CT Blue

The swine belly up to the trough:

Tax benefits and real estate investment may also explain why Wall Street is so hot on raising money for charter schools. On Monday night, April 28, 2014, hundreds of Wall Streeters gathered at Cipriani in Midtown Manhattan to raise funds for Success Academy Charter Schools. Former Florida Governor and GOP presidential contender Jeb Bush gave the keynote address. The dinner was chaired by hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb. Loeb is the founder of Third Point LLC and chairman of the board for Success Academy. The gala raised at least $7.75 million for Success Academy. Also attending were Kyle Bass of Hayman Capital Management, Joel Greenblatt of Gotham Asset Management, Boaz Weinstein of Saba Capital, John Paulson of Paulson & Co. and Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater USA.

According to The New York Times, the ten highest paid hedge fund operators with close ties to charter schools also includes David Tepper (number 1 at $3.5 billion in 2013), founder of founder of Appaloosa Management and New Jersey based “Better Education for Kids”; Steven A. Cohen (number 2 at $2.4 billion) of SAC Capital Advisors, which was forced to pay a $1.2 billion dollar penalty for insider trading, who has given over $10 million to the Achievement First charter school network; and Paul Tudor Jones II (tied for tenth at $600 million), founder of the Tudor Investment Corporation who has supported charter schools through his Robin Hood Foundation.

via Huffington Post

We will inevitably be paying tribute (in the oldest sense of that word) to Wall Street to educate our kids to be compliant serfs. It's already happening:

One month ago Dr. Steve Ingersoll and his wife Deborah were both charged with several counts of fraud, including defrauding Chemical Bank, the United States and tax evasion by a federal grand jury. The optometrist and wife team, along with his brother and another couple who owned a construction company engaged in a dizzy dance of money transfers and check writing to each other that eventually moved most of a business loan for renovating a church into a school in Bay City, Michigan, into Steve Ingersoll’s personal bank account. The reason for doing this appears to be avoiding paying taxes, and also covering up for money paid by him to him through advances taken from Grand Traverse Academy’s school funds, another charter school managed by Ingersoll.

…

Steve Ingersoll embodies the most glaring problem with charter schools in Michigan; too much taxpayer money being siphoned into management companies with very little oversight and for very poor returns. Bay City Academy did very poorly in achievement scores compared to other school districts in Bay City. Parents and politicians need to reconsider whether charter schools really offer an alternative for better education. What is mostly being revealed about the people who start and manage charter schools is it’s a quick way to make money at taxpayer expense. Public Schools have always been the better investment for educating Michigan’s children, and it’s time to put our money back into the institution dedicated to education rather than profits.

via Daily Kos

Once they get their snouts in, it's almost impossible to get them out. Our current governor is poised to hand our schools to Wall Street, and he'll no doubt get no arguments on that score from his opponent.