Selling Schools Out
Written by Lee Fang for The Nation. Read the entire article here.
“If the national movement to “reform” public education through vouchers, charters and privatization has a laboratory, it is Florida. It was one of the first states to undertake a program of “virtual schools” — charters operated online, with teachers instructing students over the Internet — as well as one of the first to use vouchers to channel taxpayer money to charter schools run by for-profits.
According to author Steven Brill, ex–DC school chancellor Michelle Rhee’s new group, StudentsFirst, [actively lobbying in Florida] raised $100 million… Rhee’s donors include Rupert Murdoch, philanthropist Eli Broad and Home Depot founder Ken Langone. Rhee’s group has pledged to spend more than $1 billion to bring for-profit