The DeVos Family: Meet the Super-Wealthy Right-Wingers Working With the Religious Right to Kill Public Education | | AlterNet

Parenetal Involvement is probably around 30% to 35%.

I think where I live the parental involvement is even less. My wife and her friend went to a PTA meeting at the junior high and they were the only two who showed up. I realize Dancing with the Stars was on, but still.

So you agree with the notion to defund public schools in favor of religious-based private schools? Not smart.

I agree with the right of a parent to choose the best education that they can for their child.

Really? Well then... fk em

^+d - Sometimes the simplest explanation is the most accurate.

Or sometimes it's just the simplest.

That's my biggest problem with charter schools, particularly those of the holy roller persuasion. Being an Atheist, I have no wish to insult a believer, but I also have no wish to pay for the indoctrination of a child, any child in bull shit. And, having observed the ways of the wealthy, I have even less trust in their "altruistic" ambitions regarding the education of the masses. Wealthy folk do nothing that does not benefit them. If their charitable luncheons and balls were not reported in the media, with nods to their designer duds, these functions would come to a halt so fast they'd leave skid marks on the society pages. They give lavishly only to those politicians who will give back to them with lenient business legislation or tax breaks. Ask yourself why then, this sudden interest in the state of your child's education? Which version do you think your child will most likely be taught: the critical thinking, follow the money advice, or; we are the greatest, best, and of course you can use Cliff Notes for your "Babysitters Club" book report.

Arch Druid wrote of the importance of parents in education and he is spot on. Every parent, even if your own education is a bit spotty, go to school, ask questions, befriend other parents who may be better in some subjects than you are and ask them to tutor your child, while you perform some task, (make lunch for his/her child for a week, babysit, whatever). When my kids were growing up, I noticed that teachers paid more attention to the children whose parents made those dreary PTA meetings and open school nights. OK, I'll stop now, but think about it.

Schools have changed alot since your children were growing up and parents don't just have to contend with the low standards of teaching as the only downside of public school. We have the right to protect our children against the bad language, violence and drugs. (and I'm talking about elementary school).
As a parent I have a responsibility to keep my children from harm in all forms. It has nothing to do with religious right or which political party I belong to , it is about doing the right thing for my children and no one else has the right to make that choice for me.

Right! but eventually even the blacks were taught to read and write. They may just be pushing us into a civil war, EJ...

tell it .. voted ^

Gov Rich Scott in Florida is pushing the whole charter school voucher thing too.
Of course he would since he knows first hand how easy it is to milk/defraud the government out of money.

For those that don't know about Rich Scott, while running a huge health care company in FL, it was busted by the government for defrauding Medicare and Medicaid by over-billing them.

It was the largest Medicare fraud case in our history and they had to pay 1.7 Billion in fines....but Scott got to walk away with a golden parachute worth over 150 Million and THEN the idiots in FL got duped into electing him as Governor!

Now he and his rich friends want to privatize everything they can in FL so they can keep milking the government and all at tax payer expense.

Thank you, figg.

August,
Thanks for all the info. For as much as people pick on WI for electing Walker (I'm not saying it wasn't bad) but at least he wasn't a convicted felon. FL voted in Rick Scott after the biggest fraud in FL history?! C'mon. Who was more asleep at the wheel here? I saw Rick Scott in the movie "SICKO" and learned what he is about. He comes right from the health insurance industry and is the biggest crook of the bunch.

They consider us as no more than farm animals, beasts of burden, to serve at their pleasure. And they will do, unless we are able to turn the tables on them,,,the trillion dollar question?

"but at least he wasn't a convicted felon."

If he keeps going at the pace he is, maybe he'll screw up enough to get convicted.
Did you catch the story on HP .....I guess they're working overtime to shove through as much Walkers agenda as possible BEFORE the recall elections.
I feel bad for the Democrat legislators ...and the people.
All they can do is vote against his agenda but since they are outnumbered, they can only take notes on what to try to undo when they get control again.

As a Floridian, I'm still in shock and dismay how that could have happened! It's twilight zone reality...

He also wants to force drug testing on anyone accepting social funding so his wife who still runs the company can profit. This is another one of those scumbags, unfortunately Florida doesn't have anyway to re-call his ass. Maybe they should start writing a law before there is nothing left of Florida.

You are correct, Common.

That's what happens these days. Individuals should not be able to use their own money to run for government. That should be called buying an election.

August,
I hope Walker DOES screw up enough to get convicted. No, I didn't catch the story on HP but it's been all over my local news. Walker is crusing for an eventual ethics violation. He is arrogant enough to get caught with his pants down defrauding the state of WI tax payer with a big Koch brother giveaway. The Dem legislators will have a hard time stopping this legislative onslaught.

Small correction. The company he ran was in Texas. He resigned when things hit the fan and moved to Florida to avoid prosecution. Rick Scott was also involved in sports investments with George W. Bush.

I'm convinced his reason for not accepting Federal stimulus money for rail transportation was his puzzlement over how to stuff his pockets with it, without getting caught. Never mind it would have meant jobs for Floridians.

There was a documentary on Hulu about how the republican owned company Diebold company's system could be so easily subverted to yield any result by a little bug program placed on the "blank" voter chip that the machines use. They even mentioned a county in Florida where in the 90's there was a NEGATIVE total of votes cast for the democratic candidate. It's no mystery to me how this a-hole got "elected", he DIDN'T! You can recount the paper ballots all day long using their optical scanners. As long as the chip has the bug program on it, it will continue to skew the count to the selected winner. The only way around this is to A) Degauss the chips before use to ensure it truely is blank. B) Manualy count the paper trail ballots and not use the machines for a recount. They went to this current system because Rove had his goons pre-punch the punch cards with Bush's hole knocked out of the card. Anyone who didn't vote for Bush and had a prepunched card, had their vote thrown out as an over-vote. When observant people complained about their cards already having a hole in it, they were simply given one that was blank. In the big hoopla media circus of "hanging chads" this little item was pointedly ignored. Had all the UNUSED cards been examined with the same vigor as the used ballots, the whole scam would have been exposed and Bush would have been arrested for election fraud right then and there. The "blanks" were destroyed ASAP to prevent just that from happening. !Jeb promised Florida to his older brother and he made sure that it happened with "dirty tricks win at any cost" Rove's help. Yet I still vote in the hope that they don't figure on a landslide loss and don't skew the vote count enough, ie:Obama.

The documentary is "Hacking Democracy" and was produced in 2007 by HBO. It can still be seen on Hulu. A must see if you really want to see the way our system has been rigged.

As long as fraud is rampant in these charter schools, I am opposed to them getting a single dollar of tax payer money. Here's another of the thousands of stories about this type of fraud.

"Charter school chiefs charged in $522,000 fraud scheme
April 14, 2011

A federal grand jury has indicted the two former top officers of the New Media Technology Charter School of stealing $522,000 from the institution.

The 27-count indictment charges Hugh C. Clark, 64, and Ina M. Walker, 58, with conspiracy, wire fraud, and theft from a federally funded program, U.S. Attorney Zane David Memeger announced today.

The pair, both from Philadelphia, allegedly used the money to pay expenses at the Lotus Academy, a small private school they controlled; to fund personal businesses, including the Black Olive health food store and the Black Olive restaurant; and for their own personal expenses, Memeger said."

It is not possible to legislate home schooling without losing fundamental democratic principles.

Here is a possible solution to the problem:

You can have an affect on what is studied by having a universal standard for testing and state certified graduation requirements. And, a person has to have a state certified graduation test to hold public office...

The separation of church and state is under siege as we speak. Fundamentalist are in the State and Federal legislatures now. They are piggy-backing in on the Republican Party.

The only way to pull the plug on this situation is for EVERYONE to stop voting for Republicans. Pretty severe huh...

Good point. ^'d

I agree there are some terrible charter schools, full of financial abuse.

However, there are also some really good public charter schools, that are reaching kids who would otherwise fall through the cracks. These kinds of programs are worth saving.

Here's another one...

"State educators are seeking criminal charges against the executives of a charter school operation after an audit found they had misused at least $25.6 million in public education money, including $2.6 million for personal expenses.

The audit found that executives of the now-closed California Charter Academy used public funds to pay for personal watercrafts, travel, health spa visits, Disney-related merchandise and more. Two employees even paid their income taxes with $42,000 in school funds.

Its founder and chief executive, Steven Cox, formed the for-profit management company to run the vast network of satellite campuses across the state, including several in the Bay Area. Three Southern California school districts authorized four separate charter contracts with the company, each earning percentages of the state funding but providing little fiscal or academic oversight.

Cox personally received more than $1.1 million in public education funds between 1999 and 2003, the audit found, and diverted an additional $549,000 into subsidiary ventures such as Xtreme Motor Sports, Hautlab Music Group, Maniaque Marketing and Maniaque Development.

An additional $1.2 million went to hire members of Cox's family and to "grant them generous retroactive pay increases," according to the audit prepared by the state's Fiscal Crisis Management Assistance Team, which was created by the Legislature to audit California's public schools.

Since charters became legal in California in 1992, education officials and charter proponents alike have come to appreciate the importance of oversight. That's because unscrupulous operators have found ways to inappropriately profit from public coffers, to teach religion at public expense, and to trick parents into paying tuition. "

This is a Fanny/Freddie situation. A policy with guidelines need to be implemented with over-sight. Problem solved.

However, the fight against policy and guidelines would be a bun fight because of special interest to keep the system open for self-interest of the few, not public interest of the many.

I don't think the idea of a Charter school is bad, but they lack oversight to ensure they are run properly. I am glad that the DOJ is investigating the fraud though. I do agree with Unimatric0 about the radical regilous right home schooling their children, that is more dangerous then the concept of any Charter School.

I would still prefer a strong Public School System like they use to have back when I went to school (a long, long time ago). Many children today do not know how to read or write, which limits them from forming their own opinions because they get their information only from TV and are missing out on a whole wonderful world that reading provides and that also encourages the imagination. That is why science and technology in the USA is falling so far behind countries like China. Because of this the country is losing its innovators.

your a fountain of info thanks voted ^

you make a good point ..

We need you in office buddy! voted ^

"This up and coming army of home schooled Christian fundamentalists should concern everyone who values a secular society, and the separation of church and state."

Agreed. Can I suggest to everyone renting the DVD "Jesus Camp?" That documentary
shows how scary this phenomenon really is.

The problem with oversight as a single control and check mechanism is the fact that it is selectively enforced and implemented with each changing administration, and their "persuasions".

I don't understand the logic of publicly funding a new school system which has evidenced imperfection, if not wholesale corruption and embezzlement, instead of remedying the current school system. Why have two imperfect and dysfunctional school systems instead of concentrating on fixing the one we have. The United States has not failed completely from it's public education system, historically. The primary problem with public education is a lack of central planning and organization. Too many states are playing fast and loose with education dollars and agendas. Education is a national concern, and should be federally administered to insure that the students of every state are sufficiently educated.

Thanks for the compliment, I wish I could. However, since I married a Canadian and moved to Canada all I can do is bitch, educate and support all of you working hard to restore the USA to the great country it use to be.

Yes and in some cases as with Texas, their teachers had absolutely no credentials.

...over-sight and changing administrations

aye... and there's the rub
but you have to have some kind of super-structure to even operate at all

In Washington DC the voucher system provided a way for poor families to get out of dead end schools. The charter schools that arose were not religious based. They were secular.

There is fraud in the public school system, outside of charters, as well. Look at how many unionized teachers are paid to not teach in NYC.

Would that require a constitutional amendment?

Believe me, it does. Those are some of the most out-of-touch children you ever want to meet too......sheltered beyond anything that is to be considered healthy. I shudder to think of them in leadership positions making choices for the rest of society that didn't have the resources to have parent at home to 'school' them.

its very obvious well said..voted^

Yep and let's not forget that they want to give insurance companies control of Medicare and Wall Street control of our Social Security pension money.

The Social Security issue hasn't made major headlines yet, but Eric Cantor has admitted he wants to abolish SS as we know it and I just read some stuff on Herman Cain and he wants to
"restructure" SS and have the younger workers put their social security money into "retirement accounts".

Yeah right.....and give Wall Street hundreds of billions or trillions to gamble away.
Wall Street already managed to lose over 1.7 TRILLION in 401K's and the GOP wants us to trust them AGAIN?
This is also the party that wants to destroy, de-fund and neuter the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

AK, I agree with you. Putting SS in the stock market is foolish. It makes wall street richer and from experience, a big drop in the market and it's gone.

Insurance companies are to greedy. Why would they think it would benifit seniors when they are the most likely to be sick.

SInce the uber rich employ people, what beneift is it to their businesses to destroy the education system? They would want a good education system that could turn out educated workers.

dude, you are spamming every thread with this bull shit - give it a rest and try not to be such a douche bag.

...you're so funny!
The irony is rich coming from all y'all

I agree Jan. The sad thing is that vouchers will benefit the wealthy that can already afford to send their children to private schools, while hurting the poor because even with the vouchers they will not be able to afford the difference in order to get into a descent school, let alone be accepted by that school. Just look at the lotteries they have now for poor people to get into a charter school. When I was growing up in New York we had one of the best public schools systems in America. I wonder where is stand now?

The religious right keeps trying to impose their values on America. They keep trying to remove the separation of church and state. Just like they say federal dollars should not be used for abortions, federal dollars should not be used to educate students in religious schools period!

I agree with you Jan, Good comment.

It is not a violation of church and state. The first amendment prohibits the govt from establishing a national religion. Providing voucher dollars does not constitute establishing a national religion.

Have some studies on that? I went to public schools all of my life and I don't think I am necessarily wanting because of it. But I remember watching the local private religious school dismissal and how the girls used to pull their uniform skirts up and light cigarettes while talking trash. This illusion that private schools are so much better in every way is just that, an illusion. Matters not what school you go to, if you don't have parents dedicated to teaching you as well, you don't really learn. Vouchers are simply a scheme to suck the public education system dry and leave those not "eligible" for private education in the cold. But again, if you have any studies proving anything, please post them.

Im not against private schools Im against making public schools all voucher Fuk that !

TIME: Wednesday, Oct. 10, 2007

Are Private Schools Really Better?

The study suggests vouchers for private schools are unnecessary because — once you control for socioeconomic status — students at private schools aren't performing any better than those at public schools. The study says that it is "the kinds of economic and resource advantages their parents can give [students]" — as well as the level of parental involvement in their kids' education —that determines success or failure in high school... The problem isn't in the schools; it's with social inequality.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1670063,00.html#ixzz1LnKWBQbs

If the public schools are so good, why do Americans who can afford private, from the President on down, embrace that choice. The last time we had a President walk the walk and talk the talk with his own kid was Jimmy Carter.

You are quite right. Let's return to feudal ways and save money by not educating the peasants. They will be just as happy in their McJobs with minimal education and the country can be run by the educated children of the oligarchs. I feel sure that they will let many benefits trickle down to those less fortunate than they. What a paradise!

That is the uber wealthy corporation owner's wet dream scenario!!! A totally uneducated, ignorant, and poor masses of slave laborers to toil in their factories/shops for disgusting low wages and no hope to ever move on. They don't have to pay for benefits or any other social programs and no governmental controls! They can rape, pillage, and plunder free from any restrictions. Since the people are uneducated, they will believe anything and everything they're told by Fox and friends and the cutesy 30 second political ads!!! Perfect scenario for them!!!

You got that right.

That , is truly chilling .

R-E-S-P-E-C-T- Aretha said it...

Bullshit! My father paid to send every single one of his six children to private school, and he didn't get any government kickbacks to do it, he worked his ass off.

Vouchers are the biggest lie out there when it comes to public education because they ONLY work for those who have the money to make up the difference, and they leave the children of poor families with nothing but the scraps that fall from the money-grubbing hands of the rich.

You can bitch about public schools all you want, but the day we actually admit that the how we fund public education is NOT democratic, might be the day we actually see some improvement in public education. School vouchers are nothing more than another pack of elitist lies to benefit themselves and their children at the expense of the middle class.

Great post figgd

It's actually 47% of adults in Detroit that are functionally illiterate. Not 53% of school age children.

You would.... chode!