Saturday, March 9, 2013

Williamson County Home Values Would Drop if Charter and Voucher Schools are Voted In, Says School Superintendent

This is just one potential negative side effect to opening the state of Tennessee up to the "education reform" carpetbaggers, who have spent about $2 million to influence state legislators.  Williamson County Schools Superintendent Mike Looney lays it out in this video.

Instead of investing in improving our existing public schools, which stabilize neighborhoods and give us community, this radical agenda would take taxpayers' money away from public schools and give it to unproven charter and voucher schools---the voucher schools will be private, independent schools, and in other states where this is allowed, more than 80% of those publicly funded schools are backed by one religion or another, and the rest of them are simply independent, which includes corporate, for-profit schools.  The charters and vouchers can operate almost in Wild West fashion with extremely little oversight and accountability when compared to public school standards.

Taxes will have to go up, and education will be more expensive with the education task splintered among many diverse entities, which will be duplicating services across the board. 

Tennessee's first mad rush to privatize education was to hustle in place a Virginia-based corporation, K12Inc., to provide an online school known as Tennessee Virtual Academy, which siphons about $16 million a year out of Tennessee.  That money will not pay Tennessee teachers, bus drivers, janitors and other supporting services.  However, K12Inc.'s CEO made $3.94 million last year.  We could have bought a lot of laptops, books, all kinds of stuff if we had that and not them. K12's education quality record,  however, is among the worst if not the worst in the state.  Somehow, that has not slowed down the big money movement that has compromised TN legislators who are willing to carry the ball for them.

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