If we think privatization through to its logical conclusion, it becomes clear that the school closings and massive spread of private charter schools is more than an attack on public education. It is an attack on the whole idea of education for all. And sadly, it goes beyond education to the destruction of whole communities.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett's administration has decided to sign a 40-year contract to privatize the state's crumbling bridges, but there has been little to no media coverage of the deal and what it will mean for two generations of Pennsylvanians.
Reader Comments - Pete Seeger; Harry Belafonte Tribute to Seeger; Seeger before HUAC; Seeger - a life-long socialist; Costs of Privatization; Adjunct Professors; Scarlett Johansson and Israeli Occupation; Fracking; Net Neutrality; Radical Art in History; Arlo Guthrie; Solidarity with Russian airline pilots; Today in History
Chicago's experiences with privatization make a textbook case for not deciding to privatize without carefully identifying costs. By failing to do so, Chicago has found itself locked into bad deals that will last for three to four generations.
An appeals court has decided that the School Board wrongly terminated more than 7,000 teachers after Hurricane Katrina. Those teachers were not given due process, and many teachers had the right to be rehired as jobs opened up in the first years after the storm, the court said in a unanimous opinion.
Rail strike raises the issue of privatization, paves way for general strike in on February 25.
Will Rahm Emanuel's effort to establish a privatized neoliberal outpost in Chicago succeed? Not if the ongoing uprising brushfires turn from kindling wood into a contemporary Chicago fire of political resistance. Kari Lydersen, author of "Mayor 1%," tells Truthout Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is representative of the neoliberal wing of the Democratic party, and he's getting significant pushback in his efforts to expand privatization and limit protests.
We need to own up to is that privatization experiments, based on ideology rather than evidence, have created disruption, neglect, and harm to vital public services and infrastructure - and those effects have undermined the private sector which depends on high quality public services. We seem to have forgotten that the public sector has long created the environment and resources necessary for businesses to prosper.
Definitely go out and buy Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to Americas Public Schools by Diane Ravitch. Reign of Error lays out step by step the relentless thirty year drive to either centralize the education of the young - on one hand - or divest it entirely into privatized hands on the other. Finally, the two sides have joined forces on a strategy that simultaneously does both. (Deborah Meier)
We will, no doubt, be needing roads - urban, local and interstate - for the foreseeable future, despite their negative effects. The good news is that we are now heading toward a transportation ecosystem that is far more varied and useful. Rather than encouraging more cars, more trucks, more pollution, less interpersonal connection and more privatized space, people throughout the country are radically changing travel and interpersonal connection.
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