Shameful! Yes, Some New Jersey Students Have To Go To Schools That Look Like This

[Starry Messenger]

2. Like I said in the other thread in GD, this is the whole reason for education reform.

This is the corporate plan for education, capturing tax money for Wall Street.

http://educationnext.org/wave-of-the-future/

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Here, in short, is one roadmap for chartering’s way forward: First, commit to drastically increasing the charter market share in a few select communities until it is the dominant system and the district is reduced to a secondary provider. The target should be 75 percent. Second, choose the target communities wisely. Each should begin with a solid charter base (at least 5 percent market share), a policy environment that will enable growth (fair funding, nondistrict authorizers, and no legislated caps), and a favorable political environment (friendly elected officials and editorial boards, a positive experience with charters to date, and unorganized opposition). For example, in New York a concerted effort could be made to site in Albany or Buffalo a large percentage of the 100 new charters allowed under the raised cap. Other potentially fertile districts include Denver, Detroit, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, New Orleans, Oakland, and Washington, D.C.

Third, secure proven operators to open new schools. To the greatest extent possible, growth should be driven by replicating successful local charters and recruiting high-performing operators from other areas (see Figure 2). Fourth, engage key allies like Teach For America, New Leaders for New Schools, and national and local foundations to ensure the effort has the human and financial capital needed. Last, commit to rigorously assessing charter performance in each community and working with authorizers to close the charters that fail to significantly improve student achievement.

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As chartering increases its market share in a city, the district will come under growing financial pressure. The district, despite educating fewer and fewer students, will still require a large administrative staff to process payroll and benefits, administer federal programs, and oversee special education. With a lopsided adult-to-student ratio, the district’s per-pupil costs will skyrocket.

At some point along the district’s path from monopoly provider to financially unsustainable marginal player, the city’s investors and stakeholders—taxpayers, foundations, business leaders, elected officials, and editorial boards—are likely to demand fundamental change. That is, eventually the financial crisis will become a political crisis. If the district has progressive leadership, one of two best-case scenarios may result. The district could voluntarily begin the shift to an authorizer, developing a new relationship with its schools and reworking its administrative structure to meet the new conditions. Or, believing the organization is unable to make this change, the district could gradually transfer its schools to an established authorizer.

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Starve public education of resources, and your charter EMO can move in and slop like pigs in the trough of public money.

And Cory Booker has been in it up to his eyeballs, sad to say.

Note, this article is from a pro-corporate ed reform journal, therefore it is a cheerleader for these reforms, hence the glowing tone:

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2013/10/30/10electionsenator.h33.html

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1. 'Democrat for Education Reform': Mr. Booker was a galvanizing force in the past decade bringing together a cadre of high-powered, deep-pocketed Wall Street donors with an interest in education policy, to support his early races for city council and mayor. The group eventually became Democrats for Education Reform, now the signature political action committee for left-of-center politicians who are fans of less-than-traditional Democratic policies, including charter schools and teacher performance pay.
The group's founders "knew each other before, but they got involved in politics together to support Cory Booker," said Joe Williams, the executive director of dfer. The pac poured some quarter-million dollars into Mr. Booker's Senate campaign, Mr. Williams estimated.

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2. Voucher Supporter: Mr. Booker is among a handful of prominent Democrats nationally to support private school vouchers, and championed a proposed New Jersey law that would have created a voucher program in that state. He co-founded Excellent Education for Everyone, a nonprofit organization that sought to promote vouchers and charter schools in New Jersey. The push won backing from other well-known New Jersey Democrats but was ultimately unsuccessful.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/cory-booker-has-crossed-the-aisle-before--on-school-reform/2012/05/23/gIQAxQ7kjU_blog.html

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Booker has made school reform a key initiative of his administration in New Jersey’s biggest city. And he has been an outspoken supporter of the school reform policies of the Republican governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, which include an expansion of charter schools, the end of teacher tenures, and the use of student standardized test scores to evaluate teachers. He has called the state’s largest teachers union a group of “bullies and thugs.”

While there are a number of issues on which Obama and Christie agree when it comes to school reform — including charter school growth and the use of test scores to evaluate teachers — there is at least one key area where they depart company.

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According to this story in the Star-Ledger newspaper, Booker and Christie last month both spoke at the national policy meeting of the American Federation for Children. The federation’s board chair is Betsy DeVos, a key member of the DeVos family, which has spent millions to support efforts to promote vouchers and promote reforms that are furthering the privatization of public education.

She is, incidentally, wife of Dick DeVos, who is the son of the co-founder of Amway, and the sister of Erik Prince, founder of the private military contractor once known as Blackwater USA and now called Xe Services LLC.

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