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Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Investors Ready to Liquidate Public Schools

Investors Ready to Liquidate Public Schools:



INVESTORS READY TO LIQUIDATE PUBLIC SCHOOLS

investors, public schools, stocks, charter schools,
A busy day on the NYSE. Investors in this arena have their eyes on public schools conversions to private schools. Photo by Ben Hider/NYSE Euronext
Plans are under way for investment corporations to execute the biggest conversion – some call it theft – of public schools property in U.S. history.
That is not hyperbole. Investment bankers themselves estimate that their taking over public schools is going to result in hundreds of billions of dollars in profit, if they can pull it off.
I was a public schools teacher for 16 years and knew many highly skilled teachers. Now, in addition to teaching ESL classes in a very good community college, I write about the politics of public education. That puts me in the presence of many very good, committed public school teachers. They grew up loving public school and love it now. And not one of them seems to really imagine the destruction of the current public schools system in the U.S.
Plans
But, there are very clear plans being made for just such a thing.
The plan has been and still is to execute the complete conversion or liquidation of public schools property built up at taxpayer expense for generations.
It involves raiding pensions that have been hard-won from years of legislative work by teachers and their unions. I reported on ideas being floated in Oklahoma along these lines in this piece that I did for Red Dirt Report earlier this year.
It will all be done through the control of legislatures that have been mostly compliant with lobbying efforts due to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United  decision that allowed huge corporate money, mostly unidentified, to flow into elections. The Andre Agassi Foundation is just one of many who have worked this angle for their own return on investment.
Watch closely
In Oklahoma is there any sign that our Republican dominated legislature has any motive to resist? No. They have long been the beneficiaries of  investor campaign money that flowed freely and is now a flood.
In fact, our newly elected Republican Superintendent of Public Instruction along with wins at the polls will only embolden those Investors Ready to Liquidate Public Schools: