Charter School Teacher Villages being constructed in New Jersey [View All]

[Starry Messenger]

http://dailycensored.com/2010/07/31/charter-school-teacher-villages-being-constructed-in-new-jersey/

Teacher Villages for charter schools: Medieval castles for the educational company store

Meet Ron Beit, a New York developer, fresh from gaining approval from the New Jersey City’s Landmarks & Preservation Commission for a huge corporate development set to house teachers. Beit is is pressing ahead with a “Teachers Village”, anchored by charter schools and apartments marketed to educators in New Jersey. The idea is reminiscent of a medieval castle where teachers do not venture out of the castle walls much but get to sleep in the ‘stable’ when not working as serfs for the new charter investors.

<snip>

The city planning board had no problem or hesitation in voting to approve construction of a four-block-long mixed-use development back in April of 2010. The decision was barely noticed outside a small circle of civic boosters and of course, deep pocketed investors. But it was a turning point in the career of the project’s architect, Richard Meier (The By the Architects, for the People: A Trend for the 2010s, NICOLAI OUROUSSOFF. New York Times, May 3, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/arts/design/04meier.html?_r=1).

In all, “Teachers Village” would include three charter schools with some 1,000 students and 221 units of so-called workforce housing (ibid). Company stores for the busloads of Teach for America kids that will be expected to come in, non-unionized of course, and work and breathe within the company’s enterprise. Private management of the ‘villages’ will be the cornerstone of rentals and thus privatized housing will undergo a marriage with privatized charter schools.

<snip>

The issue of gentrification and urban removal cannot be separated from the new turnaround artists and their plans for increasing charter schools. They work with developers on plans to not only centralize the exploitation of both labor and students, but they are also conscious of the need Wall Street has for plans to make a mountain of money off the construction of capital projects in the form of what can only be seen as a post-modern insidious company store.

From the comments section weilunion writes:

...with the new teachers our ‘rulers’ will make sure there is no historical memory of anything called a ‘union’. They will use the teachers as ‘call centers’, 24/7 in their ruthless exploitation of teachers. Historical amnesia is being ushered in by Weingarten and her alliance with the forces of evil. Short term thinking cutting the throat long term.

sBut what a boon for the Wall Street traders, and Build for America Bonds, the Goldman Sachs Reinvestment Act add on. Now the city can be turned over to the turnaround artists while we turn in our grave.

The interesting thing is that with virtual charter schools becoming the next wave and vouchers to support them so the kiddies can get an ‘education’ at home or in cubicles, the real estate will be turned again; this time to no doubt anybody having a ‘dime’ which is not many.

The whole thing is unsustainable, it is fraud and larceny on a grand level.

Too bad we have no working class movement in this country that can see this. This is the problem, we carve out problems with failing insitutions from the overall failure of a system called capitalism and we then become reformers.

Kids will not put up with it, TFT, as I did not in my opprssive high school. More drop outs, more security, less learning and thus one will see the whole homeschool thing break the water bag.

People do not care about kids, by and large in this society; for if they did, they would promote policies that would restore a future. Looks to me like the future is the present but with new challenges.

Agreed.