Tag: privatization

Education advocates explain why Tata was always a bad fit

October 2, 2012 at 8:32 amCategory:Uncategorized

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In case you missed them, a couple of local education policy experts had some insightful takes on the departure of fired Wake schools chief, Anthony Tata in recent days. 

First, Chris Hill, Director of the Education and Law Project at the North Carolina Justice Center explained how Tata represents a problematic trend in modern education in the most recent edition of his project’s newsletter At the Schoolhouse Door. 

“The troubling thing about Gen. Tata is that his background was not in education Read More…

Is state lawmaker sending a threat to the city of Asheville?

August 15, 2012 at 9:31 amCategory:Uncategorized

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Wow! Things are getting a little heated in the battle over the future of the Asheville city water system. As you will recall, Rep. Tim Moffitt has made it a kind of personal crusade to pass legislation that would turn the municipal water system over to a regional authority — a place where it could quite conceivably be headed for privatization.

Last night, the  Asheville City Council voted unanimously to place a non-binding referendum on the November ballot for city voters to weigh in on the issue.

This move does not appear to have sat well with Moffitt. Read More…

Private equity, hedge fund vultures “circling public education”

August 2, 2012 at 2:41 pmCategory:Uncategorized

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Don’t expect the upbeat news from the state education world reported in Sarah Ovaska’s post below to slow down another powerful trend in public education: the attempt  by corprate pirates to steal our schools.

As Reuters reporter Stephanie Simon reports in this story via the HuffPost, the big money guys on Wall Street are hard at work figuring out ways to muscle in and claim a share of the half-trillion dollars the U.S. spends on public education.

“The investors gathered in a tony private club in Manhattan were eager to hear about the next big thing, and education consultant Rob Lytle was happy to oblige.

Think about the upcoming rollout of new national academic standards for public schools, he urged the crowd. If they’re as rigorous as advertised, a huge number of schools will suddenly look really bad, their students testing way behind in reading and math. They’ll want help, quick. And private, for-profit vendors selling lesson plans, educational software and student assessments will be right there to provide it.

‘You start to see entire ecosystems of investment opportunity lining up,’ said Lytle, a partner at The Parthenon Group, a Boston consulting firm. ‘It could get really, really big.’”

Simon’s story helps explain in part why a troubled company like K12, Inc. has hired a virtual swarm of lobbyists to lobby North Carolina state government.

You can read the entire sobering story by clicking here.

Hagan touts bill to restrain abuses by for-profit colleges

August 2, 2012 at 7:20 amCategory:Uncategorized

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This morning’s Greensboro News & Record includes an editorial by Senator Kay Hagan about a promising bill that she’s co-sponsoring to rein in some abuses in the for-profit college industry.

The bill (“the Protecting Financial Aid for Students and Taxpayers Act”), which has been endorsed by the watchdogs at Consumers Union, would require all colleges and universities to pay for advertising, marketing and recruiting with non-taxpayer dollars. As Hagan’s piece explains, some private schools have been using abusive tactics (sometimes paid for with federal dollars) to recruit and ensnare young people.

It sounds like a promising start in an area that’s rife with abuse — a phenomenon that is, sadly, sure to get worse in North Carolina if conservatives plow ahead with their plans to divert millions in public dollars into private, for-profit schools.

Perdue punts on Asheville water bill

July 30, 2012 at 3:40 pmCategory:Uncategorized

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It seems like a safe bet that every Governor given the option probably uses it, but there’s something enormously frustrating about Governor Perdue’s penchant for simply taking no action at all on bills sent to her by the General Assembly. This was the approach she took once again this past weekend on a controversial bill opposed by the entire Asheville City Council.

As constitutional scholars out there will no doubt recall, the Governor of North Carolina has three choices when it comes to most of the bills passed by the legislature: 1) sign them, 2) veto them or 3) do nothing — in which case the bill becomes law as if she had signed it.  (Some bills become law immediately without ever being presented to the Governor).

The reasons for the decision to provide option #3 probably appear in the record of the debate surrounding the amendment that gave the Governor the veto back in the 1990′s and I’m willing to be persuaded that they make some kind of sense. But from the perspective of a simple, common sense test, it’s hard tosee what they possibly are.

Legislators have to vote “yes or “no.” Why does the Governor get to vote “present?”

Also, as a practical matter, what in the heck is preventing Perdue from making a “yea” or “nay” decision? After all, she has only four months left to serve. Read More…