You want your kids' schools being run by *this* guy? (The Family, polluter, corporate murder)

[Hannah Bell]

Hedge funders are investing in charter schools; getting in on the ground level for the coming feast of public property sold off cut-rate, & the steady income streams from public dollars:

http://www.examiner.com/x-28545-NY-High-Schools-Examiner~y2009m12d9-Hedge-Funds-invest-in-Charter-Schools



Here's a preview of the corporate types who'll be owning the (chain) charter schools of the future:


DENNIS BAKKE:

*CEO of Imagine! Charter Schools, 74 schools in 12 states & the District of Columbia. Slogan: "Joy at Work" (Hmmm....what other slogan does this one remind one of....?)

*Founder (1981), AES Corporation (Energy) -- lobbied for & profited from Enron-era energy deregulation, now the largest independent power producer in the world (11 billion in assets)


*Member of "The Family," Rick Warren associate:

"Dennis Bakke, former CEO of AES, the largest independent power producer in the world, and a Family insider, took the occasion of the 1997 Prayer Breakfast to invite Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni, the Family’s “key man” in Africa, to a private dinner at a mansion, just up the block from the Family’s Arlington headquarters.

Bakke...has long preached an ethic of social responsibility inspired by his evangelical faith and his free-market convictions: “I am trying to sell a way of life,” he has said. “I am a cultural imperialist.” That’s a phrase he uses to be provocative; he believes that his Jesus is so universal that everyone wants Him.

And, apparently, His business opportunities: Bakke was one of the pioneer thinkers of energy deregulation, the laissez-faire fever dream that culminated in the meltdown of Enron.

But there was other, less-noticed fallout, such as the no-bid deal Bakke made with Museveni at the 1997 Prayer Breakfast for a $500-million dam close to the source of the White Nile—in waters considered sacred by Uganda’s 2.5-million–strong Busoga minority.

AES announced that the Busoga had agreed to “relocate” the spirits of their dead. They weren’t the only ones opposed; first environmentalists (Museveni had one American arrested and deported) and then even other foreign investors revolted against a project that seemed like it might actually increase the price of power for the poor.

Bakke didn’t worry. “We don’t go away,” he declared. He dispatched a young man named Christian Wright, the son of one of the Prayer Breakfast’s organizers, to be AES’s in-country liaison to Museveni; Wright was later accused of authorizing at least $400,000 in bribes. He claimed his signature had been forged.

http://jeffsharlet.com/content/excerpt-from-the-family/


Sharlet on Bakke's profiteering from corporate welfare:

"Uganda -- drop in on energy tycoon Dennis Bakke's fabulous Arlington, Virginia home, paid for in part with funds squeezed out of a broken dam that (Uganda) didn't need. You want rich and famous? That's rich, and it'd make Bakke, one of the wealthiest men on the planet, famous."

http://www.ciel.org/Ifi/ifccaseuganda.html


*Bakke = Uganda & The Family, sponsors of the recent "Kill the Gays" legislation....

http://www.talk2action.org/story/2009/11/25/132255/09


*Bakke has a great record on caring for the environment, too, e.g.:

The Dominican Republic has filed a lawsuit against AES Corporation for more than $80 million in damages for environmental abuse.

AES Corporation, the Virginia-based energy conglomerate that proposes to build a liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility in The Bahamas, has been implicated in the DEATHS of several residents of the Dominican Republic.

The government of the Dominican Republic has filed a lawsuit against AES Corporation for more than $80 million in damages, after two years of attempts to get AES to remove more than 57,000 tons of rock ash dumped on beaches in the D.R. between late 2003 and early 2004.

The Dominican government is charging that AES dumped ash from coal burned at its electricity power plant in Guayama, Puerto Rico, on beaches in the Dominican provinces of Samana and Montecristi.

According to a press release issued by the government, "the ash sickened workers in the immediate vicinity, as well as people in the surrounding areas with bronchial or skin conditions, and several were reported to have died."

http://www.bahamasb2b.com/news/wmview.php?ArtID=7411



*Bakke has a history of corruption & anti-union activity in his charters documented here by Mad Floridian:

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/4784.



Sure, *this* is the kind of guy that's going to improve our poor or minority schools!


Cause he's such a caring, selfless kind of guy...cause grinding children into the maw of profit makes them learn quick!

[Tansy_Gold]

1. No amount of recs would be enough

People generally don't have a clue how insidious an attack on our "American ideals" charter schools really are. They are the worst kind of cancer, often embraced by the people who are hurt by them the most.




Tansy Gold

[Hannah Bell]

2. thanks, i appreciate the rec. i was surprised how bad it was, & this is just the first guy i looked

into.

[AllentownJake]

5. The more you look into the friends of the "third way"

The more your mouth drops. Sociopaths don't have a political ideology they have partners and victims.

[Tansy_Gold]

13. If you haven't already, look into the "Imagine" charter schools

I think the Tucson "Arizona Star" did an expose on them a few months ago.

I've known about "charter" schools since some of the first ones were profiled on "60 Minutes" over 25 years ago. I thought then that they were a mistake and NOTHING has ever changed my mind about them.

I watched as one was started in the West (Phoenix) Valley and the money went straight into the organizer's pocket, leaving children without classrooms or teachers. IIRC the organizer was a convicted child molester. What few teachers were there had little higher education, no certification. That one was written up by the West Valley View newspaper at the time, but I couldn't even begin to tell you what year.

About two years ago, the scandal was here in Apache Junction, Arizona, as Morningstar Academy crashed and burned. Run as a "public" school but closely tied to a local church, it employed few certified teachers, the principal's son was accused (and later convicted) of molesting students, and so on.

http://arizona.typepad.com/blog/2008/12/weak-charter-school-laws-lax-enforcement-endangered-students-at-morningstar-academy.html

I knew one of the teachers there, a nice woman with a 2-year degree in Early Childhood Education. She taught kindergarten for a while, then 8th grade English, until the school finally closed.

Here's a small snip from the article about Morningstar; "Cox" is C. Steven Cox, the actual owner of the string of 60+ schools of which Morningstar was just one:

Cox figured out a surefire way to make money from the schools. He set up three separate businesses to supply materials and services to the schools at inflated rates. One of his companies, Educational Administration Services Corporation, contracted with the schools, taking 13% of the schools' funds for administrative services available from other companies at 2%-7%. His school supply company sold textbooks and other materials to the schools at about a 50% markup. And his insurance company charged the schools double what the insurance cost to purchase.

The point is this: Public schools are not set up to make money for anyone; they're set up to educate children. Whenever you slide a profit motive in, it means some of the funds intended to provide educational materials and services are being skimmed off to go into someone's pocket. Public schools are funded by tax money, OUR money. NO ONE SHOULD BE MAKING A PROFIT OFF THEM.

Right now, one of the schools in Gold Canyon, Arizona -- Gold Canyon Elementary -- is slated to be closed for lack of enrollment. This is a very nice physical facility in a very nice community. I expect it will be snapped up for a song by some for-profit entity that will then lease it back at an exorbitant rate to a "public" charter school. Even though there wasn't enough enrollement to justify keeping it open as a public school without profit, some company will come along and, because the parents in Gold Canyon don't want their kids bused all the way to Apache Junction, the parents will "choose" to keep their kids here. Who will suffer? The rest of the kids in the district, the tax payers, the whole community.

Who will benefit: the for-profit operators of the charter school.




Tansy Gold

[Nikki Stone1]

9. Agreed.

This is just a bunch of guys looking for a way to take tax money and call it profit.

[AllentownJake]

3. Madfloridian is going to enjoy this thread

You should PM it to her.

[Hannah Bell]

7. i hope she does, & i will.

[midnight]

4. K&R

[Dinger]

6. Thanks For Posting This Hannah

Hopefully it will open some eyes.

[madfloridian]

8. Kicked and recommended.

:kick:

[snagglepuss]

10. K & R nt

[amborin]

11. KNR

[Starry Messenger]

12. But billionaires are such nice people!

:sarcasm:

[Hannah Bell]

15. some people worship them, in fact. though odds are they're murderers.

[Hannah Bell]

16. k

[Hannah Bell]

17. kik

[Tansy_Gold]

14. Link to a DU thread on another charter school issue

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=219x17183