The Trump-DeVos Budget: An All-Out Assault on America's Kids

Tim Kaine Exposes Betsy DeVos's Charter School Scam

John McCain Tears into Reporters Who Exposed Deceptive Recruiting at University of Phoenix

For Profit Congresswoman Protects For Profit Colleges

Kochtopus Tentacles are Coming for Public Schools

An Open Challenge to Michelle Rhee and the Corporate Education Zombies | Common Dreams

An Open Challenge to Michelle Rhee and the Corporate Education Zombies | Common Dreams
"Rhee, the prominent corporate education reform advocate, former D.C. Public Schools Chancellor, and CEO of the ironically-named “Students First” organization, now has Seattle in her crosshairs. In her March 5thop-ed for the Seattle Times, Rhee berated teachers at Garfield and other Seattle schools for their boycott of the district required MAP test."

Who Are the Billionaires Trying to Defeat Steve Zimmer? | Common Dreams

Who Are the Billionaires Trying to Defeat Steve Zimmer? | Common Dreams
"Some of America's most powerful corporate plutocrats -- including Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, Eli Broad, and the Walton family (heirs to the Walmart fortune) -- want to take over the Los Angeles school system and Steve Zimmer, a former teacher and feisty school board member, is in their way. So they've hired Kate Anderson to get rid of him. No, she's not a hired assassin like the kind on The Sopranos. She's a lawyer and school parent who the billionaires picked to run against Zimmer. As a result, the race for the District 4 seat -- which stretches from the Westside to the West San Fernando Valley -- is ground zero in this battle over the corporate take-over of public education."

Billionaires Pouring Millions into LAUSD School Board Race

Billionaires Pouring Millions into LAUSD School Board Race
"Campaign disclosures for the last month have just been filed for the current elections to the Los Angeles Unified School District board and the numbers are obscene. Worse yet, the donors have no vested interest in Los Angeles schools, but they're ponying up the money anyway."

Corporations Advise School Closings, While Private Charters Suck Schools Away | Alternet

Corporations Advise School Closings, While Private Charters Suck Schools Away | Alternet
"There is nothing democratic about how this happened to the City of Brotherly Love. Though officials gave lip service to the idea of “parental empowerment” through “ school choice,” in the end, parents had no role in deciding what policies would be enforced. Everything was outsourced."

For-Profit School Backed By TN GOP Caught Deleting Bad Grades

For-Profit School Backed By TN GOP Caught Deleting Bad Grades
"It never ceases to amaze me, that voters keep falling for the same old tricks. An already-expensive school system will magically perform even better when a private company slashes costs in order to skim a layer of profit off the top? It hasn't worked yet. Instead, these for-profit schools continue to manufacture scandal and fraud -- yet the Very Important People on both sides of the aisle continue to push them as a solution."

Republican Congresswoman Likens Regulations Of For-Profit Colleges To The Holocaust

Republican Congresswoman Likens Regulations Of For-Profit Colleges To The Holocaust: Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) compared efforts to regulate the for-profit college industry to the Holocaust during a speech Tuesday. Speaking at the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, Foxx invoked a famous Holocaust maxim in order to defend for-profit colleges against increased scrutiny. “They came for the for-profits, and I didn’t speak up,” the [...]/p

AIG and Ethics: The Corporatization of Public Higher Education

AIG and Ethics: The Corporatization of Public Higher Education
"The notorious insurance monolith AIG gave two-thirds of the Ethics Center’s $16,000 first year budget. What might AIG’s intentions have been for funding the Center? AIG has not been known for its ethics. In fact, the insurer’s risky bets on derivatives were central to the 2008 economic crash. They received a $182 billion bailout. Yes, billion."

Michelle Rhee's Failing Report Card

Michelle Rhee's Failing Report Card
"Pensions are now and have historically been an important part of teachers' compensations. Teachers, like most public sector employees, are paid less in wages than workers in the private sector with comparable education and experience. They make up much of this gap with a better benefit package, including better pension benefits, than workers in the private sector receive."

Chick-fil-A’s Latest Horror -- Children's Book Loaded with Propaganda to Conceal the Horrors of Corporate Agriculture | Alternet

Chick-fil-A’s Latest Horror -- Children's Book Loaded with Propaganda to Conceal the Horrors of Corporate Agriculture | Alternet
"This is not an overstatement. Chick-fil-A, like most fast-food companies, is the retail expression of the factory farming industry — an industry whose  hideous treatment of animals, vertical integration and rooting in monoculture is the opposite of the diversified family farm so beautifully glorified in “The Jolly Barnyard.” Perhaps worse, as a primary buyer — and, thus financial supporter — of the factory-farmed products, Chick-fil-A is one of the major fast-food players responsible for the demise of “Jolly Barnyard”-esque family farms.

But rather than own up to its record with a children’s book about its odious business model, Chick-Fil-A (not surprisingly) wants kids to think of it through a much more pleasant story."

"Won't Back Down" Film Pushes ALEC Parent Trigger Proposal

"Won't Back Down" Film Pushes ALEC Parent Trigger Proposal
"Well-funded advocates of privatizing the nation’s education system are employing a new strategy this fall to enlist support for the cause. The emotionally engaging Hollywood film “Won’t Back Down” -- set for release September 28 -- portrays so-called “Parent Trigger” laws as an effective mechanism for transforming underperforming public schools. But the film's distortion of the facts prompts a closer examination of its funders and backers and a closer look at those promoting Parent Trigger as a cure for what ails the American education system. While Parent Trigger was first promoted by a small charter school operator in California, it was taken up and launched into hyperdrive by two controversial right-wing organizations: the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the Heartland Institute."

Who Profits from Teacher Testing? Murdoch, That's Who

Who Profits from Teacher Testing? Murdoch, That's Who
"In previous news stories discussing education reform, the Journal has disclosed its financial connection to News Corp. and Wireless Generation. In a May story on education standards, the Journal wrote about "Wireless Generation, an education-technology company owned by News Corp., which also owns The Wall Street Journal." In a January story on the "Race to the Top" education program, they made a similar disclosure. But the paper has not disclosed the contracts with Chicago Public Schools in their coverage of the strike."

The Right-Wing Machine Behind ‘School Choice’ - In These Times

The Right-Wing Machine Behind ‘School Choice’ - In These Times
"Even before the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizen’s United ruling deregulated campaign finance and unleashed millions in political donations, concentrated wealth has played a role in politics. Now in the limelight for its attacks on unions and the exposure of 800 model bills and documents, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has produced model bills favorable to its corporate and right-wing funders behind closed doors for decades (as In These Times uncovered in 2011)– including school vouchers and tax credit bills.

This concentrated wealth is reaching into America's classrooms state by state, promoting the transfer of public funds to private education through vouchers that allow parents to pay for tuition at private schools with public money. Promoting “school choice” through privately run charter schools doesn’t go far enough for these billionaires. Today, “private school choice” programs, as vouchers are called in theannual report of the Alliance for School Choice, are in place in 13 states and the District of Columbia. In 2011, a year when states across the nation slashed their education budgets, 41 states introduced 145 pieces of private school choice legislation."

The Right Wing Plan To Dismantle Public Schools Is Working

The Right Wing Plan To Dismantle Public Schools Is Working
"They couldn't be any clearer about their agenda: They want to destroy teachers unions and the public school system. This is what the Chicago strike is about. Stand up for public education. Stop falling for the right-wing spin."

On the Significance of the Chicago Teachers Strike: Bearing Witness to, and Challenging Democracy's Demise

On the Significance of the Chicago Teachers Strike: Bearing Witness to, and Challenging Democracy's Demise
"What the world witnessed in Chicago as thousands of teachers, staff and support personnel went on strike was the emergence of a revolutionary ideal.

This is an ideal rooted in the promise of democracy - one that challenges corrupt neo-liberal practices, such as giving corporations and markets the right to define the purpose and meaning of public education; opposes policies that systemically defund public education by shifting the burden of low tax rates for the rich, and the cost of bloated military expenditures, to teachers and other public servants; and refuses to support educational reforms that debase educational leadership and teaching in order to undermine public education as a bulwark of democracy."

Teachers Have No Friends Among the Journalistic Elite | Common Dreams

Teachers Have No Friends Among the Journalistic Elite | Common Dreams
"If union bashing is supposed to be about what's good for the children, I think people need to think a little bit more deeply about what this really means."