Charter schools and vouchers - the new get-rich-quick schemes?

April 17, 5:33 AMNY Education ExaminerLorri Giovinco-Harte

Previous Next

6 comments Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the NY Education Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

There is some interesting commentary about the origins and philosophy of charter schools and vouchers by teacher Steve Miller over at The Perimeter Primate.

Miller discusses the financial motivation for the creation of charter schools and outlines the economic philosophy behind them - a philosophy embraced, he says, by corporate interests:

Now that these forces are out of the closet at last, we can examine their central premise, first articulated by that champion of civil rights and equality, right-wing economist, Milton Friedman.

Friedman demanded the total privatization of schools. He claimed that the so-called “free market” is the best guarantee of efficiency, quality education and equality (not to mention modernizing the system) because it introduces competition, which provides “choice” for parents.

This is in essence the corporate model for education. It is being sold across the country to parents, especially minority parents, who are quite clear that the public schools are more segregated than ever, and who are desperate for something different. Nationally, a gaggle of reactionary billionaires (the Walton family, of Wal-Mart, Eli Broad, of KB homes and AIG Retirement, and Donald Fisher of the Gap) have suddenly become champions of equality and are pushing charter schools as the solution.

Miller explores the relationship between Friedman's philosophy and the movement towards privatization of government services - a movement which was embraced by the Bush administration:

The government’s pitiful and criminal response to Hurricane Katrina tells us a lot about privatization, because the relief effort was also privatized. Naomi Klein shows in her great book, The Shock Doctrine, how Bush privatized many of the federal governments functions by out-sourcing these to private corporations. Even the Bail Out is outsourced, with the law firm of Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett winning the contract to oversee distributing billions to corporations that are its own clients.  

He also describes the involvement of Chancellor Klein's "Education Equality Project" which he describes as serving corporate interests and the "get rich quick schemes" of those who wish to control the billions allocated to education.

Miller joins a growing group of voices who have been drawing attention to the financial motives behind the charter school philosophy and who have been expressing concern that these motives are precisely those that have created havoc on our economy.  

Read more at The Perimeter Primate.