Louisiana Educator: Government Schools vs School Privatization

Louisiana Educator: Government Schools vs School Privatization:

Government Schools vs School Privatization

In some cases the reformers of public education prefer to have public schools operated by Turkish, muslim dominated, self appointed foundations, than by our elected school boards

Haters of and so called reformers of our public school systems have hit upon what they think is a great way to rebrand and stigmatize our public schools with a negative image. These public school opponents, such as Fox News commentator, John Stossel, now often refer to our public schools as "government schools". The implication is that anything run by government is somehow substandard while anything run by private business, religious groups, or entrepreneurs is inherently good and successful.  Favored "non-government" school groups include Turkish muslim dominated foundations such as those established byTurkish immigrant Fetullah Gulen. Louisiana originally had two such schools. Gulen schools are the second largest group of charter schools in the U.S.

This trend in school privatization denies the democratic underpinnings of our public schools, where we the people elect the school boards that manage the public schools funded with our tax dollars. The animosity that is being generated toward our "government schools" assumes that the voters are not capable of electing persons who are qualified to manage our schools. Yet at the same time we are being led to believe that it is OK to hand over our schools with minimal oversight to profit seeking managers. The only apparent requirement is that these unsupervised managers raise student test scores. We now have ample evidence that test scores can be artificially raised in numerous ways that in no way reflect academic achievement! 

I believe this privatization movement is a recipe for the destruction of our public schools, yet the Republican party platform adopted just this week calls for major expansions of school choice using charter schools and vouchers.Unfortunately this trend is not restricted to only one political party. The sub-group, Democrats for Education Reform strongly advocates for the expansion of charters.

In Louisiana the experiments in school privatization through "government" funding of charter schools and voucher schools has produced a plethora of highly inefficient and often fraudulent school management schemes. I would like to point out some of the most serious abuses.

The charter schools across our nation inspired by the Turkish cleric, Fetullah Gulen are characterized by Turkish male dominated, autocratic management. In Louisiana, investigations have uncovered  rigged construction bidding using our tax dollars favoring Turkish construction companies, abuse of special Louisiana Educator: Government Schools vs School Privatization:

Big Education Ape: Unelected charter school boards control millions of public dollars in North Carolina and Charlotte but may lack skills to run a school, a consultant says. | The Charlotte Observer - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/07/unelected-charter-school-boards-control.html