People are not "human capital"

A well funded, anti-public school organization, called Education Reform Now,
is a "think tank" that is trying to sell the public (and the legislators we elect) on ending public education in this country. They want to "open the market" in education and get as much of our tax dollars as possible into the hands of corporate CEO's. And to this end, they use the civil rights movement and the achievement gap in their own interests.


To add insult to injury, they have a training camp that perpetuates their warped ideas, and reduces education to insulting pseudo business terms. Unbelievably, they use the very same term for teachers as the slave traders used during triangle trade: human capital. In this Harvard Business School article the author states, " These account books played a role in reducing slaves to 'human capital,' Rosenthal says, allowing owners who were removed from day-to-day operations to see their slaves as assets, as interchangeable units of production in a ledger, instead of as people." 

 She continues, "If today we are using management techniques that were also used on slave plantations," she says, "how much more careful do we need to be? How much more do we need to think about our responsibility to people?"

There is not a single member of the Education Reform Now board with education training or experience. They are, however, big in venture capital, business, and apparently charity poker tournaments.

Check out their staff, too. No friends of public education in sight. This group, and many others are NOT looking out for children. They are experts in making money, not educating future generations of American children.

Be aware of groups like this & watch for the jargon. Make sure that your children's teachers are treated with appreciation & respect, and not in the dehumanizing ways of "human capital."