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Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Schooling in the Ownership Society: Charters grease corporate contracts

Schooling in the Ownership Society: Charters grease corporate contracts:


Charters grease corporate contracts

Rupert Murdoch (AP photo)
Writing in Salon.com, David Sirota warns us to stop pretending wealthy CEOs pushing for charter schools are altruistic "reformers." They're raking in billions.
 Citing a fact sheet from the for-profit education industry itself, the Washington Post recently reported that “the education sector now represents nearly 9 percent of the country’s gross domestic product” while the “for-profit education is valued at $1.3 trillion, and is one of the largest U.S. investment markets.” Likewise, NPR reports that as he’s launched an education technology division, Rupert Murdoch “has described education as a market worth hundreds of billions of dollars.” This is why the tech site Geekwire predicts another full-scale tech industry bubble, thanks to “K-12 and other education segments now being chased by a mob of investment capitalists.”
According to Sirot, contracts are much easier to land in privately run charter schools because such schools are