[Peace-discuss] Education profiteers - interview with Diane Ravitch and Bill Moyers

[David Johnson]

BILL MOYERS: We're talking about big money, aren't we?

DIANE RAVITCH: Absolutely. Minimum, at least, from the estimates I've seen it's a market of $500 billion. Now we--

BILL MOYERS: A year?

DIANE RAVITCH: Yes. An annual market of $500 billion. So the entrepreneurs do see it as huge opportunities to make money. There are now frequently conferences, at least annually, conferences on how to profit from the public education industry. Now I never thought of public education as an industry. But the entrepreneurs do see it as an industry.

They see it as a national marketplace for hardware, for software, for textbook publishing, for selling whatever it is they're selling, and for actually taking over all of the roles of running a school. This is what the charter movement is. It's an effort to privatize public education, because there's so much money there that enough of it can be extracted to pay off the investors. But I think what's at stake is the future of American public education. I'm a graduate of public schools in Houston, Texas, and I don't want to see us lose public education. I believe it is the foundation stone, one of the foundation stones, of our democracy. So an attack on public education is an attack on democracy.

BILL MOYERS: The people behind privatization, you say they're flush with cash. Where is it coming from? Where does this money trail start?

DIANE RAVITCH: You have to understand that firstly we do have a significant number of for-profit charter schools. They're not the majority, by any means. But they're driving a lot of the legislative changes. There is also the power of the federal government.

Our Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, put out $4.3 billion called Race to the Top. And he said to the states, you can't be eligible for any part of this money unless you lift your cap on charter schools. So suddenly the lure of getting that federal money made many states change their laws to open the door to many, many more charter schools.

So that's really what driven the increase in charters. But what-- the other thing that's driven them is that there is a tremendous political force of very wealthy hedge-fund managers who are investing in the charter-school industry and seeing it grow. And so they have fought for these laws. There's also a lot of charter school money going as political contributions to legislators in many of the states where the charters are booming. Public Schools for Sale. Moyers and Company.
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