I was challenged recently by the question:  why are you so against privatization?  it was one of those questions that make you stop and go through self analysis.  Like, “Yeah, I guess I must look like I am against privatization, but why AM I against privatization?  How did that change ever occur?”

The root word of privatization is “private”.  I have long championed individual privacy issues and every person’s right to live their lives as they choose and see fit, and not be forced to succumb to anthers views on of how they should live, through public threats of intimidation or exposure of their lifestyles and habits…

Likewise, in business negotiations, privacy is needed in forming preliminary contracts, just as it is needed in preparing for war.  If one’s opponent knows early enough what you are doing, what you are doing, never gets done…  So privacy is the significant meme underlying privatization….

But, I don’t think everything should be private.  Especially when it comes to money…  For example, I don’t think that if a parent gives a child an allowance, that the parent must remain in the dark and unaware of how that money is spent. It was originally the parent’s money, and he has a right to keep it out of the hands of the local drug lords…

Likewise, when a school gets public money, it is to the same principle to which we should adhere.  Why should we spend more money on the superintendent’s salary and less on chemicals for chemistry class?  Why should we scrap our two year old high school uniforms, and buy another round for all the competing sports teams?  Why should we pay the principal’s wife, a 6 figure income to become his administrative assistant?

Just like the parent keeping track of his child’s money, when it comes to education and taxpayers money, the same rights must apply.

Only they don’t,…. when we allow a private corporation to perform a governmental function…  because proprietary claims are in effect….

What will the SBA (Smart Balanced Assessment) be like?  We can’t tell you.  How do I teach my students to do well on the SBA?  We can’t tell you.  How much money are you making off the $300 million dollar contract?  We can’t tell you.  Who made up the standards with which we are holding all students accountable?  I’m sorry, that we can’t tell you.

Privatization is about making public private… and that is not a good thing.  For when you remove something from public into private, you remove accountability…

“Eff you.  I don’t have to tell you anything, We’re private.”

Essentially that is why we broke away from Great Britain.  They could do what they wanted with our money, without being accountable to us colonists over here…  Essentially, royalty is the privatization of government. Everything that happens in the Chamber of Secrets, is proprietary knowledge. There is no accountability, The CEO is CEO and it will only take a stockholder’s revolution to toss him out…  And despite all the propaganda of how the King is omnipotent, he is really subservient to the wishes of the majority of his prime investors, those who are counting on him to increase their own fortunes…

Very much like a charter school is run today….. Very much like Common Core is being run today…

Privatization is about keeping what is happening with your money, private…   So when you ask a question, what is happening with my money… the answer is…. You can’t know….

More often the real answer behind privatization is that they are using your money in ways of which they know you would not approve for the simple reason it benefits their best interests, and not those of the subjects for which you gave it up….

So in a free market system, where there is no accountability, how does one hold educational officials accountable?  Like kings going to war, by the results: some win, some lose. Some businesses grow, some fail;  it is the capitalistic system model.  The strong win; the weak lose.  The powerful prevail; the suffering suffer more.  That is the fundamental maxim of privatization.

“If a charter school can’t outperform a public school, it gets closed.”

We now see with Pencader, REACH and Moyer that closing down a school may vaguely and indirectly punish the CEO’s and investors who put up the money, but it devastates the children and parents who chose that school based on its false promises.  The CEO’s and investors aren’t ruined for life.  The parents and students are; they can never go back in time and relive that year or two in a different school system and get different results…

Privatization protects the kings, and fells the subjects…. Allowing privatization to creep into government goes against every sentiment on which this great nation was founded….

In privatizing education, the results of its failures will be our children. Not the DuPonts, not the Copelands, not the Longwood trustees.

America was once founded upon the principles that all Americans were born equal and therefore deserve the equal opportunity to pursue their dreams, one of which may be the accumulation of wealth, it really doesn’t matter…  Privatization works to destroy that principle, and replace it with another one stating that only those with lots of money, shall pass beyond this point…..

“Privatization” Is Inherently Unequal