THE CORPORATE EDUCATION INVASION Part 2

ABSTRACT: The most recent embodiment of the corporate efforts to capture (i.e., privatize) funding from public K-12 education is the new Common Core national curriculum standards and the testing that accompanies it. Common Core’s implementation will require public school systems to spend billions of dollars on new curriculum materials and on new testing, including software, hardware, and technology infrastructure as the testing is computer and Internet based. This comes at a time when school budgets are being cut, teachers and other staff are being laid off, and music, art, and extracurricular activities are being eliminated.

All the focus on privatization, on charter schools, on testing, and on the Common Core standards as the solutions to our supposedly failing public schools has diverted attention from the real failure of our public schools and our society. The failure of our public schools is their inability to close the gap in educational outcomes between well-off white children without special needs and everyone else. Low-income and minority students, along with those with special needs and English as a second language, typically arrive at school already well behind their better-off peers. Catching up is difficult and we don’t give our school systems the resources to have a realistic chance of closing the gap.

Expecting our schools to fix the pervasive impacts of poverty and inequality is a prescription for failure. To use that failure as an excuse to privatize schools and force public schools to spend billions on new curricula and testing is misguided (assuming the best of intentions) and only exacerbates the problem. It would be far more effective and efficient to use those billions of dollars to provide high quality early care and education (i.e., child care) and other supports to low income families with children under school age.

FULL POST: The most recent embodiment of the corporate efforts to capture (i.e., privatize) funding from public K-12 education is the new Common Core national curriculum standards and the testing that accompanies it. The corporations and their allies have convinced the public and policy makers that our public schools are failing through an extensive and inaccurate PR campaign. Their solutions are new education standards and accountability through testing.

The new Common Core standards have been widely adopted, in large part due to federal grants that effectively required their adoption. However, the pushback against Common Core is now taking hold with a broad and surprisingly varied set of opponents. The opposition includes working and upper class suburbanites, right wing Tea Partiers, and teachers. [1]

Common Core’s implementation will require public school systems to spend billions of dollars on new curriculum materials and on new testing, including software, hardware, and technology infrastructure as the testing is computer and Internet based. This comes at a time when school budgets are being cut, teachers and other staff are being laid off, and music, art, and extracurricular activities are being eliminated. [2]

It’s worth noting that the Gates Foundation spent over $200 million, given to a wide range of over 30 organizations (e.g., colleges and universities, for-profit and not-for-profit education corporations, states and local school systems, think tanks and advocacy groups, and teachers’ unions) developing and building support for the Common Core. [3] The Common Core standards were NOT developed and adopted through a democratic process that engaged the public and a broad set of stakeholders. The writers of the standards included no experienced classroom teachers, no educators of children with special needs, and no early childhood educators. The single largest group on the drafting committee was from the testing industry. Furthermore, the standards were not pilot tested in the real world and there is no process for challenging or revising them. [4]

While the stated goals of the Common Core are to improve student outcomes and produce a better prepared workforce, it’s hard to overlook the billions of dollars of immediate business for corporations. Therefore, it is not surprising that the Chamber of Commerce spent more than a million dollars promoting the adoption of the Common Core. [5]

All the focus on privatization, on charter schools, on testing, and on the Common Core standards as the solutions to our supposedly failing public schools has diverted attention from the real failure of our public schools and our society. The failure of our public schools is their inability to close the gap in educational outcomes between well-off white children without special needs and everyone else. However, this failure goes well beyond the school system. Low-income and minority students, along with those with special needs and English as a second language, typically arrive at school already well behind their better-off peers. Catching up is difficult and we don’t give our school systems the resources to have a realistic chance of closing the gap.

It would be much more cost effective and the likelihood of success would be higher if we addressed the root causes of the school readiness gap. This means supporting families and children in the years from birth until they enter school, and during pregnancy. However, our political leaders haven’t mustered the political will to seriously address these issues. And corporations haven’t figured out how to profit of off these services.

[1] Murphy, T., Sept./Oct. 2014, “Tragedy of the Common Core,” Mother Jones

[2] Ravitch, D., 6/9/14, “Time for Congress to investigate Bill Gates’ role in Common Core,” Common Dreams (http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/06/09/time-congress-investigate-bill-gates-role-common-core)

[3] Murphy, T., Sept./Oct. 2014, “Tragedy of the Common Core,” Mother Jones

[4] Ravitch, D., 6/9/14, “Time for Congress to investigate Bill Gates’ role in Common Core,” Common Dreams (http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/06/09/time-congress-investigate-bill-gates-role-common-core)

[5] Murphy, T., Sept./Oct. 2014, “Tragedy of the Common Core,” Mother Jones

THE CORPORATE EDUCATION INVASION Part 1

ABSTRACT: Corporations covet public funding streams, especially large and consistent ones. A relatively recent example of a focused effort by corporations to capture public funding is evident in our public schools. These efforts have included an extensive public relations campaign aimed at convincing the public and elected officials that our public schools are failing. This is a standard corporate strategy: create a real or imagined crisis in a public service and push privatization as the solution.

This attack on our public schools is not only inaccurate, it diverts attention from the real issues underlying poor educational outcomes, which are poverty and inequality. Another key component of the PR strategy is to blame teachers for the supposed failure of our public schools. This undermines teachers and their unions, who are the most likely constituency that would stand up and oppose these privatization efforts.

The PR strategy has worked and privatized public education and testing are now multi-billion dollar corporate revenue streams. Charter schools, despite the promises of privatizers to produce better results, are no better on average than public schools with comparable populations of students.

Corporate efforts to profit off of public funding streams are not new. Eisenhower warned of the military-industrial complex back in the 1950s. The flow of money to private corporations, privatization in the broad sense, threatens to distort public services, decisions, and spending, because the interests and priorities of the corporations receiving the public funds are different from those of the public.

FULL POST: Corporations covet public funding streams, especially large and consistent ones. A relatively recent example of a focused effort by corporations to capture public funding is evident in our public schools. Although corporations have long sold textbooks and other curriculum materials to public schools, a lucrative business with a large and reliable funding stream, recent efforts have focused on privatizing the actual delivery of education, as well as designing and implementing testing.

These efforts have included an extensive public relations campaign aimed at making the public receptive to privatized spending in these areas. A major focus of this public relations (PR) campaign has been to convince the public and elected officials that our public schools are failing, that alternatives are necessary, and that the private sector is by definition more effective and efficient than the public sector. This is a standard strategy straight out of the playbook of corporate America and their political allies: create a real or imagined crisis in a public service and push privatization as the solution. (For more on this strategy, see my blog post, “Find a crisis, demand privatization,” of 6/5/14 [https://lippittpolicyandpolitics.org/2014/06/05/find-a-crisis-demand-privatization/].)

The PR campaign makes the case that our schools are failing by comparing US students to those from other countries. Although average scores indicate that US students perform worse than others, white children from well-off families do just fine in international comparisons. It is the gap between those students and less affluent and minority students that drags the average down. In actuality, a reliable nationwide test of student performance, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), finds that US students’ performance is at the highest level on record. [1] So this attack on our public schools is not only inaccurate, it diverts attention from the real issues underlying poor educational outcomes, which are poverty and inequality in the US.

A second component of the PR strategy is the assertion that standardized, high stakes testing is necessary to measure the performance of US students and to establish accountability for improving results. Although testing is presented as part of a “no child left behind” goal, the commitment and funding to improve schools and education (including preschool education) for the students identified as being behind has never materialized. Meanwhile, policies and the funding to address poverty and inequality more broadly are not even on the radar screen.

A final component of the PR strategy is to blame teachers for the supposed failure of our public schools. This again diverts attention from the real underlying issues of poverty and inequality in the US. It also undermines teachers and their unions, who are the most likely constituency that would stand up and oppose these privatization efforts. Undermining unions (and the bargaining power and rights of workers in general) is an overarching goal of large corporations, so this kills two birds with and one stone from their perspective.

The PR strategy has worked and privatized public education and testing are now multi-billion dollar corporate revenue streams. Testing alone is a $2.7 billion a year industry in the US and the new Common Core standards will grow the testing business further. Wall Street investors, including private equity and hedge fund managers, are investing in for-profit corporations in the student testing and charter school industries because they are seen as opportunities for high profits and growth.

Charter schools, despite the promises of privatizers to produce better results, are no better on average than public schools with comparable populations of students. Many of the charter schools that show good results achieve them by attracting motivated students from motivated families. And they also cull students along the way, forcing or pushing out students who aren’t performing well, thereby improving testing results and other statistics. They also typically serve fewer students with special needs and with English as a second language than the public schools. [2]

Corporate efforts to profit off of public funding streams are not new. Eisenhower warned of the military-industrial complex back in the 1950s, when private corporations’ receipt of Defense Department funds was already distorting public policy making and spending. The corporate effort to tap into health care funding from Medicare and Medicaid is another example. For-profit prisons, water and sewer systems, and public education are more recent examples.

In all these cases, the flow of money to private corporations, privatization in the broad sense, threatens to distort public services, decisions, and spending, because the interests and priorities of the corporations receiving the public funds are different from those of the public. Most notably, the corporations are primarily interested in increased revenue and profit, while public goals such as quality and effectiveness of services, public health and safety, and equitable treatment of all service recipients, are typically secondary, at best, to the corporation. Furthermore, there is substantial evidence that private delivery of these services is NOT more effective or more efficient. Nonetheless, the advocates of privatization continue to assert that they are. (For more detail, see my previous posts on privatization, especially the ones on 10/16/12 and 10/23/12.)

[1] Ravitch, D., 2/17/14, “Reign of error: The hoax of the privatization movement and the danger to America’s public schools,” as reviewed by Featherstone, J., in The Nation

[2] Ravitch, D., 2/17/14, see above

TITLE: CORPORATOCRACY OR DEMOCRACY?

ABSTRACT: Here are three current examples of corporate power and influence.

Tax dodging: Burger King is the latest corporation to announce plans to move its legal headquarters to a foreign country as a way to avoid paying taxes in the US; a so-called “inversion.” Corporations suffer no consequences as a person would if he or she renounced US citizenship. The tax burden increases on the rest of us to pay what these corporations don’t. I encourage you to contact President Obama and urge him to take action to prevent, or at least discourage, these corporate inversions.

Fracking: In an effort to get favorable treatment of fracking in North Carolina (and elsewhere), the oil and gas corporations have been telling legislators and the public that there are no documented cases of fracking contaminating water supplies. That lie was dramatically exposed recently when the state of Pennsylvania released previously hidden details of 243 cases of water contamination between 2008 and 2014.

High-speed Internet: The fastest Internet access in the US is in Chattanooga, TN. It is about 50 times faster than the US average because it is provided by the municipally-owned electric company. The big cable companies had vigorously tried to prevent Chattanooga from building a publicly-owned network. They don’t want competition for their stranglehold on the slower, more expensive internet service that they provide. Despite their multi-billion dollar annual profits, internet service in the US is worse than that in thirty other countries, including Uruguay.

Conclusion: Corporate power and influence over public policies and our governments is achieved through campaign spending and lobbying. It is hurting our health, our quality of life, and our pocketbooks. It’s time to elect leaders who will stand up to corporations; stand up for consumers, workers, and the middle class; and change our campaign finance and lobbying laws. This is essential to preventing our democracy from becoming a corporatocracy.

FULL POST: Here are three current examples of corporate power and influence that affect our daily lives.

Tax dodging: Burger King is the latest corporation to announce plans to move its legal headquarters to a foreign country as a way to avoid paying taxes in the US; a so-called “inversion.” Although it would, in effect, renounce its US citizenship, everything else remains the same: the same executives and employees, the same stores and facilities, the same customers, and the same benefits from the publicly supported infrastructure in the US, including education of its employees, public benefits for its low wage employees (food stamps, subsidized health care and child care, etc.), transportation, police, fire, and military protection, etc. The only thing that does change is that it pays fewer taxes in the US.

As Senator Elizabeth Warren noted, “If a person did that we’d call them a freeloader. We’d insist they pay their fair share. And that’s exactly what our tax laws do for people who renounce their American citizenship.” However, corporations suffer no consequences; they are treated better than a person would be.

Senator Dick Durbin stated that, “With every new corporate inversion, the tax burden increases on the rest of us to pay what these corporations don’t.” This growing problem is an example of the tremendous corporate influence on our politics and policies through campaign spending and lobbying. [1]

I encourage you to contact President Obama and urge him to take action to prevent, or at least discourage, these corporate inversions.

Fracking: In an effort to get favorable treatment of fracking in North Carolina (and elsewhere), the oil and gas corporations have been telling legislators and the public that there are no documented cases of fracking contaminating water supplies. That lie was dramatically exposed recently when the state of Pennsylvania released previously hidden details of 243 cases of water contamination between 2008 and 2014.

The industry has pressed hard to keep cases of water contamination from being made public. Pennsylvania’s inspector general stated that problems with fracking have overwhelmed state regulators who were “unprepared to effectively administer laws and regulations to protect drinking water and unable to efficiently respond to citizen complaints.” [2]

High-speed Internet: The fastest Internet access in the US is in Chattanooga, TN. It is about 50 times faster than the US average because it is provided by the municipally-owned electric company. This has spurred the local economy, including a growing high tech sector.

This all happened because the electric company needed a high-speed network but the country’s big cable companies wouldn’t be offering service there for a decade or more. So Chattanooga raised $220 million through bond financing and won $111.5 million in federal stimulus dollars and built the network in 3 years.

The big cable companies had vigorously tried to prevent Chattanooga from building a publicly-owned network (as they have in other places). Chattanooga’s electric company had to lobby the state government for permission to participate in the telecom market. It had to win several court battles with Comcast and the state cable association.

Twenty states prohibit or restrict municipalities from doing what Chattanooga has done due to lobbying by the big telecom and cable companies. They don’t want competition for their stranglehold on the slower, more expensive internet service that they provide. They are taking legal steps to stop any further expansion of Chattanooga’s internet service, calling on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to block its (and another city’s) plans to expand public high-speed internet services for local residents.

Meanwhile, Comcast and Time Warner, 2 of the giants in the field, are seeking approval for a mega-merger, saying it won’t hurt competition or quality of service. However, Time Warner just paid $1.1 million to resolve an investigation by the FCC that found that it did not properly report multiple network outages, which is a violation of FCC rules.

Furthermore, despite their multi-billion dollar annual profits, internet service in the US is worse than that in thirty other countries, including Uruguay. With the deregulation and glorification of big business corporations, we’ve seen America go from being a leader in many fields to falling further and further behind even many third world countries, such as in Internet speed and access. [3]

Conclusion: Corporate power and influence over public policies and our governments is achieved through campaign spending and lobbying. It is hurting our health, our quality of life, and our pocketbooks. It’s time to elect leaders who will stand up to corporations; stand up for consumers, workers, and the middle class; and change our campaign finance and lobbying laws. This is essential to preventing our democracy from becoming a corporatocracy.

[1] Germanos, A., 8/27/14, “Burger King ‘inversion’ allows it to profit off public, dodge taxes, say critics,” Common Dreams (http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/08/27/burger-king-inversion-allows-it-profit-public-dodge-taxes-say-critics)

[2] FishOutofWater, 8/29/14, “Pennsylvania makes public 243 cases of fracking contaminated water, “ Daily Kos (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/08/29/1325694/-Pennsylvania-Makes-Public-243-Cases-of-Fracking-Contaminated-Water)

[3] Steven D, 8/30/14, “Fastest Internet in US? It’s Chattanooga, TN, thanks to local and fed $$$ (Ps. Big cable very angry),” Daily Kos (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/08/30/1325887/-Fastest-Internet-in-US-It-s-Chattanooga-TN-Thanks-to-Local-and-Fed-Ps-Big-Cable-Very-Angry)