report on impact on privatization
Answers
1) National/Maryland: Writing in the Washington Post, In the Public Interest’s Jeremy Mohler points to the problematic results of poorly conceived ‘public-private partnerships’ across the country while calling into question Republican Governor Larry Hogan’s flawed $9 billion plan to add tolled express lanes to the Capital Beltway and Interstate 270.
“Maryland transportation officials are proposing to borrow the project’s cost from private investors,” Mohler writes, “but they are downplaying how much more expensive it is to borrow directly from a Wall Street bank or a global corporation rather than use municipal bonds, the traditional method of financing. And they are minimizing the potential risks for Maryland residents now and in the distant future, as so-called public-private partnership contracts include pages of complex agreements that extend for decades. (…) If the price tag doesn’t scare you, consider this: Public-private partnerships almost always take decision-making power from the public. This is because they are written to all but guarantee high returns for private investors.”
2) National: Writing in Bloomberg, Baruch professor Andrea Gabor takes aim at the argument of pro-charter school organizations such as the Manhattan Institute that deregulation of the charter school sector is necessary. In fact, deregulation produces less, not more choice, Gabor says. “That faith in markets isn’t supported by the evidence, however. Studies show that, on average, charter schools and traditional public schools produce similar results. But freedom from regulation is associated not with success but with especially high failure rates; charter-school performance tends to be weakest in states with the laxest rules for ensuring education quality. Paradoxically, deregulation has also tended to narrow choices rather than expand them. New Orleans, for example, which has turned most of its public schools over to charter organizations, is dominated by charter-school oligopolies that enforce uniform curriculum and disciplinary standards. Instead of fostering creative pedagogy, the charter industry has focused on producing high test scores, the key measure by which philanthropists determine which charter organizations to finance. Teachers are typically required to teach canned curricula and rarely last more than a few years, and students are often subjected to one-size-fits-all discipline policies.”
3) National: “Incarcerated Pennsylvanians now have to pay $150 to read. We should all be outraged,” writes Jodi Lincoln of Book ‘em in a Washington Postop-ed. “Every year, thousands of people in Pennsylvania prisons write directly to nonprofit organizations such as the one I co-chair with a request for reading material, which we then send to them at no cost. This free access to books has dramatically improved the lives of incarcerated individuals, offering immense emotional and mental relief as well as a key source of rehabilitation. But as of last month, the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC) has decided to make such rehabilitation much harder. Going forward, books and publications, including legal primers and prison newsletters, cannot be sent directly to incarcerated Pennsylvanians. Instead, if they want access to a book, they must first come up with $147 to purchase a tablet and then pay a private company for electronic versions of their reading material—but only if it’s available among the 8,500 titles offered to them through this new e-book system.”
Books Through Bars and Book ‘Em are supporting a petition spearheaded by the Amistad Law Project that calls for an end to the new policies as they “further punish, restrict and control people incarcerated in PA prisons.” Over 7,300 people and counting have signed the petition.
4) National: Last Monday postal workers across the country staged a national day of action to oppose the Trump/GOP plan to privatize the U.S. Postal Service. “The unpopular privatization plan is already creating difficulties for the administration. In July, the House of Representatives introduced a resolution condemning privatization. Postal workers held a massive August rally against privatization in Pittsburgh during APWU’s biennial national convention. Then in September, two days before the unions announced their upcoming day of action, the Senate introduced its own resolution rejecting privatization. Both the Senate and the House resolutions boast bipartisan support.”