Little is more disturbing than watching Republicans privatize public education. They’re turning low-performing schools over to campaign donors. It won’t work out well.
The GOP spent years pushing the false notion that our schools are failing. They’re not. Like every state in the nation and probably every country in the world, some schools do better than others. In general, studies show that schools with resources do better than those without. Instead of addressing funding disparities and recognizing that struggling school likely need more money than more those succeeding, Republicans cut funding to public schools while declaring that Democrats have just been throwing money at the problem.
Now, they’re allowing private education companies to take over low-performing schools. In a shocking, I say shocking, revelation, the companies that spent almost $2 million lobbying the legislature to expand for-profit schools will get the contract. The party that came to power decrying cronyism is creating a whole new class of cronies, this time at the expense of our children.
Private companies will squeeze every penny out of schools for investors. Once they’ve got a foot hold, don’t expect them to let go easily, regardless of their results. In fact, expect them to expand lobbying efforts for policies more favorable to themselves while pushing legislation, either directly or indirectly, that undercuts traditional public schools.
Look no further than the prison industrial complex. At the same time we started awarding contracts to private companies to run our prisons, the number of people incarcerated sky-rocketed. While we like to claim to be a country that values freedom, we lock up more people per capita than any country in the world. And it’s not even close.
Today, private prison groups spend millions on lobbying efforts to keep Americans locked up. No telling how much we’re losing in wasted tax dollars and lost human capital. I wonder how much overlap we’ll see in the future between people who invest in private prisons and those who invest in privatizing public schools?
The groups privatizing education are following the lead of the prison profiteers. They’ll buy off legislators until they’re entrenched and then prying them out of the system will be almost impossible. Our tax dollars and kids will take the hit while the investors will make off like bandits.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >
The most vulnerable thing in our world is a large pile or wide stream of money anywhere near a Republican. Eventually, the Republican will find a way to divert those resources into a profit center which ends up in, you guessed it, Republican pockets.. Social Security funds, school lunch money, IRA accounts – if there’s a pile of it, you will eventually find a Republican sniffing around with a scheme to grab it.
At some point in time, we learn to our dismay that, well, derivatives were a bad idea, or refinancing every home and dog house in America wasn’t so smart, or that the banks are about to collapse, or the savings and loans got looted,. Oops. But they never give refunds, and the money ends up in tax havens. No one goes to jail. Rinse, Repeat.
It is a vicious greedy, exceptionally harmful, path we are on in North Carolina under the anti-democratic power hungry Republicans who seem hell-bent on firming up the oligarchy they have created in our state with such remarkable success. Our once free state has been seized by those who have made a mockery out of the two (at least) NC Declarations of Independence signed by our fore bearers and enshrined on our state flag. We must now act to turn out the scallywsgs who deceive and treat the people as common chattel.
Cannot say it any better than that!
Several judges in another state went to prison for taking payoffs to send kids to for-profit prisons after perfunctory trials. Friends of a southwestern governor were part of a scheme to profit off undocumented persons put in private prisons to collect federal funds. The GOP forgets, government is not a business, it is a delivery of services.
What state?
Pennsylvania, I think, several years ago. In Arizona associates of Gov. Jan Brewer profited from undocumented persons being held for processing in for-profit prisons while they collected holding fees from the federal government. This encouraged wholesale pickups on the street from persons not carrying proper identification.
Yes and among the consequences (intended in my opinion) is that the electorate becomes an uneducated mob mindlessly believing and following the politicians and the country falls further behind the remaining our competition economically technically and scientifically. We are are a model ffor how to become a third world country.
Agreed. Our children lose and democracy loses while the robbery goes on.