Hedge Fund-Backed Reformers Dumping $50k into Buffalo Race
It's hardly a secret that Democrats for Education Reform, which is closely tied to Education Reform Now, is funded largely by hedge fund millionaires looking to eliminate teacher unions and expand the pay-for-test-score penal pedagogy while privatizing education via charter schools. They've pushed the merit-pay bill in Colorado, lamented the defeat of SB6 in Florida, and are not training their sights on a closer-to-home target, the Buffalo public schools. From The Buffalo News:
Reformers pumping money into school board race
New York City group backs charter schools
By Mary B. PasciakNEWS EDUCATION REPORTEA national education reform group based in New York City is pouring more than $50,000
Deputy Undersecretary Compares For-Profit (Higher) Ed. to Wall Street Firms
On Thursday, the Department of Education criticized for-profit higher education providers. The profiteer's stocks tumbled. According to Inside Higher Ed, Deputy Undersecretary of Education Robert Shireman compared the institutions to the Wall Street firms whose behavior led to the economic collapse and even named names of predatory companies.
However, it's not just the higher education sector at-risk because of the Wall Street-esque practices: public K-12 education, too, is one of the emerging playing fields for the casino capitalists and non-educators looking to turn a quick buck (often at the expense of the most vulnerable and least financially stable).
Case in point would be the Academy for Recording Arts in California, which recently was ripped off by a subsidiary of the corporate hucksters slanging their education "goods" for DeVry. Here's a bit from theDaily Breeze:
Half of the teachers at a financially beleaguered Hawthorne charter school were terminated