Privatization

The Sad Story Of The Nation’s First All-Charter District

January 9, 2015 Diane Ravitch, www.dianeravitch.net Educate! Capitalism, Charter Schools, Education, Privatization

Peter Greene here recounts the sad story of the nation’s first all-charter district in Muskegon Heights, Michigan. You never hear about this important experiment on national radio and television. Want to know why? No big PR machine. No miracles. Instead, disaster. Governor Rick Snyder appointed an emergency manager to impose change on Muskegon Heights. The students had low scores, and the district had a deficit. The emergency manager gave the entire district to Mosaica, a for-profit charter chain. It was “a historic opportunity” to show how private enterprise could raise scores, close achievement gaps, and succeed where the public schools had failed.

Deep Questions Over Portland’s Corporate Water Takeover

January 8, 2015 Victoria Collier, www.truth-out.org Educate! EPA, Oregon, Privatization, Water

A simmering water war is about to come to a boil over the fate of historic, well-loved public reservoirs in Portland, Oregon. At the heart of the controversy is a breakdown in public trust that reflects the dangers of corporate-led water privatization schemesin the United States and around the world. In an emotionally charged public meeting on November 18, 2014, Portland residents bombarded two of their city commissioners with questions about what they believe is a cronyism-driven plan to kill the elegant, gravity-fed, open water reservoir system that has reliably served their city safe, clean drinking water for more than 100 years.

The Racist History Of The Charter School Movement

January 8, 2015 Christopher Bonastia, www.alternet.org Educate! Charter Schools, Education, Privatization

The driving assumption for the pro-charter side, of course, is that market competition in education will be like that for toothpaste — providing an array of appealing options. But education, like healthcare, is not a typical consumer market. Providers in these fields have a disincentive to accept or retain “clients” who require intensive interventions to maintain desired outcomes—in the case of education, high standardized test scores that will allow charters to stay in business. The result? A segmented marketplace in which providers compete for the “good risks,” while the undesirables get triage. By design, markets produce winners, losers and unintended or hidden consequences.

Greatest Year Of Revolt Against High-Stakes Testing In U.S. History

January 2, 2015 Jesse Hagopian, www.iamaneducator.com Resist! Education, Privatization

For too long so-called education reformers, mostly billionaires, politicians, and others with little or no background in teaching, have gotten away with using standardized testing to punish our nation’s youth and educators. They have used these tests to deny students promotion or graduation, close schools, and fire teachers—all while deflecting attention away from the need to fund the services the would dramatically improve our schools.MTaSMasthead The year 2014 marked the greatest year of revolt against high-stakes testing in U.S. history. Across the country, students are walking out, parents are opting their children out, and teachers are refusing to administer these detrimental exams—often taking great personal and professional risk to defy the corporate education reformers.

Judicial Decision Paves Way For School Privatization In PA County

December 29, 2014 Angie Mason, www.eveningsun.com Organize! Education, Pennsylvania, Privatization

A Spring Garden Township businessman was put in charge of the York City School District on Friday and tasked with implementing a financial recovery plan that could see all district buildings turned into charter schools run by an outside company. York County Judge Stephen Linebaugh on Friday granted a petition from the state education department to name David Meckley as receiver for the city school district, which gives Meckley all of the school board's powers except for levying taxes. Meckley, who has been the state-appointed chief recovery officer for the district for about two years, guided the creation of a financial recovery plan for the district. The plan, adopted in 2013, called for internal reform but included a path to charter conversion if progress wasn't made.

Privatization: Profiting At Public Expense

November 8, 2014 Duncan Cameron, www.rabble.ca Educate! Capitalism, Privatization

In the 1980s governments began selling off public assets to private corporations. Government debt and deficits were the excuse. Citizen-owned wealth, held in trust by governments was transferred to profit-seeking companies. Public inheritance was turned into a one-time payment applied to the provincial or federal debt. This practice was called privatization. It should have been called theft, since it amounted to stealing from the public what belonged to it. The only way the practice of "selling the house to pay the mortgage" made any sense was if you were the one buying the house. In 1994 the Saskatchewan government privatized its Potash Corporation for $630 million. In 2010 a hostile bid priced it at $38.6 billion. The bid was considered "insulting low."

Water Markets: A False Solution to a Real Crisis

November 2, 2014 Mitch Jones, www.foodandwaterwatch.org Educate! Privatization, Water

If we have learned anything from the water shut-offs in Detroit and the ongoing water crisis in the Western U.S., it is that every community deserves access to safe and reliable water, regardless of its ability to pay. Yet a new movement is afoot to transfer control of our water to new water markets. Despite the evidence privatizing water doesn’t work, water privatization and market-based schemes are still being pushedupon the public as a solution. Specifically, we are seeing the idea of water markets gain attention, especially in response to the Western drought. While not a new idea, the widespread use of water markets, which represents the financialization of all of our common resources, is relatively new. They are a false solution that assigns the benefits of our investment in this common resource to a small few at the expense of everyone else, and do little to ensure adequate supply to anyone. We know that large financial institutions dream of water markets.

‘One Baltimore’ Rally Unites Groups Against Privatization

November 1, 2014 The Real News, www.therealnews.com Resist! Baltimore, Privatization, Water

But we're here because there is an efficiency study that Veolia is trying to bargain with the city so they can get the contract. And we know what they want to do. They want to outsource. They want to sell out our water department. We have the best water in the entire United States of America. Then, two years from now, what they will do is say that we want to downsize the workers, contract out their jobs. And then what they do is they want to take over the water in the City of Baltimore. We are sick and tired of being sick and tired of our city being sold out, whether to garages, whether it's different jobs in the Transportation Department, whether it's outsourcing our water department jobs. And so it's time for us to stand up now. Today we have some community leaders that are here. But especially the unions are here, because it's about jobs, it's about a living wage. But it's also about not selling out Baltimore. So, again, don't sell out Baltimore.

Berkeley Post Office “Under Contract” To Be Sold!

October 26, 2014 Labor Solidarity Committee, www.occupyoakland.org Educate! Post Office, Privatization

The selling off of the US Post Office continues. The dismantling of the Post Office, laying off of workers, efforts to reduce service and make deals with private corporations to fulfill some Post Office responsibilities as well as the absurd requirements for paying the health and retirement benefits of postal workers 75 years into the future, seem to be a formula for setting up the privatization of the US Postal Service. From the San Jose Mercury News: Confirming rumors buzzing around City Hall, the U.S. Postal Service told this newspaper Friday that the historic downtown Berkeley Post Office is “under contract but not yet sold.” From the Berkeley Daily Planet: The Berkeley City Council has received a letter from City Attorney Zach Cowan saying that he believes that the Berkeley Post Office might already been sold or at least the United States Postal Service (USPS) is in contract with a potential buyer. Pursuant to previous authorization from the Council, the city of Berkeley has authorized attorney Antonio Rossmann to file a lawsuit, hoping to prevent the sale.

Open Access Week: Celebrate The Knowledge Commons

October 25, 2014 Andrea Germanos, www.commondreams.org Organize! Internet, Privatization

This week marks the eighth annual Open Access Week, which champions scholarly work being made part of the "knowledge commons" for the benefit of all. Many scholarly articles, though they may be publicly funded, remain restricted as a result of paywalls or copyright restrictions. These barriers, critics charge, thwart the advancement and sharing of knowledge—and that hurts everyone, not just those in academic fields. As the Open Access Week website states: Open Access to information – the free, immediate, online access to the results of scholarly research, and the right to use and re-use those results as you need – has the power to transform the way research and scientific inquiry are conducted.

Women Lead Sanitation Strike In China

October 17, 2014 Yi Xi, www.labornotes.org Resist! China, Labor Rights, Privatization

For two weeks, sanitation workers gathered daily on the lawns of Guangzhou’s Higher Education Mega Center—a complex of ten universities serving 200,000 students that has taken over Xiaoguwei island—in the latest of a series of Guangzhou sanitation strikes. The strike erupted August 26 after the sudden replacement of a contractor jeopardized the jobs of 212 sanitation workers, jobs many had held for a decade. By the time it came to an end September 9, workers had won an agreement that included severance pay of 3,000 yuan (about $489 U.S.) per year of service. Tensions are still simmering over whether the new company will rehire all veteran workers as promised. But although the dispute isn’t settled yet, its significance is clear.

How Charter Schools Create Private Profit

October 17, 2014 Marian Wang, www.propublica.org Educate! Education, Neo-Liberalism, Privatization

Charters are privately run but government-funded schools that are supposed to be open to all. Policymakers and many parents have embraced charters as an alternative to poorly performing and underfunded traditional public schools. As charters have grown in popularity, an industry of management companies like Mitchell's has sprung up to assist them. Many of these companies are becoming political players in their states, working to shape the still-emerging set of rules charters must play by. A few, including Mitchell's company, have aligned themselves with influential conservative groups, such as Americans for Prosperity and the Koch-supported American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC. This new reality — in which businesses can run chains of public schools — has spurred questions about the role of profit in public education and whether more safeguards are needed to prevent corruption.

Pay to Prey: Governors Facilitate Predatory Privatization Of Services

October 16, 2014 Source Watch, www.sourcewatch.org Educate! Government, Neo-Liberalism, Privatization

Maggots, drug smuggling, sex with inmates. As if the news were not already bad enough, shocking new allegations of a murder-for-hire plot are emerging from Michigan as the media digs deeper into that state’s failed outsourcing of prison services. In 2013, Governor Rick Snyder invited the Philadelphia- based for-profit company Aramark to take over food services in the state’s prisons. The action was a 180-degree change in course, as the administration previously rejected all such bids on the grounds that none of the proposals would save the state money. The $570,000 Aramark spent on lobbying surely helped the company persuade the administration to change its mind.

Privatization Fails, Will We Learn Government Can Do Better

October 10, 2014 Dan Carpenter, www.nuvo.net Educate! Government, Indiana, Privatization, Public

The money from the Indianapolis water-sewer utility sale is gone, and rates are going up, as the city told us would happen, sale or no sale. The money from the Indianapolis parking meter sale is gone, and rates have risen and billable hours have lengthened, with the collections flowing past city coffers to an outfit in Texas. The money from the Indiana Toll Road lease is gone, and now the foreign consortium running it has declared bankruptcy, ominously struggling against low use combined with raised tolls and much-criticized service. The spectacular failure of IBM’s takeover of welfare eligibility determination, a fiasco that wrought untold suffering upon the poor, disabled and elderly, has the state before the Indiana Supreme Court trying to scratch back tens of millions of taxpayer dollars.

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