The New Republican Governors and Scott Walker’s March to Corporate Schools and Tuition Based K-12.

Here’s a great overall look at the new long sought after profit center, children. The day will come when conservatives justify cutting back on taxpayer supported vouchers too, leaving tuition the sole responsibility of parents. Too many Democrats have bought into the charter/voucher mythology, like they did with free markets, too see this movement slow down.  No matter how much research shows vouchers don't make a bit of difference or do worse than public schools, we've lost, and it looks like our kids have been commodified. 

Forbes: E.D. Kane: But let me be clear: what’s happening in Wisconsin and Michigan and Florida and Indiana has everything to do with education. 

 Diane Ravitch has it in a nutshell. Of Scott Walker, she writes:
He expects that over time, most public workers will stop paying dues, especially now that they have to pay more for their healthcare and pension benefits. And thus will he cripple, perhaps permanently, a perennial political opponent. 

 If Gov. Walker succeeds, there will be no organized voice to oppose his “reform” plans. He can raise the income cap on vouchers, letting everyone leave the public schools if they choose. He can create hundreds of charter schools, opening the riches of that sector to any willing corporation. He can cut the education budget, increase class sizes (Arne Duncan and Bill Gates say that’s a creative idea), oust teachers whose students don’t get higher test scores. 

 Gov. Scott Walker may indeed be the face of corporate reform. Unimpeded, he can bring to fruition the worst of all their ideas. He joins the march of Republican governors (and a few mayors as well) who think that school reform begins with crushing the teachers’ unions, eliminating tenure, due process, and seniority, and firing 5 to 10 percent of teachers every year. 

 In Michigan, governor Rick Snyder has taken a slightly different approach. A financial crisis – likely triggered by the enormous cuts in education funding from the state – is all it will take for Snyder to dissolve contracts with teacher unions and set up an appointed ‘emergency manager’ to oversee a school district. 

 In Wisconsin, the next step is to vastly expand charter schools by bypassing the School Board altogether [pdf]. 

 But however you spin it, the plan is the same. Blame and demonize teachers … pass dramatic, radical legislation to strip middle class workers of their collective bargaining rights, or simply sidestep the democratic process altogether. Then, open up the public school system to corporations and push school-choice. Fire some teachers, game some tests. Rinse. Repeat. 

 This is the Republican vision for public education …