Mitch and AynRandy Promoting Charter School Scam

The charter school scam has nothing to do with public education or children. It has to do with turning the biggest remaining unprivatized chunk of local, state and federal tax dollars over to private corporations.

And if their obscene profits mean that tens of millions of children get cheated out of education, that's just capitalism, baby.

From the Courier:

Republicans in Kentucky are pressing the state to allow charter schools, saying state policy on the issue could determine whether the next generation succeeds.

Any future Kentucky governor who ignores education, and the benefits that many think charter schools would bring, would be holding the state back, said former Louisville Metro Council member Hal Heiner, who is considering a run for governor in 2015.

“We just can’t continue to languish in the bottom third of the country across the state and leaving countless children behind because we’re not willing to offer educational options to children that are not well served by the current system,” he said.

Heiner’s comments came after a roundtable discussion in Louisville sponsored by his new Kentucky Charter Schools Association, which favors legislation that would allow for publicly-funded charter schools to replace failing public schools in the state.

U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who sponsored legislation earlier this year to encourage the use of charter schools, attended the discussion and said their need in Kentucky represents a genuine crisis.”

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, who has advocated for charter schools for years, said after the panel discussion that charter schools are “a huge issue” politically. “It really shouldn’t be a partisan issue,” he said. “I think there are some within the educational establishment that feel threatened by it.”

Interesting comment, Senator I-couldn't-pass-the-opthamology-board-exams-so-I-created-my-own-fake-board. It's not the "educational establishment" that charter schools threaten.

Tom Sullivan at Crooks and Liars:

The education reform industry is hungry for a bite of "the Big Enchilada," the trillion dollars in public money spent in this country each year on public education.

 The charter, voucher and online schools reformers promote have been plagued by financial scandals and a checkered achievement record. Lack of academic and state oversight, coupled with reduced teacher standards have shown that leaving our children's education to the Wild West of corporate capitalism is no way to guarantee our children's or our country's future.

David Sheriff and his daughter found out just how wild school choice has become when she tried to use her diploma from Wisconsin Career Academy, a Milwaukee Public Schools charter school, to get into college.

David’s daughter Amanda enrolled and attended all four years of high school. She graduated, and got her diploma in 2009. After working for a few years she decided this summer she’d like to apply to college, so she says she looked into the medical assistant program at the Milwaukee Career College.

Surprise.

The Admissions Director said she’d have to get her GED because the charter school she attended wasn’t accredited. Amanda says she was shocked.
“I’m like, so basically you telling me that I have a 8th grade education, right now?”

Luckily for Amanda, there was a mix up on dates. She'd graduated before the school lost its accreditation. But David is not exactly sanguine about the outcome and took her cautionary tale of school choice to the local news. It's buyer beware. Voters, too.

Under the rubric of freedom, choice, competition and reform -- even after disastrous the Crash of 2008 -- voters are being offered more chances to be played by sharks in the Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate industries by public officials elected to protect the interests and futures of people like Amanda. But even record corporate profits are not enough. Parents with children in primary and secondary education are now targets as well. And why? What is the largest portion of the annual budget in all 50 states?

Alison Lundergan Grimes: Do you agree with Mitch McConnell about charter schools?