Thom Hartmann: Why is the DNC promoting school vouchers?

[thomhartmann]

Randi Weingarten, American Federation of Teachers joins Thom Hartmann. While some of the Democratic Party's top stars speak inside the arena in Charlotte this week - a great deal of attention is being paid to a movie playing outside the arena. That movie is "Won't Back Down" - a Hollywood production which starts Maggie Gyllenhaal and Viola Davis - and chronicles the actions of a public school teacher and a mother who combine forces to help reform a local public school. However - the movie - which also played during last week's RNC - isn't getting rave reviews from everyone. It's about a parent using the so-called "trigger laws" that have been passed in California, Texas, Ohio, and Connecticut, and are the brainchild of Ben Austin, formerly an employee of and attorney for green dot public schools, a for-profit charter school chain. It was produced by Walden Media, which right-wing billionaire Philip Anschutz backs. Anschutz has made other films promoting for-profit education, like "Waiting for Superman," which also attacks teachers and unions and was partly funded by billionaire Bill Gates.

The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann on RT TV & FSTV "live" 9pm and 11pm check www.thomhartmann.com/tv for local listings

[Wellstone ruled]

1. A big wet kiss

to Rahamn and his rich friends in Chicago(Penny Prikster and family contributions ). Follow the Chi town teachers issues and you will understand. Neil and Marvin Bush proved you can suck tons of public dollars out of public education. It's called Privatized Education.

[JDPriestly]

5. I'd like to compare overall costs of public and charter schools, profits of charter schools

and then teachers' salaries in public v. charter schools.

Are teachers in charter schools earning what they need to earn to justify their level of education?

[BlueStreak]

2. There is absolutely no evidence of any for-profit elementary school

delivering better results over a prolonged period when they have to play by the same rules as the public schools -- i.e. take all comers regardless of demographics.

In my state -- and almost everywhere -- the charter schools are able to cherry pick. They don't have to offer special ed (which is quite costly). They don't have to take students with behavioral problems. If a student doesn't do well, they can kick him or her back to the public district. If a student does badly one year, the charter can refuse to accept that student the following year.

Show me one study anywhere in the entire country where a for-profit charter had to take all the same students as the public district and they produced significantly better results on a sustained basis. I don't think you will find such a study because the for-profits aren't interested in any situation where they cannot cherry-pick.

And it gets worse. In my state, the legislature passed a law where if the public district has any buildings that they cannot utilize, they must lease these buildings to the for-profit charters for $1.00 per year, and the public district still had to pay for the building maintenance.

And how about this little gem? For-profit charters are allowed to hire 50% of the teaching staff without any teaching certificate. They can and do hire people at or near minimum wage. I spent some time inside one of these places and in a total of 25 hours on about 10 different days, I saw what appeared to be qualified teachers leading classes only about 15% of the time. Most of what I saw were students sitting in front of laptops for hours on end with an adult sitting quietly at a desk in the front of the room -- never interacting with the students, never doing anything you could remotely call "teaching".

Thom asks the key question. Why are Democrats supporting this scam? And I should point out that the charter for that school I mentioned above was granted by a Democratic mayor.

[HiPointDem]

3. kr.

[JDPriestly]

4. That was great!

[drynberg]

6. LET'S SEE IF I GOT THIS RIGHT...

The Profit making private schools can meet all the educational goals and objectives and still make a profit? If you buy that crock, I gotta swell slightly used bridge I'd like to sell ya...what a big gooey glob of bullshit! I don't buy this for one second and nor should any thinking tax payer and citizen with any action between the ears.