Education privatizers are using the courts to get at a larger slice of the apple.
There are a lot of things you could say. Massive budget shortfalls. Buildings in a state of disrepair. Inadequate infrastructure and facilities. A massive disparity in funding between districts with haves and districts with have-nots. Insufficient access to technology. Or perhaps even an unsafe environment with a constant, low-level threat of overhanging violence.
But if you're a group of Silicon Valley billionaires and corporate moguls desperately trying to figure out how to privatize California's public education system in the face an unwilling public and an unwilling legislature, you might come up with a different answer to the biggest threat facing such children: due process for teachers. And then you just might found a shiny nonprofit as a front and hire a high-powered legal team to file a lawsuit to get the courts to eliminate those due process protections.
Sounds ridiculous? It's not. It's happening right now on the West Coast, where the Vergara v. California trial is in full swing.
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The lawsuit is funded by a group called Students Matter, which is headed up by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Jack Welch and counts among its supporters notable figures in the anti-union, pro-charter, school privatization movement such as Michelle Rhee of StudentsFirst and Eli Vergara v. California: The most dangerous lawsuit you probably haven't heard of: