HIGHLIGHTS
- JD Vance steps into the litterbox
- Privatization failures in UK and Australia
- Education Wars author on Harris
JUMP: EDUCATION | INFRASTRUCTURE | PUBLIC SERVICES | THE REST
First, the Good News
1) National: In a letter to Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party for President, an array of pro-public education organizations urged Harris not to choose Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro as her vice presidential nominee. Shapiro has attracted criticism from public education supporters recently for supporting school voucher programs. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Susan Spicka, executive director of Education Voters PA, a pro-public-education advocacy group, called Shapiro’s approval of a cyber charter school “a slap in the face to the elected board members and their constituents in 468 school districts that have passed resolutions calling for additional accountability for cyber charter schools.”
The letter reads in part, “The battle lines have been drawn. We urge you to select a nominee for Vice President who unabashedly supports and defends public education. For example, nominees such as Governors Roy Cooper (North Carolina), Andy Beshear (Kentucky), and Tim Walz (Minnesota) have been vocal champions for public education in their states. We find it incumbent upon us to note that Governor Josh Shapiro (Pennsylvania) has not, and instead has supported voucher schemes pushed by well-funded billionaires from Pennsylvania like Jeffrey Yass.
“As education advocacy groups, we are fighting not only for 50 million students and
millions of educators, but also for the future of our democracy. The stakes could not be higher, and as we fight the battle against authoritarians who would dismantle public education across our great nation, we believe it is essential that our President and Vice President be wholly committed to our nation’s public education system and willing to fight against school privatization in all its forms.”
2) National: Reps. Steven Horsford (D-NV) and Congressman Donald Norcross (D-NJ) have introduced the Securing Continued Healthcare for Our Operations and Logistics (SCHOOL) Professionals Act. “This legislation would fix a long-standing loophole that has prevented contracted school custodians, bus drivers, security guards, nurses, cafeteria workers, and other essential support staff from accessing affordable healthcare coverage. ‘Every worker who dedicates their time and energy to our schools deserves access to affordable healthcare,’ said Congressman Horsford, Co-Chair of the Congressional Labor Caucus. ‘The SCHOOL Professionals Act will ensure that our school support staff are not left behind due to an outdated regulatory loophole.’”
3) National: Jennifer Berkshire, co-author of The Education Wars, notes “fascinating new research showing that when towns vote to increase school spending, child mortality drops – likely reflecting increases in the # of teachers& counselors, teacher salaries & improved student engagement. So next time you hear the claim that money doesn’t matter…” The report is “Priceless Benefits: Effects of School Spending on Child Mortality,” by Emily Rauscher and Greer Mellon of Brown University and Susanna Loeb of Stanford University.
4) National: Donald Cohen’s The Privatization of Everything is now an audiobook on Spotify. Premium subscribers can listen to the whole book for free.
5) Montana: Montana is looking to become the latest state to increase scrutiny of how its nonprofit hospitals deliver community benefits in exchange for their tax-exempt status, KFF Health News reports. “Under proposed rules, the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services plans to collect data on nonprofit hospitals’ charitable acts, such as discounting prices, providing health education, or conducting free screenings. Montana officials expect to adopt the new rules in August, but state officials have yet to set standards for exactly what constitutes acceptable giving or how much hospitals must do.
The proposal comes some four years after a state audit found shortcomings in the health department’s oversight.”
6) North Carolina: Inside Climate News has opened a new bureau in North Carolina. It is the latest expansion of their effort to strengthen local environmental journalism across the country, ICN explains in an email. “Award-winning reporter Lisa Sorg joined our team as North Carolina reporter. From her home base in Durham, Sorg writes about climate, energy, the environment and agriculture, as well as the social justice impacts of pollution and corporate malfeasance. North Carolina is the latest addition to ICN Local and our growing map of regional coverage across the United States. This year we’ve opened shop in Wyoming, New Mexico, South Carolina and North Carolina, and soon we’ll expand our work in Alabama.”
7) Wisconsin/National: The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has fined John’s Disposal Service Inc. and John’s Recycling Inc. in Franksville $367,000 for 13 federal safety standards violations, the U.S. Department of Labor reports. “‘A worker suffered severe injuries because their employer failed to implement an effective safety and health program and develop specific energy control procedures to protect workers conducting repairs on vehicles,’ says Dustin Schnipke, OSHA area director in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. ‘Employers are responsible for training their workers and taking all necessary precautions to protect them from known hazards.’ During its January investigation, OSHA opened two follow-up inspections to verify the Franksville company had corrected hazards which the agency cited the employer in 2023.”
8) International/Australia/United Kingdom: In a must-read article in The Guardian, Veteran Australian economist and privatization critic John Quiggin offers a devastating rundown of the multiple failures of privatization policies in Australia and the UK through the decades, but says cleaning up the mess left behind will take years.
“Until very recently,” writes Quiggin, “governments remained keen on the idea of ‘asset recycling,’ in which income-generating assets were sold, with the proceeds used to fund a variety of vanity projects. (…) Economists who advocated privatisation mostly avoided this silly error. Indeed, the NSW Treasury repeatedly warned against treating private provision of infrastructure as a ‘magic pudding.’ But, under the influence of neoliberal ideology, they committed a subtler error. Rather than examining the fiscal outcomes of privatisation, they assumed public investments should be subject to a large risk premium to make them comparable to private alternatives. This premium was not needed to cover the actual loss from failed public investments, which has historically been low. Rather, it reflected the mysterious ‘equity premium’ demanded by private investors in financial markets. At least until the GFC [Global Financial Crisis—ed.], neoliberal economists relied on the ‘efficient markets’ hypothesis to conclude that the price observed in financial markets must be the right one. In a world where meme stocks and crypto scams are now a central part of the financial system, such a hypothesis is no longer credible.”
9) International/Australia: The New South Wales government has launched a $1 billion maintenance blitz for public housing. “In November, the government announced plans to reclaim control of maintenance for its 95,000 public housing properties, reversing previous outsourcing practices. This step is intended to enhance the state’s public housing system.” In New York City, “the NYCHA Physical Needs Assessment discovered that $78.34 billion worth of repairs and upgrades are needed in 264 developments. The price is up from $45.2 billion in 2017.” This has led some officials to reach for the magic potion of privatization.
10) International/Australia: A major pushback against toll road monopolization is developing in the wake of a management crisis at Transurban, which controls 11 of 13 major toll roads in New South Wales. Transurban also controls major toll roads in the Washington, DC area.
“Earlier this year, former ACCC chairman Allan Fels and transport expert David Cousins released a report warning that Transurban is robbing Sydney motorists and urging the New South Wales government to take control of the state’s toll roads,” Leith van Onselen reports in Macrobusiness.
“According to the analysis, New South Wales motorists will pay more than $123 billion in tolls over the next 37 years, with Transurban’s WestConnex motorway responsible for more than half of that total. The report’s analysis predicted that Sydney motorists will pay $61 billion in WestConnex tolls by 2060, more than tripling the project’s cost of $21 billion. “Tolls need a big shake-up, no holds barred, and the NSW government needs to take back control of tolls”, professor Fels said.
‘Transurban has a monopoly and there’s been insufficient focus on competition in toll setting.’ ‘The public interest factor needs to be injected,’ he said. Ross Gittins has penned an article arguing that Sydney’s toll road network is the worst example of privatisation, leaving residents significantly worse off: ‘Public-private partnerships’ [have] left Sydney ringed by 13 toll roads, 11 of which are majority-controlled by the ASX-listed giant tolling company Transurban, along with many minority partners.’”
11) National: Jumping off from J.D. Vance’s vicious and foolish attack on what he called “cat ladies,” Donald Cohen and Jeff Hagan of In the Public Interest draw the link between many conservatives’ inability to “care about and feel any responsibility regarding the plight of someone who is not within their own personal sphere or realm of identity” and what Cohen and Hagan call “school choice individualism.”
“The reality of ‘school choice individualism’ is that schools that receive public money that comes from all of us via vouchers want to be able to exclude some of us. They don’t have to follow the rules of public schools—they can pick and choose students, and they can–and do–discriminate against anyone they choose: those with disabilities, families who are part of the LGBTQ community, and religious affiliations they deem unacceptable. While many conservatives don’t seem to regard public education as a public good but rather as an expression of a shopping preference for families, the vast majority of Americans do see education as a public good. And that includes those who have school-age children, those with children who are now adults, those who have never had children, and even, we’re sure, quite a few cat ladies…”
12) National: The New York Times reports that Republicans are poised to attack Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris over her strong support from teachers’ unions. Both the NEA and AFT have endorsed Harris. “Ms. Harris has been a longtime ally of teachers’ unions, even when their positions have divided the Democratic coalition. In 2019, as a U.S. senator considering a presidential run, she supported the teacher strike in Los Angeles, which stood in opposition to Democrats who had sought to expand charter school options in the city. Later on, Ms. Harris rolled out her failed 2020 primary run with a proposal to significantly raise teacher pay, thrilling the unions. Ms. Harris’s support during the strike ‘was such a boost,’ said Cecily Myart-Cruz, president of United Teachers Los Angeles. She was in Houston on Thursday for the speech and called it ‘electric.’”
13) National: Jonathan Kozol, author of the landmark Death at an Early Age and more recently, An End to Inequality: Breaking Down the Walls of Apartheid Education in America, sat down with Nathan Robinson of the Current Affairs podcast to discuss his new book and the state of American education.
Kozol minces no words on the subject of “school reform.” He says, “None of these reforms, and I’ve seen probably two dozen of them in my career, none of these have made the slightest difference in the outcomes of the schools where a vicious code of discipline takes the place of anything like democratic learning. The refusal of the powerful, the powers that be, and I don’t mean simply political conservatives, but also the refusal of too many timid liberals to what I call semi-liberals, to batter down the walls between two separate worlds of education, has resulted in what I call the routine amputation of potential in millions of our most vulnerable children. And I began by teaching in a classic segregated school, and I’ve probably visited in more than 100 similar schools all over the country.
“But I also visit the good suburban schools, to put contrast. And while the children in the best suburban schools are allowed to learn out of a healthy appetite for learning, to pursue their curiosities, and to ask discerning questions, the children with whom I’ve been working in the inner city schools are all too often compelled to learn out of a sense of fear of failure, and fear of punishment. And in my book, as you’ve already seen, I describe some of the draconian punishments that most Americans appear not to want to recognize.”
14) National: Project 2025’s plan to eliminate public schools has already started, say Jessica Alcantara and Laura Petty in Time. “Some of the many destructive proposals within the agenda include the elimination of the U.S. Department of Education—along with federal education funding and any civil rights protections—and the diversion of public money to private school voucher programs instead. Make no mistake: The goal is to end public education. But dismantling our public schools isn’t just the plan if Trump is reelected—it is already happening.
We are on the brink of a new wave of public school closures, another step in the decades-long project to divest and dismantle the institution of public schools. Disguised as ‘school choice,’ federal, state, local, and private actors have prioritized paying for private and charter schools, hoarding educational resources for the haves and depleting resources for the have-nots.”
15) National: How would Project 2025 turbocharge school privatization? The Hechinger Report weighs in.
“Privatization: In place of a federal Education Department, the blueprint calls for widespread public education funding that goes directly to families, as part of its overarching goal of ‘advancing education freedom.’ The document specifically highlights the education savings account program in Arizona, the first state to open school vouchers up to all families. Programs like Arizona’s have few, if any, restrictions on who can access the funding. Project 2025 also calls for education savings accounts for schools under federal jurisdiction, such as those run by the Department of Defense or the Bureau of Indian Education. In addition, Project 2025 calls on Congress to look into creating a federal scholarship tax credit to ‘incentivize donors to contribute’ to nonprofit groups that grant scholarships for private school tuition or education materials.”
16) National: Jennifer Berkshire joined The Majority Report to discuss her new book, The Education Wars, and what Kamala Harris’ role will be. “Berkshire explores how the GOP’s shift under Trump saw a disintegration of this consensus, with the Right pushing instead to redefine public education as something that did not require public schooling, working to fully dismantle the physical institutions but using the funds to pick up the tab on private education. After unpacking the philosophy behind this GOP shift, and the complete dearth of a response from the Democratic Party, Jennifer, Sam, and Emma tackle the particular failure of voucher programs and charter schooling, and wrap up the interview by exploring the incredible organizing going on to save public schooling, why pro-public schools is a winning electoral stance, and what to look for from Kamala Harris’ candidacy.”
17) Colorado/National: David Armiak, research director and investigative journalist at the Center for Media and Democracy, reports that Colorado Governor Jared Polis (D) is on the agenda to speak to the annual meeting of the right wing American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Jennifer Berkshire says “never ceases to amaze what a powerful gateway drug charter schools are for some Dems.”
18) National/International: Let’s hear it for the completion of the bridge deck of the publicly-owned Gordie Howe International Bridge, which is now an official border crossing linking Detroit to Windsor, Ontario. “In a statement, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer applauded the workers who helped complete the bridge deck. ‘As we celebrate the completion of the bridge deck, let’s thank the ironworkers, operating engineers, and countless other Michiganders and Canadians who are working hard to get it done,’ Whitmer said.”
19) California: San Diego voters will be asked in November to approve a one-cent sales tax increase “to resolve a structural deficit and pay for a long list of infrastructure and road projects,” the Bond Buyer reports. In addition, “a separate ballot measure that would have raised millions of dollars for repairs to the city’s stormwater system was pulled Friday by its author, Council President Sean Elo-Rivera. He attributed his decision to changes to ACA1, a statewide proposition headed for the November ballot, that would have made it easier for local tax increases to pass by reducing the voter threshold to 55%, rather than two-thirds.” [Sub required]
20) California: The Inglewood people mover that would bring fans to SoFi Stadium appears to be going ahead despite problems. “Even though the federal half of the project’s expected $2 billion cost is in jeopardy, the Inglewood Transit Connector Joint Powers Authority comprised of the city and the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority, announced on Monday, its pick for a multi-member private-partner team for the project. (…) Elevate Inglewood Partners is a consortium comprised of Plenary Americas US Holdings, Inc., the private equity provider; Tutor Perini Corp., the lead contractor; Parsons Corp., the lead designer; Woojin Industrial System Co., the automated transit system operator; and Alternate Concepts, Inc., the lead operations and maintenance contractor.” [Sub required]
21) Illinois: Proposed water rate hikes are sparking outrage from suburban residents. “Other consumer advocates, like those at the Citizens Utility Board, are formally involved in the rate cases as ‘intervenors,’ meaning they can submit legal briefs challenging the utility’s claims and provide evidence that ICC commissioners might consider when making their ruling. CUB’s main legal argument against the increase is that the requested profit rate from the company—10.75%, up from 9.78%—is excessive and out of line with industry standards. CUB also argues that the company—not customers—should cover the costs for certain bonuses tied to reaching financial goals. ‘Those bonuses don’t benefit customers and yet they want them to pay for it for no reason than profit earners—the shareholders—don’t want to give up any part of the profit,’ Laura Loyd, a lawyer with CUB, said in an interview.”
22) Pennsylvania: Spotlight PA “recently investigated one private system in rural Centre County, finding that the Rock Spring Water Company, state regulators, and elected officials have failed the nearly 500 customers served by the privately owned business. Years of neglect of the system have led to crumbling infrastructure. A 2022 engineering report commissioned by Ferguson Township—where the company operates but of which the local government has no oversight—estimated that necessary repairs total $13.5 million. (…) Because Rock Spring is a private company, Ferguson Township has no oversight over the business. (…) Elizabeth Marx, executive director of the Pennsylvania Utility Law Project, a nonprofit that provides legal aid to people struggling with utility bills, said keeping rates reasonable and funding infrastructure needs is a difficult balance. Hardship grant funds and ongoing rate assistance opportunities can help consumers, but increases need to be reasonable, she said. ‘Water is not something that you can price someone out of the market for,’ Marx said.”
23) Revolving Door News: Well look here. D.J. Gribbin, the former Macquarie executive (and before that a Koch operative) who went on to serve as Trump’s chief privatization baton twirler, has been appointed to the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority by Glenn Youngkin, a former co-chief executive of the Carlyle Group, who stepped down a rung to become governor of the Old Dominion.
24) National: In a letter to the editor of The Times-Tribune (Scranton), Gerald A. Ephault of Wilkes-Barre says Project 2025 targets Veterans Administration medical services. “The recommended changes will effectively decimate the VA delivery of benefits and services to veterans. Project 2025 will drastically transform the VA from the ‘Veteran-centric’ operation it is today, to a bureaucracy operated by political appointees. The Trumpism plan, while citing efficiency and improved services, actually is a plan to utilize more community-care facilities, eliminate current federal employees and significantly reduce benefits available to veterans. Privatization is the long-term goal of outsourcing core healthcare services to private companies. Privatization will result in increased out-of-pocket costs, more time spent waiting or traveling to private care locations and inefficiencies associated with outsourced care services.”
For more see this analysis by Vibus. “Some veterans believe that the aims of Project 2025 could directly impact veterans even before any changes are implemented within the VA. In a July 9 op-ed, Michael Embrich, a veteran and former member of the Secretary of Veterans Affairs’ Advisory Committee on the Readjustment of Veterans, expressed his concerns. He argued that the proposed cuts to federal agencies like the FBI and Justice Department could ‘disproportionately affect” the 300,000 veterans who make up roughly 30% of the federal workforce.’”
25) National: Would Trump privatize weather forecasting? The Washington Post takes a look. “Among the stakes in the upcoming U.S. elections: Weather forecasts, who delivers them and what they say about links between extreme conditions and climate change. A conservative proposal drafted by the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 has ignited an intense debate this month by proposing that a Republican administration privatize weather forecasting now done by government agencies. The plan would break up the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the parent agency for the National Weather Service, describing it as “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry.” Meanwhile, a separate Republican proposal introduced in the House last year calls for transforming NOAA into an independent agency akin to NASA, a plan critics say could expose it to political influence.”
A memory jogger: Trump’s initial pick to lead NOAA was former AccuWeather CEO Barry Myers, though the Senate never confirmed his appointment and he withdrew it two years later.
26) National: In favor of public sector transparency? Well, government financial reporting costs an enormous amount of money and has to be done by someone. but we’re piling up more requirements. And these functions are being outsourced, sort of a privatization of transparency itself. As a result of heavier reporting burdens, “many governments use a third-party vendor to track their leases,” [Sharon Edmundson, director of municipal finance programs for the North Carolina League of Municipalities] explains. “It can be expensive, especially for little towns.”
27) National: A Senate Committee has voted 20-1 to issue a subpoena and open an investigation of the bankruptcy of the private equity-backed hospital network, Steward Health. “In issuing a subpoena, Senator Bernie Sanders, chair of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, said on Thursday that Steward’s owner and CEO, Dr. Ralph de la Torre, had made ‘huge sums of money’ while the company cut medical services. (…) De Le Torre had purchased a $40 million yacht, a $15 million fishing boat, and two corporate jets while hospitals under his management shut down, eliminating hundreds of jobs and reducing access to medical care in rural areas, said Sanders, an Independent who caucuses with the Democrats. (…) Sanders also blamed Steward’s former private equity owner Cerberus Capital Management for the company’s downfall, saying there could not be a clearer example of private equity owners loading a company with debt and leaving it to fall apart after their exit.”
28) National: But don’t call them prisoners, remember, they’re “detainees.” Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees are being moved into a facility operated by the private prison company CoreCivic southeast of Phoenix.
29) Florida: Four Republican pariahs want to privatize Sarasota Memorial Hospital, but word is getting out and they are getting nervous, says Florida Politics. “Four COVID-obsessed whackadoodles are running for Hospital Board with threats to privatize Sarasota Memorial Hospital—a five-star health care facility no matter how you slice it. Sure, these loons are now doing everything in their power to reverse their positions, understanding that a platform that involves hiking medical costs and forcing doctors to find work elsewhere is not exactly a winning message. The group, which includes Tamzin Rosenwasser, Stephen Guffanti, Mary O’Neill and Tanya Parus, is so nervous they are begging other elected officials in the region to join their cause. ‘By joining together, we can show the Establishment that Sarasota County is NOT FOR SALE, and their Dirty Tricks don’t work here anymore!’ an email obtained by Florida Politicsreads. I doubt Sarasota County Commissioner Joe Nuender or School Board chair Karen Rose want to be within three yards of these people.”
30) Pennsylvania: The sale of some Pittsburgh-area private nursing homes looks like it’s going to rob the workers of their back wages. “U.S. District Judge William S. Stickman IV’s ruling in Pittsburgh followed six years of government efforts to recover nearly $36 million in back wages and penalties for 5,595 hourly workers. All of those efforts may come to nothing when a hearing on the sale is held next month for the nine nursing homes, free and clear of liability. Judge Stickman ruled that Comprehensive Healthcare Management Services LLC had violated labor law by systematically shorting wages for thousands of workers at 15 area nursing homes, including the nine scheduled for the sale hearing. In recent weeks, the U.S. Department of Labor and SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania each filed objections to the sale in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, but quickly withdrew them.”
31) Virginia: Fairfax County is considering privatizing its crossing guard program. “If we went the privatization route, I think all of us could come up with 100 questions here, everything from liability to uniform training,” Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeff McKay said. “All the things we could think of here, we need to hash those out and what would look more like a proposal—not saying, ‘Hey schools, this is what we’re doing,’ but let’s go to the school system with our principled solution to this problem.’” There are no cost or operational estimates yet, so how do they know privatization would be better? They don’t.
32) Wisconsin: A controversial decision on whether to sell the Sauk County-owned nursing home remains in limbo, WISCNEWS reports. “The board voted to continue negotiations with added terms and conditions, which were not disclosed by Phillips nor McCumber. McCumber and Detter support the sale and voted to continue negotiations. ‘The purpose of the closed session was to discuss the negotiations between the county and the prospective purchaser with respect to the purchase and sale agreement and operations transfer agreement for the potential sale of the Sauk County Healthcare Center,’ said Brian Desmond, Sauk County corporation counsel.”
33) International/Canada: Resistance to efforts by the Ontario conservative administration, led by Doug Ford, to privatize public services continues. Jacobin reports that workers at the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) are worried that Ford intends to further privatize liquor sales. “As it stands, OPSEU has managed to hold off the worst effects of the government’s privatization scheme on union members, while winning modest wage increases. But the future of work at the LCBO—a Crown corporation already enfeebled by years of outsourcing and workforce restructuring—remains uncertain. The union claims that the newly inked deal ‘includes the protection of good jobs and public revenues,’ but there is reason to remain concerned. According to OPSEU, the contract will prevent LCBO retail closures and will cap the number of ‘agency stores’ (private stores licensed by the LCBO), while increasing the number of permanent, largely part-time, jobs.”
On another front in the battle against privatization in Ontario, healthcare workers rallied in Stoney Creek amid fears of privatization. Ford wants to expand CT and MRI services to private clinics. Watch the video; about two minutes.
34) National/California: Is tearing down a homeless camp in the public interest? How should we define the public interest when it comes to vagrancy laws and human rights? In light of the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing governments to remove homeless encampments and Governor Gavin Newsom’s decision to let local government decide whether to do so in California, Route Fifty has a backgrounder.
“Since the court’s decision in Johnson v. Grants Pass, many Western cities have renewed efforts to eliminate encampments. Officials in Portland, Oregon, started enforcing a new ordinance in July that carries potential penalties of up to seven days behind bars. San Francisco Mayor London Breed promised that the city would become “very aggressive and assertive in moving encampments” starting in August.
But others have stuck with the same policies they had before the decision. A new Oregon state law limits local governments’ options for clearing out encampments.”
There is a long history to this controversy. For background see Vagrant Nation: Police Power, Constitutional Change, and the Making of the 1960s by Risa Goluboff, and this interview in the ABA Journal of Goluboff. Listen to the oral arguments in the Grants Pass case.