Gail Collins' take on privatization

In her column this morning, "Political Private Practice",  NYT's Gail Collins talks privatization, including public school privatization with what she calls  humorization. No one can do it better.

In honor of the campaign season, maybe this is a good time to point out some examples of privatization disasters. Texas tried to turn eligibility screening for social services over to a private company, creating all sorts of messes until it gave up the experiment. The most apocryphal story involved a privately run call center that told applicants to send their documentation to a number that turned out to be the fax at a warehouse in Seattle.

The hottest new wrinkle for private companies eager to tap into public school funding is charter cyberschools. A study at the University of Colorado’s National Education Policy Center found that only about a quarter met federal standards for academic progress.

Collins's book, "As Texas Goes -- How the Lone Star State Hijacked the American Agenda", offers much more in the way of privatization myth debunking including a whole chapter on "The Business of Schools."