Charter Schools

I sent this message to WOSU-am's talk show, All Sides, which turned out to get at the basic issues of privatization I mentioned, viz.:

School Privatization
Hal Pepinsky, pepinsky@indiana.edu, pepinsky.blogspot.com
October 7, 2010
The charter school movement is a part of the global movement to privatize public assets that British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher launched in 1979. In the United States, privatization means that workplace records are private and that members of the school community like teachers have no due process rights. When schools are for profit, their primary obligation is to shareholders to minimize expenses like teacher salaries and fringe benefits. Sadly the Secretary of Education who now administers the national “race to the top” program came into office as superintendent of Chicago schools, where privatization of schools has displaced neighborhood schools in poor neighborhoods. The charter school movement is so very damaging to our children’s public right to a decent education. Hal