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Or - the graduation rate would stay the same, and schools would be asset-stripped so that most of those 38k would flow to shareholders rather than school budget
by toyg 3y ago
Or - the graduation rate would stay the same, and schools would be asset-stripped so that most of those 38k would flow to shareholders rather than school budgets.
There are plenty of examples of mediocre public services getting privatized and becoming even worse, from a capital-efficiency perspective (e.g. UK railways, UK water...). Private companies are out to make a profit, and efficiency is just a mean to it; if there are other means, even to the detriment of what should be their core mission, they will pursue those means.
The real objective is both empowering, motivating, and holding accountable the middle-management layers of essential public services: administrators, teachers, railway workers, etc. Privatization doesn't magically do that. Creating a competitive system doesn't require corporate profits.
- masfuerte 3y agoAnother example of this: in the UK the government pays as much as £250,000 per year for severely autistic young people to be looked after in private homes and hospitals. Many of these were funded by private equity. They take huge profits and the level of care is disgraceful. Even when the patients are not being actively abused [1] they are not receiving any care as such. The homes and hospitals are little better than prisons. [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/apr/24/learning-disabled-autistic-neglect-uk-institutional-abuse https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/apr/24/learni...
- ryandrake 3y agoThis always always seems to happen, and the people never wise up. Government acts as a money funnel to private companies, who pocket as much as they can as profit and provide the most criminally minimal service they can get away with. And every time it happens and the people are ripped off, the answer is always “even moar privatization.”