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Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Goldman Sachs Gets Into Public Education | FDL News Desk

Goldman Sachs Gets Into Public Education | FDL News Desk:

Goldman Sachs Gets Into Public Education

The corporate “ed reform” movement to privatize public education is quite lucrative – public education spending runs in the billions across the country. So should anyone be surprised that Wall Street has stepped out of the shadows to get in on the action?
Wall Street has already been the funding base for Michelle Rhee and other privatizers but has always presented itself merely as trying to benevolently control people not control people to exploit them. But now Goldman Sachs is creating new financial instruments to finance public education.
Goldman Sachs is making its second foray into an experimental method of financing social services, lending up to $4.6 million for a childhood education program in Salt Lake City. This“social impact bond,” in which Goldman stands to make money if the program is successful but will lose its investment if it fails, will support a preschool program intended to reduce the need for special education and remedial services. The upshot, in theory, is that taxpayers will not have to