Obama for privatizing education?

[j_b]

Obama and the “Superman” School Predators

Tue, 10/12/2010

 

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

 

“Waiting for Superman” is pure propaganda for the hedge funders that seek to “create a private market in for-profit educational services that can be traded on the stock market and bet on derivatives.” Obama has deployed his presidential bully pulpit as a booster for this “bait-and-switch” scam of a film, and for the underlying privatizing project.

 

The corporate media, right-wing billionaires like the Wal-Mart family, Bill Gates and President Obama, are all in the same business. They are trying to create a private market in for-profit educational services that can be traded on the stock market and bet on derivatives but whose costs will be borne by the public. They project this public educational market to be potentially worth trillions of dollars – at virtually no risk to finance capital. That’s why the hedge funds are now so deep into charter schools. But, to transform the public schools into a privately-exploitable market requires great volumes of skillful propaganda, to convince the public that Wall Street and hedge funds will “save” public education.

 

The movie “Waiting for Superman” is the latest, and slickest, of this corporate propaganda. It is a profoundly predatory film, in character with the predatory finance capitalists that are its biggest boosters. The film shamelessly exploits five Washington, DC school kids and their desperate parents, seeking to win a lottery placement in a charter school exemplified by a 24-hour public charter boarding facility called The Seed School, where student life is “centered around dorms…named for a college or university,” each housing 12 to 15 kids. There are only 15 students for each teacher. On its face, this truly does seem to be a public educational wonderland. But, as mass propaganda for urban charter schools, it is the most cruel and evil bait-and-switch imaginable.

 

The nation’s public schools are in the deepest crisis in memory. It is a money crisis, which has led to the most draconian educational cutbacks in modern times. Teachers have been fired by the tens of thousands, curriculum scaled back to the bone all across the country – yet this film callously dangles a 24-hour prep school as a real and palpable possibility for the millions of educationally underserved in the inner cities. A live-in prep school is supposed to stand in for charter schools as a whole, despite the fact that more charter schools perform worse than their traditional public school counterparts than those that test better, nationwide.

 

“Waiting for Superman” is a scam and a sham, that has been catapulted into the national political conversation by a $2 million marketing grant from the Emperor, himself, Bill Gates. In the most perverse sense, it is appropriate that Washington, DC’s Seed School is featured, since Gates and the hedge fund billionaire parasites consider their cash contributions to charter schools as “seed money” from which will grow a hybrid, publicly-funded school system where profiteers will flourish. In the last decade, these finance capitalists have enlisted a cadre of Democratic politicians to wage war against teachers and against the very idea of public education, exploiting the historical grievances of Black parents, especially. Barack Obama is the highest expression of the success of this privatizing project, so it is no surprise that he endorsed “Waiting for Superman” as only a president could, hosting the film and the five kids at the White House. But do not be fooled. The film performs the same function for the corporatizing of American education as the movie “Exodus” did for the founding of Israel. This ain't “Roots.” Rather, it sets the stage for the uprooting and destruction of public education.

 

http://blackagendareport.com/?q=content/obama-and-%E2%80%9Csuperman%E2%80%9D-school-predators

[pink]

did your mom stroke your hair a lot when you were a child??? and tell you that you were special??? perhaps different/maybe better that your peers???

[Nitrox]

[whirlwind]

I though thats what they used college for?

[j_b]

Like for profit colleges with students who haven't a hope in hell of repaying their loans?

[JayB]

Uh - there's plenty of folks from private, non-profit liberal arts colleges that haven't got a prayer of ever paying them off either.

[j_b]

sure, but a lot fewer than at for profit colleges. For profit colleges have full knowledge of that fact too.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

Uh - there's plenty of folks from private, non-profit liberal arts colleges that haven't got a prayer of ever paying them off either.

 

Prole?

[j_b]

For-Profit College Students Most Likely Defaulters as Rates Continue Upward Climb

 

The number of college students who defaulted on their federal student loans climbed in the fiscal year that ended in September 2008, according to new government data..

 

And once again, those who attend for-profit colleges and universities were the most likely to default.

 

Direct Loan and Federal Family Education Loan Programs

The grim numbers came as no surprise, given that the timeframe roughly aligns with the start of the recession. But they come at a politically charged time, as for-profit colleges fight proposed regulations that would cut off federal aid to some programs if too many students default on loans or don’t earn enough after graduation to repay them.

 

Figures from the U.S. Department of Education show 7 percent of borrowers of federal student loans defaulted within two years of beginning repayment, up from 6.7 percent the previous year and 5.2 percent the year before that.

 

Default rates crept up in all sectors of higher education — from 3.7 to 4 percent for private nonprofit schools, 5.9 to 6 percent for public nonprofit schools, and 11 to 11.6 percent for for-profit schools.

 

The default rate for students at public two- to three-year programs — which covers the vast majority of community colleges — was 10.1 percent in fiscal year 2008, the new data shows. At for-profit schools, the rate was 12.6 percent in two- to three-year programs.

 

However, only 13 percent of community college students took out student loans in 2008-08, compared to 97 percent of students at two-year for profit colleges.

 

The new data covers borrowers whose first loan repayments came due between Oct. 1, 2007, and Sept. 30, 2008, and who defaulted before Sept. 30. 2009.

 

“Even before the economy went down, student borrowing had doubled in this decade,” said Patrick Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education in San Jose, Calif. “More students borrowed and they borrowed more money, and they’re now they’re going out in a very tough economy.”

 

The Education Department stressed the for-profit default rates. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, repeating what has become his mantra on the fastest growing segment of higher education, voiced concern about excessive debt and useless degrees while simultaneously highlighting the sector’s positive contributions.

 

“The data …tells us that students attending for-profit schools are the most likely to default,” Duncan said in a statement. “While for-profit schools have profited and prospered thanks to federal dollars, some of their students have not. Far too many for-profit schools are saddling students with debt they cannot afford in exchange for degrees and certificates they cannot use. This is a disservice to students and taxpayers, and undermines the valuable work being done by the for-profit education industry as a whole.”

 

Students at for-profit schools represented 26 percent of federal loan borrowers but 43 percent of all defaulters in 2008-09, the department says.

 

http://www.ccweek.com/news/templates/template.aspx?articleid=2102&zoneid=3