Corporate Takeover Goes Local: Communities Fight Back
Session Type(s): Panel
Starts: Thursday, Jul. 16 1:30 PM (Eastern)
Ends: Thursday, Jul. 16 2:45 PM (Eastern)
For proponents, privatization is simply a transfer of ownership of a property or business from the government to the private sector. But for public education, it means the replacement of high-quality staff dedicated to students and the surrounding community with workers from outside the communities with little accountability or oversight. In public education, schools and staff functions (custodial, clerical, food service, transportation, etc) are contracted out at what companies claim is a lower cost. What they don’t say is that those estimates are usually bid low to get in the door, so quality is often the casualty. All students deserve a high quality education—one that puts quality before profit. We’ll discuss the impact of privatization in education, who’s pushing for it, and how to fight against it.
Moderator
Lisa Graves
Lisa Graves is Executive Director of the Center for Media and Democracy, the publisher of ALECexposed.org (its award-winning investigation of the American Legislative Exchange Council), PRWatch.org, SourceWatch.org, and BanksterUSA.org. She previously served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Policy at the U.S. Department of Justice, Chief Counsel for Nominations for the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, Deputy Chief of the Article III Judges Division at the U.S. Courts, and Senior Legislative Strategist for the ACLU on national security issues, among other posts. Reach her on twitter: thelisagraves and email: lisa@prwatch.org.
Panelists
Marla Lipkin
Marla Lipkin is an educational support professional who has served as a special education paraprofessional at Pennbury School District in Bucks County, Pa for over 10 years . She is President of Pennsbury Education Support Professional Association-an organization of over 650 members. Her activism in community engagement has helped her local community realize the value of educational institutions employing dedicated, in-house support professionals.
Julian Vasquez Heilig
Julian Vasquez Heilig is an award-winning researcher and teacher. He is currently a Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies and the Director of the Doctorate in Educational Leadership at California State Sacramento.
His work has been cited by the New York Times, Washington Post, Associated Press, USAToday, Education Week, Huffington Post and other print and electronic media outlets. He has also appeared on local and national radio and TV including PBS, NBC, NBCLatino, NPR, Univision, Al Jazeera and MSNBC.
He obtained his Ph.D. in Education Administration and Policy Analysis and a Masters in Sociology from Stanford University. He also holds a Masters of Higher Education and a Bachelor’s of History and Psychology from the University of Michigan Ann Arbor.
He blogs at Cloaking Inequity, consistently rated one of the top 50 education websites in the world by Teach100. Follow him on Twitter @ProfessorJVH.