Selling America for parts – Part the nth
by Tom Sullivan
Oakland stolen car chop shop.
For a second day, thousands of striking Los Angeles teachers from United Teachers Los Angeles marched Tuesday in the streets of downtown:
The teachers are asking for increased pay, smaller class sizes and the hiring of more support staff, such as nurses, counselors and librarians. Many of the demonstrators’ picket signs reflected those demands as they gathered at the intersection of East First and San Pedro streets, which were closed to traffic
The Associated Press reports teachers from the independent Accelerated Schools charter network walked off the job in solidarity with UTLA teachers. Their contract is separately negotiated.
Los Angeles teachers are not only striking over their contracts, but over encroachment into public education by the charter school industry. Under the rubric of choice, charters suck tax dollars away from traditional public schools. UTLA president Alex Caputo-Pearl believes the unregulated growth of charters represents an “existential threat” to public education:
“We don’t need to have the grow-as-fast-as-you-can business model that’s promoted by charter school billionaires,” he said. “We need to invest in our existing schools.”
“We educators know in our hearts that this moment in history will never be forgotten by our students,” wrote Leslie Hemstreet in a letter to the editor.
“We are modeling the behavior of citizens who have decided to take a stand against the privatization of our public schools. We are protesting against those who are eager to make a profit from the services we offer.
“We are saying no to turning education into big business. Please stand with us at this historic moment.”
In These Times places privatization at the heart of strikers’ concerns:
Because there’s so much at stake, the battle doesn’t really end with the strike. It’s also tied up with a quietly radical proposal looming from school superintendent and former investment banker Austin Beutner, which would divide the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) into 32 “networks.” Critics call the plan a blueprint to close neighborhood schools, pour money into charters and decentralize opposition to privatization. Beutner has even brought in a consultant, Cami Anderson, who tested this model while superintendent of schools in Newark, New Jersey.
Plus, an upcoming school board special election will decide the balance of power between charter supporters and those backed by UTLA, and whether the network model has majority support to go forward. You cannot disaggregate the strike from these other issues. Union leaders see LAUSD as under attack, and are using all means at their disposal to stem the tide.
Bill Raden of Capital & Main explains the how network plan would work. Say it with me: Run public education like a business. (Emphasis in original):
Called the “portfolio model,” it means each of the 32 L.A. networks would be overseen like a stock portfolio. A portfolio manager would keep the “good” schools and dump the “bad” by turning them over to a charter or shutting them down much like a bum stock. Why that should fare any better than a short-lived LAUSD reform in the 1990s that also divided the district into small, semi-autonomous clusters but failed to budge academic performance remains unclear. The changes in Newark included neighborhood school closures, mass firings of teachers and principals, a spike in new charters and a revolt by parents that drove out former Newark supe — and current L.A. consultant — Cami Anderson.
Even as Special Counsel Robert Mueller explores ways in which Russia works to undermine the United States and NATO, private investors are working behind the scenes to undermine public … anything in this country. Social contracts : bad. Private contracts : good. For the investor class, the tragedy of the commons is when they don’t get a cut from it. They are still trying to sell off America for parts. Like Russian oligarchs, they are relentless. Schools, highways, prisons, V.A. health services, even wars.
Your drinking water, too. In These Times reports Aqua America, having failed to privatize the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority (PWSA), announced in October it was buying Peoples Gas, a local gas company. But why? asks Doug Shields:
For months, Peoples Gas had been selling the city on what it was calling a strategic public-private partnership. The company would replace aging lines and build a massive new treatment facility to boot — somehow without raising rates. As you might expect, the details were scarce.
Shields writes:
There’s no doubt that Pittsburgh’s water system needs serious attention. The scope of the problem might lead some to think that private water companies are the only ones that know how to turn things around. But private companies are not charities. When a for-profit corporation promises to erase debt and replace aging water pipes, we should ask, “What’s the catch?”
With billions of dollars needed to overhaul public works projects like water or sewer systems, the privatizer’s pitch can be enticing: We’ll make the investments to deliver 21st century service, and we’ll relieve you of the burden of ongoing maintenance. But the record shows that when private companies take over public water systems, service can actually deteriorate, and those costly upgrades that were promised wind up hitting your pocketbook for many years into the future.
There is no free lunch. Public services require public investments through taxes and public commitments via municipal bonds. Promises by entrepreneurs to deliver public services faster, better, cheaper for a profit deserve all the skepticism due late-night ads for weight-loss drugs and testosterone-boosters. Problem is, the people who fall for those also fall for hucksters’ promises to give you more for less in public services through the miracle of the marketplace.