Matthew
Pulver, writing at Salon.com, describes Jeb Bush’s
dangerous belief in privatization and free markets in
education.
It
is not so much a belief as an ideology, one that is impervious to evidence. The
many studies showing that privately managed charters do not get higher test
scores than public schools do not register with Jeb.
The numbers of charters
that open with grand promises and soon lose their doors with big debts does not
affect his belief system. He is a zealot for school choice, period.
Not
even the failure of the charter school he founded in Liberty City, a poor black
neighborhood, dampens his passion for charters and vouchers.
“There’s
nothing else as large in all of society. Not the military—nothing—is bigger.”
“That’s
how Randy Best, Jeb Bush’s business partner, sees public education, as an
untapped market where untold billions are to be made when kids and their
families become educational customers.
“Touting
his impressive assault on public education while Florida governor in
yesterday’s announcement of his 2016 candidacy, Bush may become the loudest
proponent yet of turning public education into a for-profit enterprise.
“Before
getting into Bush’s record and financial interests in for-profit education, a
full understanding of the dystopian horrors of for-profit, privatized education
is necessary.
“Bush
offers it with a handful of Milton Friedman-esque catchwords and focus-grouped
slogans, and it may be that the proposals sound innocuous and vaguely
innovative until the slightest scrutiny is applied to the ideas — at which
point, it’s difficult to imagine much worse than public education turned into a
for-profit market.
“Because
the most basic and collectively understood truisms about markets, when applied
to children, take on a horrifying character.”
It
should be noted that Bush’s partner, Randy Best, was one of the biggest
beneficiaries of Reading First, the ill-fated program enacted as part of NCLB
but eventually discontinued because of sweetheart deals and conflicts of
interest.
Best,
an entrepreneur, not an educator, created a commercial reading company (Voyager
Learning), which he later sold for $360 million. Best admits that he can’t
read, that he is acutely dyslexic. But he knows how to make money.