THE HIDDEN PUSH TO PRIVATIZE PUBLIC SCHOOLS
With the election looming, George W. is back to claiming that he’s a “compassionate conservative” – and as evidence he cites his centerpiece education law, the No Child Left Behind Act.
This is supposed to be a “tough love” reform, compelling all public-school kids to pass standardized tests. If the kids fail the federal government’s strict tests, they’ll be held back, and their schools can lose federal funding and be replaced by corporate-run chain schools.
But instead of tough love, Bush’s law actually is a “tough luck” scam, for he has callously refused to fund the reform part. To get Congress to approve the law, he had agreed to put up tax dollars for smaller classes, special teachers, tutors, educational equipment, and other resources needed for schools to improve the ability of our kids to learn – and pass Bush’s tests.
He reneged. In this year’s presidential budget proposal, George shorts his own No Child Left Behind reform by 9 billion bucks! That’s on top of $17 billion he withheld in his previous two budgets. In fact, this spring, Bush offered more of our tax dollars to Turkey – in the form of a bribe to try to get its government to send some troops to Iraq – than he has offered to America’s school districts to implement his federally mandated education laws.
By so severely shortchanging our public schools, the Bushites can advance their ideological agenda of school privatization. As more and more schools lack the resources to achieve the passing rates required on the mandated tests, a little-known provision in George’s law will kick in – one that encourages states to privatize schools that fail his testing system.
Lest you assume that private schools will be better – thus more compassionate – recent data from Bush’s own education department now reveals that children in such schools are doing worse academically than are those in our public system. George’s “reform” is not about compassion, it’s about profits.
PERLE’S LATEST PRATFALL
Poor Richard. Richard Perle is a right-wing neocon theorist who wants to be taken seriously as both a governmental and corporate insider … but he keeps taking highly public pratfalls that would be absolutely comical, if they weren’t so ugly.
Perle, who’s tight with Dick Cheney and Donnie Rumsfeld, was one of the main architects of George W.’s disastrous policies in Iraq. He was the chief proponent of the fanciful notion that our invading troops would be greeted by a grateful people tossing rose petals at them. Instead, angry Iraqis are tossing bombs – and more than a thousand of our troops are dead.
Richard is not doing any better in the corporate world. His latest pratfall is as a board member of Hollinger International, a media conglomerate that owns such papers as Chicago Sun-Times and The Jerusalem Post. The head honcho of Hollinger, Lord Conrad Black, now stands accused of having looted some $400 million from the corporation. Perle was not merely on the board, but on the executive committee, with a direct, fiduciary responsibility to protect the interest of the shareholders. But this supposed watchdog was Lord Black’s lapdog – Perle admits that he personally rubber-stamped stacks of financial documents involving Black’s looting, signing the papers without even reading them.
One reason that Perle was so head-in-the-sand irresponsible is that he was enjoying the corporate gravy, too. In a sweetheart deal, he directed a Hollinger division that let him pocket $3 million – even though this division lost $49 million on Perle’s watch.
But Richard now claims that he’s a victim! After Lord Black’s corporate kleptocracy was exposed – and after an internal report nailed Perle for his “flagrant abdication of duty” – Richard loudly proclaimed to the media that he had been duped by his former friend and benefactor.
Poor Richard. I guess he was duped into putting those millions into his own pockets, too. Maybe he’ll pay the money back – do you think?
This article appears in September 24 • 2004.