Network Schools – Wayne Gerseny to https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/04/03/magazine/thomas-piketty-interview u w B l.html?h I’ll smid=url-share the Is for

Today’s NYTimes features an editorial titled “How to Stop Schools That Prey on Veterans“. The editorial expresses support for undoing everything the Trump-DeVos era did to deregulate profiteering at the expense of Veterans:

That means reversing, as quickly as possible, Trump-era rules that benefited the for-profit college industry at the expense of the public. Beyond that, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Education need to wield their existing authority to cut off federal funds to predatory schools.

But, as noted in a comment I left, why stop your critique at the post-secondary education? Why should ANY “for profit” institution receive government funds for pre-K-12 public education? Schools are a public good, not a commodity to be marketed like a refrigerator or automobile. As noted often in this blog, the NYTimes editors consistently champion the idea of “choice” as a panacea for “low performing” schools that are starved of resources… and they inevitably include predatory for-profit schools among the acceptable “choices” parents are encouraged to consider. K-12 schools that leave children in the lurch are at least as bad as the predatory for-profit colleges that leave veterans in the lurch. From the perspective of Donald Trump, Betsy DeVos, and the GOP, PreK-12 schools should be viewed as a commodity to be marketed to parent-consumers. And from their perspective, the unregulated marketplace will sort out the bad from the good. As for the parent-consumer? Caveat emptor!