EDITOR’S NOTE: David Britten is a former Pine Street Elementary Principal who now is serving his last year as superintendent at Wyoming Godfrey Lee Schools. He penned this column and Townbroadcast is reprinting it as a letter to the editor.
Forget about the presiden
tial election, already. The real threat to democracy and our local communities comes from the charter school movement and continued push toward privatization of our locally-governed public schools.
No, turn off the television because our local and national mainstream media is enamored with the wealth that is pushing us away from our historical roots, and replacing our neighborhood and town schools with a model more intent on making a profit than educating all children. After all, money talks and medias hang on to every word of misinformation that comes from the Waltons, the Bloomberg and Broad Foundations, Rupert Murdoch, Bill Gates and a whole host of other folks bent on getting wealthy at the expense of taxpayers. The only way you’re going to learn about how these folks and their charter industry minions are sneaking into your cities and towns, snatching children from scho
ols long considered “our basic institutions of local authority” is to read this study, ask the tough questions to your state representatives, and demand that the media pull the cover off this entire shady deal.
- A school privatization industry has hijacked the concept of education reform.
- A group of billionaire funders is dismantling and taking over our schools.
- Charter proponents have pedaled a false myth of failing public schools.
- A lack of operating transparency has harmed schools and communities.
- Locally elected school boards have become powerless, destroying a core democratic institution.
- A legal framework for privatizing our schools have been created and imposed.
- Wealthy donors and their powerful infrastructure, not the public, are responsible for charters’ rapid growth.
- The charter movement’s pro-student rhetoric is not matched by educational outcomes and other metrics (no matter what sound-bites to the contrary and other disinformation comes from state and national charter school associations).
- The business side of charters encourages a spectrum of self-dealing, profiteering, and financial corruption.
- Government regulators and auditors are routinely flouted and kept at bay by charter proponents.
