{"id":108018,"date":"2014-02-17T11:55:11","date_gmt":"2014-02-17T11:55:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=108018"},"modified":"2014-02-17T11:55:11","modified_gmt":"2014-02-17T11:55:11","slug":"4-profound-ways-privatization-perverts-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/latest-news\/4-profound-ways-privatization-perverts-education\/","title":{"rendered":"4 Most Profound Ways Privatization Perverts Education"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paul Buchheit\u00a0<\/strong>
\nRINF Alternative News<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Compared to other developed countries, equal education has been a low priority in America.<\/h3>\n

Profit-seeking in the banking and health care industries has victimized Americans. Now it’s beginning to happen in education, with our children as the products.<\/p>\n

There are good reasons – powerful reasons – to stop the privatization efforts before the winner-take-all free market creates a new vehicle for inequality. At the very least we need the good sense to slow it down while we examine the evidence about charters and vouchers.<\/p>\n

1. Charter Schools Have Not Improved Education<\/strong><\/p>\n

The recently updated\u00a0CREDO study<\/a>\u00a0at Stanford revealed that while charters have made progress since 2009, their performance is\u00a0about the same<\/a>\u00a0as that of public schools. The differences are, in the words of the\u00a0National Education Policy Center<\/a>, “so small as to be regarded, without hyperbole, as trivial.” Furthermore, the four-year improvement demonstrated by charters may have been due to the\u00a0closing of schools<\/a>\u00a0that underperformed in the earlier study, and also by a variety of means to discourage the attendance of lower-performing students.<\/p>\n

Ample\u00a0evidence<\/a>\u00a0exists beyond CREDO to question the effectiveness of charter schools (although they continue to have both\u00a0supporters and detractors<\/a>). In\u00a0Ohio<\/a>, charters were deemed\u00a0inferior<\/a>\u00a0to traditional schools in all grade\/subject combinations. Texas charters had a much\u00a0lower graduation rate<\/a>\u00a0in 2012 than traditional schools. In Louisiana, where Governor Bobby Jindal proudly\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0that “we’re doing something about [failing schools],” about\u00a0two-thirds of charters received a D or an F\u00a0from the\u00a0Louisiana State Department of Education<\/a>\u00a0in 2013. Furthermore, charters in\u00a0New Orleans<\/a>\u00a0rely heavily on inexperienced teachers, and even its model charter school Sci Academy has experienced a skyrocketing suspension rate, the second highest in the city. More trouble looms for the over-chartered city in a\u00a0lawsuit<\/a>filed by families of disabled students contending that equal educational access has not been provided for their children.<\/p>\n

2. The Profit Motive Perverts the Goals of Education<\/strong><\/p>\n