Netflix education: Favoring markets over democracy

What's the No. 1 problem afflicting schools? According to Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, it's elected school boards...Fickle voters create too much churn. You know, the darn democracy thing. So uncontrollable.-- San Jose Mercury News

Thanks to Diane Ravitch for calling out Netflix founder and CEO Rod Hastings as a major player in corporate-style school reform. Hastings, says Ravitch, is on the board of various charter schools and charter chains, including Rocketship and KIPP.

Hasting's goal is to get government out of schooling, get rid of publicly elected school boards, and turn schools over to private operators.

Ravitch writes:

ALEC has pushed the idea of a state charter panel, appointed by the governor (and sometimes the legislature), whose decisions override local control. The problem with school boards is that the local populace can replace them by vote. In other words, as Chubb and Moe argued 25 years ago in their book advocating for vouchers, Politics, Markets, and Schools, markets are better than democracy.

Here it is, right from the horse's [Hasting's] mouth.