This issues has recently boiled over thanks to this article in the News Journal that showed a huge wedge being forced into the education of our little ones.

Simply put, the Bain Capitals type investors, who have destroyed our economy, are now interested in acquiring the $1 Trillion spent on education across this great country.

They pinpoint areas not working. Create plans (for a cost, mind you, for a cost) which they will implement and do it cheaper, pocketing the difference….

Delaware is one of those areas.

Here is the conundrum. When things are broken, any repairman who stops by is seen as a hero. So I’m not marshaling blame. This is just a work in progress. Like a city in Assassin’s Creed, we must travel down alleys and across rooftops, looking for the object of our quest. We should expect some blind turns.

The bottom line: WHAT IS BEST FOR OUR CHILDREN?

Just in case anyone out there does not have children, here is an example of what we are trying to prevent. (In an effort to toughen up our scores compared to other nations, we’ve made math more difficult. We’ve pushed Galleo Equations to 12th Grade, Integrals and Differentiation to 11th, Modern Algebra to the 10th, Trig and Geometry to the 9th, etc, all the way down to beginning algrebra in the 3rd grade… With todays calculators or Google Math, such a concept is not impossible. But, our children become lost in the first grade, and give up. Society says: I don’t know what’s wrong with kids these days; they won’t learn.” Point is, in trying to help our children, we poured it on too thick, and wound up setting them back irrepairably.)

So, WHAT IS BEST FOR OUR CHILDREN?

Florida has been working the corporate angle on education longer than anyone. It was Jeb Bush’s priority, which incidentally is where “Leave no child behind” got its originating force…..

Here is Florida now.

But as recently as last year, the radical change envisioned by school reformers still seemed far off, even there. With some of the movement’s cherished ideas on the table, Florida Republicans, once known for championing extreme education laws, seemed to recoil from the fight. SB 2262, a bill to allow the creation of private virtual charters, vastly expanding the Florida Virtual School program, languished and died in committee. Charlie Crist, then the Republican governor, vetoed a bill to eliminate teacher tenure. The move, seen as a political offering to the teachers unions, disheartened privatization reform advocates. At one point, the GOP’s budget proposal even suggested a cut for state aid going to virtual school programs

Ok …. if you are riding in the back of a train and you see the lead car slam into the engine as the engine comes to full stop, you had better brace yourself for an impact too, when the shock wave works its way down every car and ends up jerking yours. Delaware should look close at Florida.

So here is what the corporate educational reformers (corporate) did about their setback…..

At a secret conference to which reformers were whisked away, here is what was told to them…. by Patricia Levesque, a top adviser to former Governor Jeb Bush.

a) spread the unions thin by playing offense with decoy legislation.
b) write legislation to fund Religious Schools, to bust union bills, and to force transparency upon Unions.
c) provide insurance to compete with Unions who insure their teachers.
d) do this in order to be able to quietly slip charter bills in without union interference.

Make one point here clear. This trend IS good for business. In 2011, across the country legislation slipped through that allowed vouchers for virtual schooling, either full, or requiring one or two courses in order to graduate.

You may not have heard of Michael Moe. A veteran of Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch, he now leads an investment group that specializes in raising money for businesses looking to tap into more than $1 trillion in taxpayer money spent annually on primary education. His consortium of wealth management and consulting firms, called Global Silicon Valley Partners, helped K12 Inc. go public and has advised a number of other education companies in finding capital. Moe has worked for almost fifteen years at converting the K-12 education system into a cash cow for Wall Street…

A couple of quotes from Moe regarding education.

“Education is the next big “undercapitalized” sector of the economy, like healthcare in the 1990s..”

Lists the notable venture investment firms that recently completed deals relating to the education-technology sector, including Sequoia and Benchmark Capital. Kleiner Perkins, a major venture capital firm and one of the first to back Amazon.com and Google, is now investing in education technology.

The press release for Moe’s education summit promised attendees a chance to meet a set of experts who have “cracked the code” in overcoming “systemic resistance to change.”

Guest speakers at the forum included DC Mayor Adrian Fenty and former New York City schools chancellor Joel Klein…Fenty, still recovering from his loss in the DC Democratic primary, urged attendees to stand up to the teachers union “bully….Jonathan Hage, CEO of Charter Schools USA, likened the conflict to war… “Investors are going to have to support” candidates and “push back against the pushback.”

Just maybe I’m reading to much into this,…. but nowhere did I see any mention of how it helps learning….

It is all about “how much money we can make.” I know, if I were in that business, I’d be trying to maximize my income as well, so I can’t blame them for trying.

But isn’t that like writing the Insulated Windows door to door saleman a really big check, then never seeing him again? Where are the results?

If the results are so fantastic, as the salespeople will lead us to believe, why is there a silence of ringing endorsements from people who have already tried it for years, like Florida?

And why, if the results supposedly are so beneficial they sell themselves, the corporists have to “go into war mode” to get it accomplished? Especially in Florida?

Aren’t our kids something different than just another toothpaste brand?….