Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Memphis Consolidation Plan Trojan Horse for Urban Privatization Via Charter Schools
When Memphis City Schools announced it would accept $90 million from Gates to "improve teacher quality," Supt. Kriner Cash blubbered, “This is huge, this is huge, this puts Memphis City Schools in very elite territory, on the front page of the nation.” Now almost three years later, Gates's fingerprints are on every aspect of school operations in Memphis, including a scheme to shut down 21 public schools in Memphis and turn the buildings over to corporate charter schools. Now Cash and the Memphis City Schools are faced with a whole list of disturbing recommendations, including one that would totally disrupt the feeder school system in Memphis, which will lead to privatized high schools in the next phase of corporate takeover--if the Gates lemmings have their way. From the Commercial Appeal:
...For MCS, among the most disturbing is the recommendation to cut 21 city schools and lease the space to charter schools. TPC estimates annual savings at $21 million, already plugged into the finance section to reduce an estimated $57 million deficit between the plan and revenue.
Cash insists the cuts won't save $21 million. He takes further exception that the majority of schools on the close list are in an "already underpopulated" southwest corner of the city.
"This would escalate that hemorrhaging," he said, adding that no one filed a plan with the city for refurbishing what would be gutted neighborhoods.
The list of to-close includes an inordinate number of middle schools, Cash says, which would "decimate the feeder pattern" in the southwest... .
...For MCS, among the most disturbing is the recommendation to cut 21 city schools and lease the space to charter schools. TPC estimates annual savings at $21 million, already plugged into the finance section to reduce an estimated $57 million deficit between the plan and revenue.
Cash insists the cuts won't save $21 million. He takes further exception that the majority of schools on the close list are in an "already underpopulated" southwest corner of the city.
"This would escalate that hemorrhaging," he said, adding that no one filed a plan with the city for refurbishing what would be gutted neighborhoods.
The list of to-close includes an inordinate number of middle schools, Cash says, which would "decimate the feeder pattern" in the southwest... .
The prospects for healthcare reform may be chillier than DC weather, but Democrats in the House and Senate are turning their attention to another warmer but still significant national issue: the increasing number of runaway and throwaway youth who are being forced into prostitution. In response to the growing concerns that desperate, runaway teens will be forced into prostitution in a sluggish economy, Congress is pushing several bills to improve how runaway kids are tracked by the police, fund crucial social services, and prevent teens from being caught in sex trafficking. Here's the gist of what the new legislation is trying to accomplish:
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