BILL MOYERS: Hedge Fund Managers not Teachers are 800 lb Gorilla in education "reform" fight

[yurbud]

All teachers in America put together made $2 bil less than the top FOUR hedge fund managers alone.

Maybe this is why top Democratic politicians have turned their back on educators, one of their most reliable constituencies. Like bank robbers, they go where the money is, and teachers don't have enough to play at the high stakes table.

A lot of people don't seem to make the connection between the for-profit charters and Wall Street, but it's there.

The question is, if someone destroyed our housing market through fraud, and wrecked the economy in the process, why would you trust them to educate your children?

The 157,800 teachers of America’s little people, the Bureau of Labor Statistics tells us, together make about $8.34 billion a year. Hedge fund America’s top four earners alone last year grabbed $10.4 billion.

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True enough. Hedge fund billionaires are indeed investing colossal millions in charters, educational entities — often tied closely to for-profits — that take in public tax dollars but operate independently of local school board oversight.

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Hedge fund flacks hail this growing charter presence as a new window of opportunity for underprivileged kids in failing traditional schools. But many educators consider charters a diversion of badly needed public tax dollars into unaccountable private entities that cream off top students and refuse to take in the most challenged.

Plenty of research reinforces this perspective. One survey of recent studies, released last week, sees a charter school landscape full of “bad education, ridiculous hype, wasted resources and widespread corruption.”

Also in that landscape: plenty of high-return investment opportunities for hedge fund managers. A federal tax break known as the “New Markets” tax credit lets hedge funds that invest in charters double their money in seven years. Charters have become, notes one education analyst, “just another investor playground for easy money passed from taxpayers to the wealthy.”

http://billmoyers.com/2014/05/15/hedge-fund-titans-hum-a-happy-tune-as-they-target-public-schools/

[Blue Owl]

1. Preach it, Bill Moyers!

[yurbud]

2. I keep forgetting to write a post apologizing to Blackwater for comparing charter schools to them

Blackwater steals the best trained troops from our military and pays them handsomely.

Charter companies try to get the least trained, least experienced teachers, pay them crap, and replace them when they quickly burn out.

[Uncle Joe]

4. They're both leeches on public institutions turning critical services

in to camouflaged Ponzi schemes.

[yurbud]

5. I agree. I meant that the charter operators are even more blatant leeches.

[Jefferson23]

3. K&R

[DamnYankeeInHouston]

6. K & R X 1,000,000!

And they are destroying public school to create more markets for charter schools. I barely escaped. After 33 years, it became impossible to endure.The attacks on public school teachers are horrendous and relentless. Schools are not healthy for children and other living things.

[Enthusiast]

7. Kicked and recommended!

[adirondacker]

8. K&R! We need to do something about these Welfare Kings and Queens. nt