Public Schools For Sale...Bill Moyers interviews Diane Ravitch...

[adirondacker]

"Public education is becoming big business as bankers, hedge fund managers and private equity investors are entering what they consider to be an “emerging market.” As Rupert Murdoch put it after purchasing an education technology company, “When it comes to K through 12 education, we see a $500 billion sector in the US alone.”

Education historian Diane Ravitch says the privatization of public education has to stop. As assistant secretary of education under President George H.W. Bush, she was an advocate of school choice and charter schools; under George W. Bush, she supported the No Child Left Behind initiative. But after careful investigation, she changed her mind, and has become, according to Salon, “the nation’s highest profile opponent” of charter-based education.

On this week’s Moyers & Company, she tells Bill Moyers, ”I think what’s at stake is the future of American public education. I believe it is one of the foundation stones of our democracy: So an attack on public education is an attack on democracy.”

Diane Ravitch is America’s preeminent historian of public education. Her newest book is Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools.

Additional video from Bill’s conversation with Diane Ravitch will be online soon.
Producer: Candace White. Segment Producer: Robert Booth. Editor: Rob Kuhns."

Video Link....
http://www.commondreams.org/video/2014/03/29

EXCELLENT!!!

[RC]

1. The public has a say in public education.

The public has little to no say in the corporate education, by charter school, of our children.

[Squinch]

2. Bookmarking to watch. Thank you.

(I changed careers since the sales days. Now I work in schools.)

[hollysmom]

3. The advertising charter schools are doing on the NY air waves is horrendous -

Full of minority parents claiming that the mayor is costing their children their chance. They are spending a fortune to shame the mayor - all to line more pockets _ I stand with the mayor - why are charter schools being given free room inside schools. Do they get less money per student so that the school gets its maintenance from them, and this is in schools that are already overcrowded - crowd the public school more so the charter school has room?

[adirondacker]

4. Our governor has not been too kind to teachers. This interview is pretty damning of the system and

those that support it. I like how Ravitch described the way Charters were Supposed to work (going after dropouts and helping those in need) and how ALEC has completely corrupted it. This was an enlightening and encouraging interview that I hope wakes a lot of folks up.

[Doctor_J]

5. Almost as big a pie as health care

I think there are around 50 million public school kids in the US. A wild guess would be 10000/student/year expenses. That's 500 billion dollars a year - nearly identical to what the 1% is raking out of Americans legally using the ACA.

If they can get DC to give them public education and Social Security over the next couple years (not out of the question - Arne Duncan is on board with Jeb Bush's plan, and the president considers himself a fan of "private sector solutions&quot , the selling of America will be almost complete, all during a time of (D) majorities and WH.

[Enthusiast]

6. You have nailed it!

What a sickening development. It's almost as if.....it's almost as if......

[Doctor_J]

8. and our choices for president two years hence will be HRC and a republican

by 2020 the US will officially be a for-profit nation - there will be no public services left of any kind. I am truly glad I won't be around to see 2030. I think history will point to 2009 as the time when the Dem party ceased to function.

[Enthusiast]

7. Diane Ravitch is exactly correct.

Education, the postal service, the military and social security in every form is under the threat of being privatized.