Great for who? Him? Great because teachers or liberals will be unhappy if he wins? I hope you don't believe his policies are great. The top states with highest rated public education also have very strong unions but when it comes to disputes regarding education it is quite clear privatization hasn't improved education especially in how it relates to treatments of minority & disabled students in addition to their miserable record which I didn't need to look at a standardized test score to find.
K12 Inc., the largest online, for-profit Educational Management Organization in the U.S., is a good example of what theCenter for Media and Democracy calls “America’s Highest Paid Government Workers” — that is, the CEOs of corporations that make billions by taking control of public services. While over 86 percent of K12?s profits came from taxpayers, and while the salaries of K12?s eight executives went from $10 million to over $21 million in one year, only 27.7 percent of K12 Inc. online schools met state standards in 2010-2011, compared to 52 percent of public schools.
It gets worse with the Common Core Standards, an unproven Gates-funded initiative that requires computers many schools don’t have. The Silicon Valley Business Journal reports that “Next year, K-12 schools across the United States will begin implementing Common Core State Standards, an education initiative that will drive schools to adopt technology in the classroom as never before…Apple, Google, Cisco and a swarm of startups are elbowing in to secure market share.” States are being hit with unexpected new costs, partly for curriculum changes, but also for technology upgrades, testing, and assessment.
—–Banker’s Ethics in the Principal’s Office
Finally, the profit motive leads to questionable ethics among school operators, if not outright fraud. After a Los Angeles charter school manager misused funds, the California Charter Schools Association insisted that charter schools areexempt from criminal laws because they are private. The same argument was used in a Chicago case. Charters employ the privatization defense to justify their generous salaries while demanding instructional space as public entities. States around the country are being attracted to the money, as, for example, in Texas and Ohio, where charter-affiliated campaign contributions have led to increased funding and licenses for charter schools.
http://www.salon.com/2014/02/19/4_ways_privatization_is_ruining_our_education_system_partner/
The Chicago Case (from above)
Charter school ruled private entity for labor relations
The question of just how public charter schools really are has been further muddied by a ruling by the National Labor Relations Board in a case involving a Chicago charter school.
Critics of charter schools have long contended that private companies that run publicly funded charters don’t act like public organizations and that charter schools represent the privatization of public education in the United States. I recently published this post about whether judges are increasingly viewing charters as private.
Now we have a decision by the board, made last month and just publicized, involving efforts by teachers at the Chicago Math and Science Academy to form a union. Teachers organized under the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Act, which regulates labor relations between public schools and their employees, with two-thirds of the teachers voting in favor, according to WBEZ.org. The private managers of the academy, however, wanted the process to be held under federal law and appealed to the NLRB, which handles labor relations in the private sector.
The board had to decide whether this case was within its jurisdiction, given that the school is publicly funded but privately managed. It ruled that the case does belong in its jurisdiction, essentially meaning that teachers at the academy are subject to private labor relations laws. What this means for other charter schools is unclear.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/01/04/charter-school-ruled-private-entity-for-labor-relations/
I fail to see what will be great especially in how it relates to this issue. If he wins, I won't be personally or directly harmed by him but the only thing he is great for is corporate profits like his hand picked commission that ruled in favor of Ricketts, he threatened to move the Cubs to Florida when he first bought the team before the Wrigley renovation relocation threats -- the dispute regarding existing deals with roof-top owners then the commission taking away the landmark status so he put up video boards to block the rooftop owners view. If you like that sort of thing than I can see how you see stuff like that as great or the type of interests he supports but I had to ask why.
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