Austin School Privitisation Nightmare.

[KissMyAsscroft]

Tonight on the news, they showed a charter school here in Austin. This
is not the first reported failure of an Austin Charter School.

The story today was that angry parents had called the press after they
showed up to pick up their kids, and found the school full of
substitutes, and heard that the teachers had refused to show up, as
they
had not been paid.

There is three months left in the school year and teachers have had
cars
repossessed, rent late, etc. and those interviewed on the story were
stating that this was not the first time that paychecks had been late.
One described a meeting with the 'owner' of this PUBLICLY funded school
and lawyers and teachers, describing the lawyers explanation. They
explained that since the 'owners' of the charter school had not paid
rent on the school, he FORECLOSED ON THE SCHOOL'S ASSETS! SO, the
TEACHERS DON'T GET PAID! Until this is worked out. Until then, the
children are with substitutes. No word on what happens if they are not
paid.

Also, they showed the condition of the school. Folks, this place
looked
abandoned. Trash strewn everywhere, WINDOWS BOARDED UP! This is a
school presently occupied! And this school gets money from the public
school board to show the public education system how it is done. One
astute parent asked where the money went, as the charter school
continues to receive money for each child.

This is what happens when you privatize education. When you have
people
in education motivated by profit instead of the love of education
involved, and they in turn try to squeeze out a PROFIT of already
emaciated budgets, at the expense of educating the child, things cannot
possibly improve. And when things don't work out, they close it like a
thrift store that went out of business, setting back the educational
progression of countless children. Imagine having your kindergarten
teacher replaced by a twenty something temp for your last four months
of
the school year. How much did you ever learn from a substitute (sorry
to all you Peggy Hill's out there)?

Spread the news far and wide. Privatization of our schools is another
wolf in sheep's clothing, meant to make capitalism the scapegoat for
under-funding our children's education. It can't work, squeezing a
profit from a shoestring budget and having a product of any higher
quality. The problem is not administrative waste. The problem is
chronic underfunding.

Ww don't want kids educated at Walmart. Need proof as to why? Check
the
champion of privatization's hometown experiments!

www.kxan.com Tonight's news

[GOPisEvil]

1. Holy smokes!!!

Charter schools are a HUGE mess. There was a similar story in San Antonio a couple of years ago. There are a lot of scam artists running these schools.

[NashVegas]

2. Charter Schools are the New Great Bogus

Look to your state's laws to see what the requirements are to get licensed for a Charter school. Some of them are outrageously weak. Charter schools are an attempt to get around the vouchers argument.

[girl gone mad]

3. Was it an..

Edison Project school?

Thesame type of thing played out here in Dallas w/ E.P. charter schools. The founder is a Bush family friend, IIRC and has made some deals with Jeb in Florida.

[brokensymmetry]

4. Tragic.

I wonder if the ruin of our public education system is simple greed - or is it the beginning of a change to a rigid class system?

[G-Man]

5. I don't know about class systems but...

I'll homeschool before I put my kids into this kind of political claptrap.

G-Man

[Eloriel]

6. There are MANY things that should NOT be privatized

and IMO public education is one of them.

This isn't to say that there's not a place for private schools (tho I'm personally not fond of them) -- just that PUBLIC education should be run by the government. Period.

[bvar22]

7. Thanks, george*.

Another wonderful legacy of a bush* administration.

Houston achieving the top position of America's most polluted city is another bush* achievement.

[pacifictiger]

8. someone needs to get as much video footage

as they can PDQ, together with teacher interviews, save it, and then get it to whoever is the presidential nominee so that it can be put together as anti bush material after the convention.

[Stephanie]

9. Privatisation of schools is just another tax cut for the wealthy

Privatisation is another tax cut for the wealthy, that's all.

THEIR kids get to go to fancy private schools, which they could already afford, but now their parents get a voucher to subsidize the cost.

YOUR kids get to go to substandard public schools, because the schools have been undermined by money being drained out of the public system to pay for those private vouchers. And even WITH vouchers YOU can't afford to pay the balance of the tuition to send them to private school, so your kids stay in public school.

So YOU end up subsidizing the RICH, while your kids' schools get worse. Which was the point all along. They don't WANT your kids to be educated. Because if they were educated, they would vote Democrat.