to explore all of our options and make careful, thoughtful decisions that are not rooted in cronyism.
I dont see public education as a total failure, thats just plain wrong…….I would venture to say that if all parents were as supportive as they should be, we wouldn’t be having this conversation……Bobby Jindal lost me when he trashed teachers in order to move his political agenda [ALEC]…..he then altered the school grading scale, to reflect Failure….. he set it up, step by step……and our Legis. rolled over…….without a wimper….blame the teacher for our societal problems, call them over compensated…under performing, then when you have used them as a tool, make nice and throw them some bouquets….Really!
John White is also lying through his teeth, he says that teachers the teachers who are leaving the classroom in increased numbers are the ineffectual ones……bull……I know some very good teachers who are 10-12 yrs in, and are exploring their options……some have already gone……..so people we are in for a teacher shortage…….John White will be calling on TFA…..to fill in the gaps…..Yuck