Rigrodsky & Long, P.A. Investigates Sale of “Nobel Learning Communities”, Inc. to Leeds Equity Partners…
The investigation concerns whether Nobel Learning’s board of directors failed to adequately shop the Company and obtain the best price possible for Nobel Learning’s shareholders before entering into the agreement with Leeds Equity Partners….
Leeds is a “for profit” group that currently includes companies that dispense commercial property management software, that are a designer and manufacturer of furniture for the educational, hospitality and healthcare industries, and that are a educational temporary agency to supply unfilled educational positions….
Of course, the bigger question behind this, is whether the mechanization behind what is truly at stake when Delaware moves towards allowing corporate interests to control all aspects of our children’s education… IS TRULY WHAT IS BEST FOR OUR CHILDREN…
Kilroy’s Delaware is quick to point out connections between Markell’s Race to the Top and Wall Street. Here is one, and another, and another, all recently posted….
But what no one has addressed is where the equitization of public education is leading us…
The big question is this: who has more accountability towards the education of our children? Ourselves through our government? Or companies bought and sold for $11.75 dollars a share in cash…. ?
I think the answer is this: whereas innovation can be found in upstart companies seeking to compete in a new market, overall, .. the long term management of education is best left to the long term institutions who by their nature endowed with a long term view…
A healthy combination of both, are the guiding stars we need to use to steer our ship…
The answer is so obvious, it is almost comical that everyone twists, turns, bends over backwards and tries so hard, not to see it… Bottom line, if the system is financially broke, the simple solution is to tax the wealthy a tiny bit more, and fix what is broken; not pay those working way too hard already, …even less… 
8 comments
Comments feed for this article
May 23, 2011 at 2:09 pm
JustMe
“long term institutions who by their nature endowed with a long term view…”
Like, oh, I don’t know…the Catholic Church? It’s been around for 2000 years or so. Our government has only been around 235 years or so.
how about if I changed:
“Delaware moves towards allowing corporate interests to control all aspects of our children’s education… IS TRULY WHAT IS BEST FOR OUR CHILDREN…”
to:
“Delaware moves towards allowing GOVERNMENT to control all aspects of our children’s education… IS TRULY WHAT IS BEST FOR OUR CHILDREN…”
shouldn’t it be:
“Delaware moves towards allowing PARENTS to control all aspects of our children’s education… IS TRULY WHAT IS BEST FOR OUR CHILDREN…”
which means vouchers to me.
May 23, 2011 at 4:34 pm
kavips
You’ve touched upon a work of mine in progress…
Do people always have the best interest of their children at heart?
I’ll digress more later but, option number 2 seems to have the best track record so far.
As for the Catholic Church’s teaching.. take this one illustration into account. If it’s real, hidden reason for preaching abstinence is actually to produce more Catholics, even if born out of wedlock, then..obviously theirs is a successful approach… However in the search to produce less Catholics (or others), …. which I’m sure most pre-teen women, if given the option, would pursue, .. the option to dispense condoms in public schools has a slightly better track record.
So as that small vignette illustrates, sometimes the” will of the people”, out trumps the “will” if the parent…
More later.
May 25, 2011 at 6:56 am
Nancy Willing
The problem with vouchers is clearly that there are not going to be enough sufficiently suitable alternative sites to place children and ….. guess what … for the kids whose parents try to place them into private or charter schools, once the kid is moved, the public school doesn’t have to take them back until the next school year begins….and public and charters don’t have to keep kids who aren’t performing ‘up to snuff’. Until that changes and charters and private school MUST take and educate even the toughest cases (whether it be disruptive or special needs kids) then –no deal.
I think if we introduce vouchers we’ll see a whole lot more kids falling through the cracks than we do now.
Another problem with vouchers and private schools is that the low income family won’t be able to make up the difference in cost between a voucher and the tuition and so the voucher system will mostly support already well off households and leave more of the poor behind.
May 25, 2011 at 6:57 am
Nancy Willing
Thanks for doing this post, btw, Kavips. Corporate influence on education seems to be one big angle for the GOP and DINOs in government.
May 25, 2011 at 8:02 am
anon
“who has more accountability towards the education of our children? Ourselves through our government? Or companies bought and sold for $11.75 dollars a share in cash…. ?”
It depends on the contracts. I have read some of the recent ed contracts, and I think they need stronger performance guarantees and money-back clauses.
Even the Wireless Generation contract was delayed because they were apparently holding back for more money, causing the Markell administration to file an RTTT amendement with US DOE to allow more time, and shifting money from other items to Wireless Generation.
There is nothing wrong with these contracts per se but there needs to be some hard-assed citizen representatives participating in the drafting of the contracts, to make sure the firms are delivering the goods.
I suspect with actual teeth in the contract, a lot of these Wall Street firms wouldn’t even bid on them. Which would be fine by me.
May 25, 2011 at 8:41 am
kavips
The question still remains. Who has our student’s best interest some 50 years from now.. That is essentially educations pay-out plan… What you invest now, is paid out in 50 years.. You cut back now, We get set back 50 years hence. You invest now, in 50 years we have a jump forward…
So who has student’s best interests at heart in this time frame?
Corporations don’t. their interests are quarterly.
Student’s themselves don’t. their interests are hour to hour.
Religious organisations don’t… they are interested in time on a totally different scale.
Parent’s… they don’t have the access or time to analyse the necessary information to lead them to making the correct decision.
We are left by default, with some form of our government, deciding what is best for our children, as well as our nation, some fifty years hence… It is up to us to make sure we put good people making those decisions, not bad ones.
May 25, 2011 at 8:46 am
kavips
Nancy brings up a point on vouchers.
As a parent, do I choose to send my child to a school that brags they pray all the time, pooh poos everything scientific, simply because I want to hide from my kids the fact that my ideas are warped and out of touch from reality?
Does that do our nation any good? Does that do the student, any good?
No. vouchers can make one or two schools that excel have waiting lists, but they won’t help the big problem…
May 25, 2011 at 10:19 pm
kavips
I don’t think I explained it well enough… A parent might be well intentioned, but make an erroneous error in judgment…
A committee, although it moves slowly, usually irons out those errors in judgment, that even well meaning individuals are prone to make.
Government, then, not parents is the probably the best decider of how to pursue a better education….
What is a world class education? Knowing the three R’s… Reading, writing, and Arithmetic,