By Guest Blogger George Thompson

Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine, outlines how “disaster capitalism” is geared to quickly take advantage of crises as opportunities to expand areas of profitable corporate activity. She cites how the New Orleans crisis brought about by Hurricane Katrina was instantly seized upon as an opportunity to replace public schools with for-profit charters:

“In sharp contrast to the glacial pace with which the levees were repaired and the electricity grid was brought back online, the auctioning off of New Orleans’ school system took place with military speed and precision. Within nineteen months, with most of the city’s poor residents still in exile, New Orleans’ public school system had been almost completely replaced by privately run charter schools. Before Hurricane Katrina, the school board had run 123 public schools; now it ran just 4. Before that storm, there had been 7 charter schools in the city; now there were 31. New Orleans teachers used to be represented by a strong union; now the union’s contract had been shredded, and its forty-seven hundred members had all been fired. Some of the younger teachers were rehired by the charters, at reduced salaries; most were not.” (The Shock Doctrine, page 5, by Naomi Klein)

Thus, Katrina provided the “perfect storm” needed for privatization. Could the closure of 170 schools in Ontario due to declining enrolment be the “perfect storm” needed for privatization to come to the rescue here?

“Planning and Possibilities”, the Ontario government’s “Report on the Declining Enrolment” cites how declining enrolment has been seized upon as an opportunity to actually improve schools in England, Scotland and Australia. While it does not suggest anything as radical as charter schools, as we saw in New Orleans, we do see the hitherto radical and unthought of idea of PPP (public private partneship schools) suddenly being explored as part of the “mandate”.

“As part of our mandate, we examined issues related to partnerships (1) between and among schools and school boards and (2) between schools or boards and other municipal and provincial services at both the local and regional levels, including volunteer agencies.”

(http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/policyfunding/DEWG.pdf)

The terms “municipal and provincial services” sound like government services, but it is in fact the kind of deliberately nebulous statement which tells business leaders that the door is being left open to the possibility that such services could be provided from outside of the public school system. And, while the use of “volunteer agencies” is commendable in matters of charity, the fact remains that any external sponsorship of education undermines the autonomy of the public, democratically controlled education system so that private forces can easily move in.

One of the key groups consulted by the Declining Enrolment Working Group was the OASBO (Ontario Association of School Business Officers), who, in their newsletter, did not fail to see “opportunites”. Bill Blackie, the Executive Director of OASBO, explains, in The Advocate:

“This concept of partnerships is one of the strategic directions of OASBO and was also identified in the report of the Economic Crisis Summit of the Association of School Business Officials International (ASBO) held in December 2008. In this report they specifically identify a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) as a viable enterprise if it can be a true partnership where there is a shared stake in the outcome. Boards and their senior staff may need to consider making overtures to potential business partners and service providers that could share sites, or processes that would produce a benefit to both partners.” (http://www.oasbo.org/admin/eZeditor/files/f_9_June2009.pdf)

The future is looking especially rosy for technology corporations, for “The declining enrolment working group also made reference to the need to examine the expanded role of technology in delivering programs. This too might be an area to consider for partnerships…”

–from “The Advocate” newsletter June, 2009

Indeed: the term “e-learning” occurs 25 times in the 78 page report. According to Patricia Burch’s, Hidden Markets: the New Education Privatization, e-learing is one of the most successful levers for private industry to gain a foothold in public schools, due to the low expense, compared to building schools. Virtual schools have gained a lot of momentum with massive assistance from the computer giants who have invested billions to undermine the Amercian public education system through their support of both charters and virtual charters:

“The technology …allows for-profit firms to expand sales without increases in capital costs. The firm can expand its enrolment in one year without having to purchase or lease a school facility. The firm also can expand its enrolment without necessarily having to hire more staff. In virtual schools, one instructor can be assigned to 40 to 60 students without attracting very much attention. The public cannot readily see the classroom and the overflow. Further, in some states, the instructors hired do not need to be certified and they do not need to be full time. This allows the firm to keep personnel costs down and increase profits.” (Hidden Markets 80)

Blackie’s article in the OASBO newsletter is entitled “A Perfect Storm” with reference to the fact that the economic downturn, coupled with the provincial increase in teacher pay (12% over four years), has created a funding shortfall. When added to the challenge of closing so many schools the result is “opportunity.” From the point of view of for-profit organizations wishing to make permanent inroads into the public education system, we can now see why Blackie’s article is titled “A Perfect Storm”:

“The storm we face is a potential driving force to move the operations of business functions to a new and expanded level. If we can capture some of these opportunities, the business functions in education will emerge as a vital and integral part of a new education environment.”