{"id":347852,"date":"2018-02-12T01:43:35","date_gmt":"2018-02-12T00:43:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/plundering-of-puerto-rico-continues-as-governor-attacks-public-education\/"},"modified":"2018-02-12T01:43:35","modified_gmt":"2018-02-12T00:43:35","slug":"plundering-of-puerto-rico-continues-as-governor-attacks-public-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/plundering-of-puerto-rico-continues-as-governor-attacks-public-education\/","title":{"rendered":"Plundering of Puerto Rico continues as governor attacks public education"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"content\">\n<h3 class=\"nomargin\">\u00a0<\/h3>\n<h2>Plundering of Puerto Rico continues as governor attacks public education<\/h2>\n<h5>\n<p>    By<br \/>\n    Genevieve Leigh<br \/>\n    <br \/>10 February 2018<\/p>\n<\/h5>\n<p>The pillaging and plundering of Puerto Rico reached new heights this week as Governor Ricardo Rossell\u00f3 addressed the US territory Monday to formally announce his intention to dismantle and privatize the public education system on the island.<\/p>\n<p>Rossell\u00f3\u2019s live televised announcement outlined a full-scale assault on teachers, students and the right to free quality public education. Included in his \u201cbroad education reform bill\u201d is the introduction of charter schools, a voucher system, decentralizing the administrative system, massive school closures, and teacher layoffs.<\/p>\n<p>Rossell\u00f3\u2019s announcement is only the most recent inflection point in a decades-long battle over public education on the island which has been greatly accelerated since Hurricane Mar\u00eda. Despite significant resistance from the working class, youth and students, preparations for Rossell\u00f3\u2019s coming \u201ceducation transformation\u201d have steadily advanced over the last decade.<\/p>\n<p>Privatizing Puerto Rico\u2019s public education system has been a long sought after goal of the local ruling class, going back as far as Rossell\u00f3\u2019s father in the 1990s. The Puerto Rico Supreme Court struck down a similar voucher program proposed by his father in 1994, saying the island\u2019s constitution prohibited using public money to fund privately run schools. How the new plan somehow circumvents this law has not been made clear. Given the steady decades-long decay of democratic forms of rule on the local and federal levels, and the institution of the Obama-era Financial Oversight Board, it can be assumed that the ruling class will have no trouble removing all legal barriers that may prevent the plans from moving&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/en\/articles\/2018\/02\/10\/puer-f10.html\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 Plundering of Puerto Rico continues as governor attacks public education By Genevieve Leigh 10 February 2018 The pillaging and plundering of Puerto Rico reached new heights this week as Governor Ricardo Rossell\u00f3 addressed the US territory Monday to formally announce his intention to dismantle and privatize the public education system on the island. Rossell\u00f3\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2526,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-347852","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2526"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347852\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}