EDUCATION

After wavering and making confusing statements about charter schools three years ago when he was running for President, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, who is running for President again, finally came out and issued a broad education plan on May 18, 2019 which, among other things, opposes charter schools.
Part two of Sanders’ ten-part “Thurgood Marshall Plan for Public Education” is titled, “End the Unaccountable Profit-Motive of Charter Schools.’

A May 2019 report of a nationwide survey of more than 1,000 Presidential voters conducted late spring of last year shows that broad public opposition to charter schools persists.1 About half of all those polled are Democratic primary voters.

The rural/urban divide is as pronounced in Australia as elsewhere.

Under the veil of high ideals, nonprofit and for-profit charter schools across the nation have long been violating the public interest in a variety of ways.
One of the most destructive ways is the non-stop siphoning of unthinkable sums of public funds from public schools—schools that are often chronically-underfunded, over-tested, constantly-shamed, and increasingly militarized and surveilled.

There are no protests on the streets and no effigies of university officials being burned by protesting students today.  There are no protests outside the offices of the over-remunerated Vice Chancellors and their various hench persons.  It is business and malpractice as usual after revelations by Australia’s national broadcaster that Australian universities have been adjusting admission requirements to boost student numbers.  Standards have been cooked, if not waived altogether, on the iss

There are no protests on the streets and no effigies of university officials being burned by protesting students today.  There are no protests outside the officers of the over-remunerated Vice Chancellors and their various henchpersons.  It is business and malpractice as usual after revelations by Australia’s national broadcaster that Australian universities have been adjusting admission requirements to boost student numbers. [Read More...]

Is it not curious, that so vast a being as the whale should see the world through so small an eye, and hear the thunder through an ear which is smaller than a hare’s? But if his eyes were broad as the lens of Herschel’s great telescope; and his ears capacious as the porches of cathedrals; would that make him any longer of sight, or sharper of hearing? Not at all. Why then do you try to ‘enlarge’ your mind? Subtilize it.
–Hermann Melville, Moby Dick, Chapter 74 – “The Sperm Whale’s Head”

The highly educated are concentrating together, depriving struggling communities and dividing the country.
Rachel SHEFFIELD and Scott WINSHIP

Capitalism is broken. It is like a gun pointed at the heart of the planet. And it’s got these characteristics which mean that it will essentially, necessarily destroy our life support systems. Among those characteristics are the drive for perpetual economic growth on a finite planet. You just can’t support that ecologically. Things fall apart. It also says, well, anyone has got a right to buy as much natural wealth as their money allows, which means that people are just grabbing far more natural wealth than either the population as a whole or the planet itself can support.

Charter schools have always attracted criticism due to the serious problems inherent to them, but it is no secret that in recent months charter schools have been taking it on the chin a little more than usual.
This is not unexpected.
More detailed reports, articles, and investigations are exposing with greater regularity the multi-faceted corruption and endless Jerry Springer-style scandals long plaguing nonprofit and for-profit charter schools, especially so-called “no-excuses” charter schools, virtual charter schools, and “miracle” charter schools.