My kids went to a school where I saw some really bad snowplow parenting and I often thought that they were not doing their kids a favor. That they would not be able to deal with life without mommy and daddy's help. Now I look back and realize that this is as much about the parents themselves and not so much about their kids and I think, how pathetic. 

I saw some really bad snowplow parenting and I often thought that they were not doing their kids a favor

no, enabling children, adolescents,and young adults, will only create an environment where as no favor is, was, or will be, the better method to teach some extremely valuable life lessons to these children,  enabled.

We are preparing another generation of lazy, where ass they seem pretty damn sure, the world owes them something , for all the Nothing, they've achieved.

That they would not be able to deal with life without mommy and daddy's help

We are most definitely seeing the effects of that today and its not good.

Not good at all.

I see it every day in the workforce i'm trying to hire.   A latent "entitled" mentality that generally did not exist in previous generations.

I see it every day in the workforce i'm trying to hire. 

I have notice that many of my younger co-workers lack social skills in the workplace.  They don't seem to know how to navigate interpersonal skills or just choose to be rude.   Sure it comes from the same place of feeling "entitled".  

Latent?   Hell ingrained from birth is more like it.

I know but i'm trying to be a kinder, gentler me .....

They have no idea how to have an actual verbal encounter with another human being.

GM X,

Exactly, a simple Good Morning seems to be difficult for them.  When I say it, I  get a grumbled "Good Morning" in return.  

For the most part, they have no concept of work as they've never been required to do any 'household' chores.

I've coached youth sports for many years now. There are kids that are eager to put in the hard work still. However, each passing year, its been my observation that the number of kids that simply expect to show up and have something handed to them increases. Being coached is offensive. That's the way things are progressing. Forget working a job. Putting effort into something that is fun is a chore. "Coach, really, I'm fine with hitting everything on the hands, and not being able to catch up to the high/inside pitch...sheesh."

I have seen both. I have seen good kids that come from nothing.

One boy I know was trying to join the Navy. Poor kid was real skinny and had a hard time making the weight requirement. He finally did.

I have seen a lot of them working and going to school.

I do know two kids that have never done anything for themselves. Neither of them will work and expect mommy/daddy to give them a credit card. The one girl refuses to work, failed and out college and was pissed that her BMW SUV was older than she wanted.

It is the way they were raised. There are a lot of good kids out there though.

I have seen good kids that come from nothing.

Have many have you seen that came from nothing and joined the .01 percent or the 1 percent?

Who ever has and how did they do it?

There are a lot of good kids out there though.

I totally agree.   I know quite a few actually.

A very concise word that I've come to use is narcissistic....

1. a person who has an excessive interest in or admiration of themselves.

   "narcissists who think the world revolves around them"

It gets you 90% of the way there, but there is still something missing....

Regards

I and my siblings had help from our millionaire parents. It's all about the best education you can buy.

Have many have you seen that came from nothing and joined the .01 percent or the 1 percent?

Oprah.

Have many have you seen that came from nothing and joined the .01 percent or the 1 percent?

Who ever has and how did they do it?

In the business world, not so many

But what about professional athletes who rake in YUGE sums of money?

Athletes...as well as some popular musicians.

Have many have you seen that came from nothing and joined the .01 percent or the 1 percent?

Who ever has and how did they do it?

In the business world, not so many

But what about professional athletes who rake in YUGE sums of money?

Athletes...as well as some popular musicians.

Actually some folks from poor families did make it in other fields as well:

21 billionaires who grew up poor

Here are a few from that article:

• Starbucks founder Howard Schultz grew up in a housing complex for the poor. Net worth: $2.9 billion
• John Paul DeJoria, the man behind a hair-care empire and Patron Tequila, once lived in a foster home and his car. Net worth: $3.2 billion
• Forever 21 founder Do Won Chang worked as a janitor, gas station attendant, and in a coffee shop when he first moved to America.  Net worth: $3.3 billion
• At one time, businessman Shahid Khan washed dishes for $1.20 an hour. Net worth: $7 billion
• Legendary trader George Soros survived the Nazi occupation of Hungary and arrived in London as an impoverished college student. Net worth: $8 billion
• Luxury goods mogul Francois Pinault quit high school in 1974 after being bullied for being poor. Net worth: $32.7 billion
• College dropout Sheldon Adelson grew up sleeping on the floor of a Boston tenement house. Net worth: $38.1 billion
• Oracle's Larry Ellison dropped out of college after his adoptive mother died and held odd jobs for eight years.  Net worth: $60.2 billion

(Note: None of these folks are millionaires-- rather they are billionaires! )

But what about professional athletes who rake in YUGE sums of money? Athletes...as well as some popular musicians.

Isn't being selected to play pro sports or achieving huge wealth in the entertainment industry pretty much the same as winning the lottery?

How many pros have short lived careers and/or wind up broke within a few years of becoming unemployed?

I didn't see a lot of snowplow parenting or helicoptering when I went to college in the early 80's but my first college roommate couldn't do her own laundry. She went home every other weekend just so Mommy could do her wash.

My mother would have cuffed me alongside my head if I dragged my dirty clothes home

I think she would have been better off if her mother had taught her to wash her clothes before she went off to college, but that's just me. I had to do chores when I was growing up.

Called TOD (time of death) on both mom and dad. As the medical guy in the family it was up to me. 

According to Chase Manhattan Bank I am a member of the top 1% of Americans financially. Just Barely! I must be the poorest member of the 1% because my lifetime savings only affords me a barely comfortable middle-class retirement in NY and my net worth is not even close to 1% of the wealth of the truly wealthy at the very very top. The 1% threshold, again according to Chase Manhattan Bank, is about the very lowest of possible seven figures which I am sure you can attest would not even put one into the upper middle class in Manhattan. What this means is that out in the real world 99% of all American families do not have a total net worth of just one million Yankee dollars including their homes, other assets and their total life savings. In fact, the average, or median, American family does not even have an appreciable net worth at all. About half of all American families today are, in reality, "Technical Bankrupts". Most all totaled actually really owe more than the the market value of all they own. So, no wonder there is mounting frustration among the masses regarding the concentration of nearly all of our cumulative wealth into the hands of mere dozens of families. Each of Sam Walton's six surviving primary heirs are now estimated to be 50-100 times richer than The Frigging Queen of Frigging England...

I knew Sam Walton. Sam was a customer of mine back in the late 1970's. Sam had big ambitions but I do not think he could have ever imagined or envisioned that we would over time adopt tax laws so regressive and top end preferential that our current unfair and inequitable distribution of wealth would evolve thanks to Reagan's and the damn gop's misbegotten supply side trickle down voodoo economic tax policies over these last 40 years.

With our current disparity between everyone else and the truly truly wealthy, multi-multi millionaires and billionaires, it is not surprising that those at the very top have become adept at leveraging their advantages for themselves and their children. In other new, shares in Guillotines Inc hit new highs yesterday...

If the redistribution of wealth is such a bad bad thing, according to the gop, then why in Hell did we employ the gop's unenlightened misbegotten ill advised bassackwards unfair and inequitable dumbass trickle down voodoo economic supply side tax policies to systematically transfer more and more and more of all our cumulative national wealth to the already unconscionably wealthy over the last generation?

I coached for 26 years.  I finally got to the point where I would ask the mommies.... "When we go to the weight room, do you intend to lift the weights for him, too?"

Things will probably not get better until the affluent can appreciate their common ground with the rest of us and see that the superwealthy for what they are: the killer of dreams for us all.

They're all going to be screaming "You're a socialist, Perrie!"

They're all going to be screaming "You're a socialist, Perrie!"

LOL.. I just got around to reading the commentary here, Trout. 

Really, this is not so much about money as it is about the attitude that kids are brought up with. While I did send my kids to a school, filled of entitled kids, we didn't raise ours that way. We told them that they would go to the college they earned ( or none at all, if that was the case). We gave them chores around the house and if they were not done, no allowance. They later worked as babysitters and tutored other kids. I am not bragging when I tell people that they went to Johns Hopkins on a full ride, since it really had nothing to do with us, other than teaching them the value of hard work. 

There were a few other kids like them, and they are doing well, but so many are still depending on their parents to live. 

The seeded article isnt really about "snowplow" parenting or kids who feel entitled. It is about economic inequality.

Things will probably not get better until the affluent can appreciate their common ground with the rest of us and see that the superwealthy for what they are: the killer of dreams for us all.

That's because the usual suspects only want to discuss "the Dreaded Millenial"

I'm beginning to think that none of them have kids of their own

Oh, I know. I remember my parent's generation looking at my generation with scorn and fear (dear god, what have we wrought)

Oh, I know. I remember my parent's generation looking at my generation with scorn and fear (dear god, what have we wrought)

Me too! I didn't walk miles in the snow to go to school.

The seeded article isnt really about "snowplow" parenting or kids who feel entitled. It is about economic inequality.

Exactly.

And unsurprisingly, a tangent against the working class kids for not having a proper minion attitude to the uber wealthy ensued.  

The income of the .01 percent comes largely from capital gains, which are taxed at a far lower rate than income earned from working. As their stock portfolios grow bigger, these folks are able to get wealthier and wealthier by doing absolutely nothing.

Where is the outrage about the .01 percent raking in their wealth by exploiting the labor of the 99.99 percent? 

Unions were very bad for the .01 percent.  Hence, they have been almost eliminated in the US.  

A good example of work force exploitation is how this country treats it public school teachers and the move to privatize education in this country.    Research charter schools.  Our children's education should not be a source of profit for Wall Street or in the hands of the .01 percent.

Unions were very bad for the .01 percent.  Hence, they have been almost eliminated in the US.

That's BS.   I've been in and working around Unions for over 40 years and they have largely done it to themselves.   It had little to nothing to do with the .01%

A good example of work force exploitation is how this country treats it public school teachers and the move to privatize education in this country.

Same story.   Many public schools are failing in their mission.   One of the reasons is unreasonable Teacher Union rules and practices.   Competition is good.   Make the playing field even and may the system that teaches our kids the best win.   If that is Public schools?   More power to em!

But no more free lunch for Public School systems?   That's a good thing.

Make the playing field even

If the playing field was even, then all schools would have to operate to the same standard,  This is not, and never has been, the case with charter schools.    

I have researched this subject for years because of the move to move public education (taxpayer money) to Wall Street profiteers and their ilk.  IOW, people who do not have a social conscience of any kind when it comes to their own income.

in-perspective

Laws pertaining to charter schools vary from state to state. According to the nonpartisan Education Commission of the States, charter school teachers must be certified in 14 states and in Puerto Rico; certification is not required in Arizona or the District of Columbia while Louisiana requires only a baccalaureate degree; certification is required under specific conditions, with exceptions, or can be waived in 26 states . ²

According to the U.S. Department of Education’s Schools and Staffing Survey, charter school teachers on average differ from public school teachers in several ways.

Charter school teachers tend to be:

• Younger:   The average age of charter school teachers was 37, whereas the average age of traditional public school teachers was 43.

• Less educated:   48 percent of traditional public school teachers had master’s degrees, whereas 37 percent of charter school teachers had master’s degrees.

• Less experienced:   On average, charter school teachers had nine years of teaching experience, whereas public school teachers had 14 years.

• Newer to their schools:   Charter school teachers had been at their current schools for an average of 3.6 years, whereas traditional public school teachers had been at theirs for an average of 8.1 years.

• Paid less:   Traditional public school teachers’ average salary was $53,400, whereas charter school teachers’ average salary was $44,500. It is possible that charter school teachers’ salaries are lower because they tend to have worked for fewer years at their current schools. However, the Schools and Staffing Survey does not provide salary data by seniority level. Note also that some charter schools pay teachers markedly higher salaries. ³

• More racially diverse:   Charter school teachers were more likely to be black, Hispanic or Asian and less likely to be white than traditional public school teachers.

• Equally likely to get professional development:   99 percent of traditional public school teachers participated in some type of professional development, and 98.3 percent of charter school teachers did so.

• Focused on different types of professional development:   Higher percentages of charter school teachers took professional development in student discipline and classroom management, teaching English-language learners and teaching students with disabilities. Higher percentages of traditional public school teachers took professional development in the subjects they teach and in use of computers. ⁴

Are you speaking of the teachers that demand unrealistic raises

What is an unrealistic raise?

How does that compare to a man raking in $10,000,000 on capital gains by exploiting workers' wages?  

When does that become unrealistic?

I've been in and working around Unions for over 40 years and they have largely done it to themselves.  

How so?

The profits for the .01 percent has been on a steady incline while the wages of everyone else have been falling.  Seems like there might be a correlation.

And if the "worker" feels abused or neglected in their current situation, they have two options.  Quit and find employment elsewhere, or put their money where their mouth is and start their own company.

Or option 3, join with the other wage slaves and demand better treatment.

The first unions were created by women who were exploited by their employer.

Hopefully, the US will never experience another day when the employer can hire guns to kill exploited workers or send in the state militia to defend mistreatment of workers....

pbs

A lot more than 2,000 miles separated the Rockefeller estate from Southern Colorado when on Monday April 20, 1914, the first shot was fired at Ludlow. One of history's most dramatic confrontations between capital and labor — the so-called Ludlow Massacre — took place at the mines of the Rockefeller-owned Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I).

The face-off raged for 14 hours, during which the miners' tent colony was pelted with machine gun fire and ultimately torched by the state militia. A number of people were killed, among them two women and 11 children who suffocated in a pit they had dug under their tent. The deaths were blamed on John D. Rockefeller, Jr. For years, he would struggle to redress the situation — and strengthen the Rockefeller social conscience in the process.

October 21, 1913: Lamont Bowers to Rockefeller
Our net earnings would have been the largest in the history of the company by $200,000 but for the increase in wages paid the employees during the last few months. With everything running so smoothly and with an excellent outlook for 1914, it is mighty discouraging to have this vicious gang come into our state and not only destroy our profit but eat into that which has heretofore been saved.

October 1913: Federal mediator Ethelbert Stewart comments on the situation
Theoretically, perhaps, the case of having nothing to do in this world but work, ought to have made these men of many tongues, as happy and contented as the managers claim … To have a house assigned you to live in … to have a store furnished you by your employer where you are to buy of him such foodstuffs as he has, at a price he fixes … to have churches, schools … and public halls free for you to use for any purpose except to discuss politics, religion, trade-unionism or industrial conditions; in other words, to have everything handed down to you from the top; to be … prohibited from having any thought, voice or care in anything in life but work, and to be assisted in this by gunmen whose function it was, principally, to see that you did not talk labor conditions with another man who might accidentally know your language — this was the contented, happy, prosperous condition out of which this strike grew … That men have rebelled grows out of the fact that they are men.

But, if you want an answer, go ask Bill Gates, or maybe Elon Musk or any of the other millionaires/billionaires that risked THEIR money to build a company that is making OTHERS personal monetary fortunes.

Are you claiming that Bill Gates and Elon Musk actually work 24 hours a day to build and transport products and put them on the shelves?

Where are the profits for the people who are actually doing the work to implement the ideas of engineers?

Would you prefer everyone be equally miserable in squalor? 

I would prefer that no one wastes their life being miserable and/or living in squalor.

How about you?

Not sure how any of that equates to an unlevel playing field.   A lot of it simply makes sense.   Like teacher age.   Most public schools have been around for many decades so average teacher age would be higher.   Most Charter school have been around for only a couple of decades or less so teacher age would tend to be lower.   Not sure how that equates to a lower standard though.

Bill Gates

more on what Bill Gates actually does.  It appears that he profits from the skills of his workers who design write code and develop new products.

We really really need to teach people who innovate to patent their own work and quit signing agreements with companies to own their workers' intellectual properties.

en.wikipedia During Microsoft's early history, Gates was an active software developer, particularly in the company's  programming language  products, but his basic role in most of the company's history was primarily as a manager and executive. Gates has not officially been on a development team since working on the  TRS-80 Model 100 , ^[69]  but as late as 1989 he wrote code that shipped with the company's products. ^[67]  

Not sure how that equates to a lower standard though.

If you really care and want to know then research it.  If not, then don't.  It is pointless for me to discuss a subject  with someone who does not care enough to do their own research on at least a basic level.

There was a movie made about Bill Gates and how he managed to become the "entrepreneur" he is today.

First he went to IBM selling them an operating system that he didn't really have. He sold them on the idea. Then he found a man who designed an operating system, bought it from him for $50,000 then went back to IBM and showed them his "product".

He never designed MS-DOS....somebody else did

He never designed MS-DOS....somebody else did

Everything Microsoft has been attributed to Bill Gates as if he is the computer god.

Interesting to know the facts that he is just another scavenger (born with a silver spoon) with an ability to recognize other people's talent and exploit it for self gain.  Thank you.   

while the wages of everyone else have been falling

Common liberal talking point and not true.   Since 1960 US wages have grown over 6% a year on average.   Sure their have been downswings but it has always recovered.   One can extrapolate from the data that the "increase percentage per year" is on a downward trend.   But to say that wages have been falling is disingenuous.    Generally speaking they have not on average.

tradingeconomics

Common liberal talking point and not true.   Since 1960 US wages have grown over 6% a year on average. 

Even your own link doesn't say 6% average, it says it has been 4.2% growth on average including all the top 1% earners salaries and isn't adjusted for inflation.

"The latest hypothetical real (inflation-adjusted) annual earnings are at $38,942, down 11.6% from 45-plus years ago."

advisorperspectives

"today’s real average wage (that is, the wage after accounting for inflation) has about the same purchasing power it did 40 years ago. And what wage gains there have been have mostly flowed to the highest-paid tier of workers."

pewresearch

We really really need to teach people who innovate to patent their own work and quit signing agreements with companies to own their workers' intellectual properties.

People have always been free to do just that or to not sign agreements they are uncomfortable with.   No one is forcing them to    And If they didn't need a companies resources to create and patent their own work why would they do it?   Are they all stupid or something?

It's how they system works.   People profit by getting paid to do their assigned work.   Thats their portion of the company profits that comes from their labors.   Doesn't really matter what the job is.   Picking up trash or building rockets.   Everyone get gets paid for their efforts.   If one isn't happy with ones pay, they are free to seek other, potentially more profitable work.

I've never really fully understood some folks dislike towards successful businesses that create jobs for everyone.   Why shouldn't they profit from their endeavors just like anyone else who makes a wage?

Even your own link doesn't say 6% average,

Sure it does.   Read it again.

Everyone get gets paid for their effort

So a millionaire/billionaire who makes money by exploiting the labor of others are just getting paid for their labor?

LOL ..... nice cop out.

Have nice day!

So i guess by your definition, everyone who has employees ..... is "exploiting" them.   Right?

Just be thankful there are people willing to go through all the BS required to start and run businesses.   There is no guarantee of success when they do.   No guaranteed paycheck like an employee gets and there is also a reason most of them fail within the first few years.

Both good public schools and kids who don't have empty tummies because they are poor is important. It is not an either or and it doesn't have to be. 

Charter schools have been around for about 30 years, so that is not why they get younger teachers. I am not sure why they do, but I will tell you that experience in the class makes for a more efficient and effective teacher. In fact, studies have shown that classroom management is just as important as being able to convey information to the students.

When we used to have "Teach for America" kids come in and try to teach our students, they would last a few weeks and quit. They didn't have either of those traits that I made bold.

So i guess by your definition, everyone who has employees ..... is "exploiting" them.   Right?

Wrong.

However, the majority of the people who rake in over $10 million a year do not work.  

whorulesamerica.ucsc (But it's important to note that for the rich, most of that income does not come from "working": in 2008, only 19% of the income reported by the 13,480 individuals or families making over $10 million came from wages and salaries. See Norris, 2010, for more details.)

Make the playing field even and may the system that teaches our kids the best win. 

At the cost of 100s of millions of dollar to taxpayers when the the charters go bankrupt because they don't want to invest the money required to buy and/or build building to operate their business?  Not only did these children not get an education, the public school district was deprived of the taxpayer money that was funneled to the business owners.

Our children's education and our country's future should not be in hands of people operating schools for their own profit.

Public education should not be a for profit enterprise.  If there is room for profit, then there is room to use that same money to directly benefit the teachers and students via public school.

Below is just one example of the fraud that has been ongoing since the legalization of charter schools that was signed in to law by Clinton back in the 1990s.

edsource

Tri-Valley operated in two districts in Northern California, east of San Francisco. It had two schools in Livermore in Alameda County and two schools in Stockton in San Joaquin County. The Alameda County district attorney was already investigating Tri-Valley when the state’s Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team completed an audit in June. That report concluded that charter school executives had conflicts of interest and that the organization had commingled funds, including the use of “bonds totaling over $67 million to purchase land and buildings under the pretext that the acquisition was for a public charter school.” Tri-Valley filed for bankruptcy in June, the same month its schools were closed.

The scale of the alleged misappropriation of funds at Tri-Valley is raising larger issues about how to ensure that public money for charter schools is not misspent. In its 2015   report,  “Risking Public Money: California Charter School Fraud,” the San Francisco-based nonprofit law firm Public Advocates estimated losses of more than $100 million due to fraud for that year.

Assemblyman Patrick O’Donnell, chairman of the Assembly Education Committee, is among those calling for more charter school transparency. For example, he told EdSource last week that charter schools need standardized financial management systems, such as common software, to share   their   data with the school districts that oversee their operations.

“It’s clear that the statutory framework in this state has been reactive and not proactive,” O’Donnell said.

Representatives of the California Charter Schools Association disagree.

The Livermore Valley Joint Unified School District tried to address fiscal management problems at Tri-Valley by sending 22 notices of concern in 2016, district Superintendent Kelly Bowers told the committee. But the district needed stronger intervention tools, she said.

“We only have the revocation process to hold charters accountable but it’s a long process that can be appealed,” Bowers said.

It’s not the first time the charter association has attempted to influence legislation related to governance. The association has, since 2008, lobbied to help defeat five bills that would have made charter schools subject to open meeting and conflict of interest laws. Supporters of the bills said such legislation would reduce charter school fraud. Two of those bills were actually passed by the Legislature. Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed one of them in 2014 and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the other in 2010.

Taxpayers have lost roughly $1 BILLION to fraud and waste in the charter school sector.

Is that the kind of "level playing field" that you support?

forbes

In 1994, the Charter School Fund was added to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA); in 1995 it began dispersing federal funds to states so that states could use the money to pilot charter schools. Since then, the CSP has handed over about $4 billion to support charter schools, and there are supposed to be   some federal guidelines attached   to the process.

But  a new report from the Network for Public Education   charges that roughly $1 billion of that has been lost to fraud and waste in the charter school sector. Findings of the report were brought to the attention of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos during this week's hearings; her responses were not encouraging.

Confronted during hearings this week with this report's findings that one in three of the charters that CSP helped fund have shut down or never opened,  Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos said she thought there should be more charters, not fewer . Even if you agree with that assertion, surely the price of having a few good charters cannot be hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars simply paid into the void, never to be recovered and never to be used to provide for the service for which they were intended.

Make the playing field even

Charter schools in Philadelphia are bringing back segregation and cherry picking their students. 

Is that example of making the playing field even?  Should charter schools be allowed to discriminate when they are supposed operating as a public school on taxpayer money?

philly

Philadelphia’s charter schools serve a more affluent and advantaged population than do its traditional public schools, according to a new report by the Education Law Center, which questioned whether the charters are complying with civil rights laws.

The report, issued Thursday, said city charter schools enrolled a smaller share of economically disadvantaged students — 54 percent, compared with 70 percent in district schools. It also found fewer students with severe disabilities and one-third as many English language learners in charters, along with higher levels of racial isolation.

The report limited its analysis to 58 “traditional” charter schools, which are publicly funded but independently run schools serving the district. Philadelphia has 87 in total, including ones that took over existing neighborhood schools — so-called Renaissance charters — and draw students from specific neighborhoods.

“As a whole, traditional charter schools in Philadelphia are failing to ensure equitable access for all students,” said the report. It said "the conduct of these charters raises systemic concerns about the extent to which they are compliant with federal and state laws protecting the civil rights of students with disabilities."

The report   recommended that the school board — which, like others across Pennsylvania, is tasked with overseeing charter schools — make equitable access a focus during its evaluations of charters.

Reynelle Brown Staley, policy director for the law center, said she believed it was the first time such an analysis had been done in Philadelphia. It was issued at the request of the new school board, which   rejected three applications for new charter schools   Thursday.

The board — appointed by Mayor Jim Kenney last year as the city took back control of its schools from the state — indicated it is looking critically at the role of charters, which enroll one-third, or 70,000, of Philadelphia public-school students.

Charter schools have been around for about 30 years,

Not quite, while the first “Charter school” in the US did start around 1992 most of them are much newer than that.     Regardless, the machine that is the “Public School” systems has been around for much longer.   Hundreds of years in many urban areas.    That lends itself to an older work force as people have had longer to work towards retirement.

That said, my main point here is it’s good for the Public school system to have the competition.    Many public schools are clearly failing our kids so the charter school option is good so folks have a choice.

Its competition, the American way, let the chips fall where they may.     

I see, so who decides who is exploiting their employees?    You?

At what point is it exploitation?    10 million?    So I guess the guy making 9.99 million is okay eh?    No?    Then how much is “okay?”

Nah, your comments hold no water    They’re just rationalizations against the man.    That’s all.

How about the billions, maybe trillions, taxpayers have lost on failing public school systems?     We spend significantly more per student than most other countries but don’t get a significantly better result.    In fact our results are substandard in many cases in spite of spending so much more.

Thats the main reason Charter schools started in the first place.     Public schools are failing our kids.

If that weren’t true I doubt Charter schools would be much of a force today.

This is pretty simple.    

I’m for school choice.    You are not.    

You want everyone to be hamstrung to, in many cases, failing public school systems.    I don’t.

Noted .....

Charter schools are failing our kids.  Funds getting embezzled.  Betsy Devos wants to privatize public education and funnel all those millions and millions of taxpayer dollars to these charter schools when these funds should be going to public education.  

Nonsense.  Complete and utter nonsense.  

Charter schools are failing our kids.

Some are, most are not.   Same is true for Public schools so whats you point?

  Funds getting embezzled.

Funds are getting "embezzled" by public teacher unions every day ....

  Betsy Devos wants to privatize public education and funnel all those millions and millions of taxpayer dollars to these charter schools when these funds should be going to public education.

Good job Betsy.   Working to offer Americans a choice.  

Freedom of choice.   The stuff America was built on.

Lol .... the only nonsense here is your post.   Why do you even bother responding with drivel like that?

Bad job Betsy, bad job.  

'This is pretty simple.    

I’m for school choice.    You are not.    

You want everyone to be hamstrung to, in many cases, failing public school systems.    I don’t.

Noted .....'

This is the nonsense I was referring to.  

And a nanny nanny boo boo to you too

One persons nonsense is many, many, many, many peoples common sense .... over in the many camp we all have hope that someday the one's might learn that.

No, i'm all for Public schools but they can't have a blank check to keep failing.   Many have proven time and time again they are failng our kids.    Charter schools would have never even started had Public schools not failed to adequately educate.   Throwing more money at it doesn't usually work as proven by many big city public schools.   Most are paying significantly more per student and not getting a significantly better result.

Something had to be done.   The option of another school, other than a failing public school, is a good option by any reasonable definition.   Yeah, teacher unions don't like it much.   Understandable.   It threatens their decades old monopoly.

If funding is diverted in any way from public to private, by that logic, you may as well privatize everything. 

There is an element of our society that is working to do just that. If they get their way, we will all have to pay a toll to drive on a road or a bridge just to get to work every day.

They don't have a blank check.

It seems Devos wants a blank check to go to failing charter schools.  

They don't have a blank check.

True.   Not anymore.   Not since Charter Schools became an option.

It seems Devos wants a blank check to go to failing charter schools.

Nope, wrong again.   Unlike Public schools if they fail, they go out of business.   Done, finito, gone.  No muss, no fuss, no astronomical unfunded liabilities for tax payers to be burdened with at a later date.

When the charter school funds are embezzled away, students show up to a school that has been closed with no options.  

So no muss, no fuss for the students right?

networkforpubliceducation

latimes

latimes

justice

abqjournal

upnorthprogressive

patch

There's just a few.  

And there is the debate and i disagree with your stance.  

The Charter schools i speak of are not private schools of choice by say religion.   Thats the distinction.   Thats why its different.

They are a private school, offering the same secular education as public schools.   The people sending them there are paying taxes just like everyone else.  

So why should their tax dollars go to public schools?

Same thing that happens when a public school fails and closes.

You do know Public schools fail and close each year right.

Or perhaps you don't ......

Here you go sister:

nces.ed

Enjoy!

I agree, they should be open to the same scrutiny.   A equal and fair scrutiny, same as any Public school.

In Michigan the same laws apply to Charters school and Public schools.   As it should be.

Again, Charter schools are required to follow all the same laws and rules as public schools.   That means no discrimination.   They must accept all that apply if they have room for them.

There is a lot of misinformation being spread out there by politicians and union adherents.     Some folks are more interested in bagging on Betsy Devos than dealing with facts.

Yes they are tuition free.   Yes, there is usually a waiting list due the popularity of them.    If that happens the students get entered into a lottery so that is one drawback.   The reason is they don't have the luxury of tax funded facilities like Public school so they do have some limitations.

Interestingly last i checked, in Michigan they get about 20 to 30% less per student than public schools get.

Thanks to you as well.   It's nice to have a reasonable conversation here.   It happens so little these days.   Lots of trolls guarding their bridges i guess.

I love this time of year.   Nothing better than March madness.   I have three brackets with State winning two of them.   Both will be chicken dinner if i do.   The other one ... not so much.   I had Gonzaga in that one but North Carolina and Duke losses crushed many, many more brackets.

I'm really looking forward to some great basketball Saturday and Monday.   Not much getting down at my casa on those days.    Much to the chagrin of some of my casa's other occupants. 

GO GREEN!

Thats the main reason Charter schools started in the first place.

Public schools have more scrutiny and higher government accountability than charter schools.  Public schools MUST accept all of the students in their district.  Charter schools can choose who to accept.  The charter schools do not have to accept the immigrant children who do not understand English and hire bilingual teachers  in the same ways that the public schools do.

Regardless of a person's stance on illegal / legal immigration, the cost of public schools for educating children that do not speak and/or understand English is a major burden on US school systems that did not exist until recent years.

Many of the charter schools in states with a large immigrant population were started to educate the children who do not speak English.

As taxpayers, we should know how our money is being spent and what the results are in order to gauge how effective our education system really is.

In no way, should public education be a for profit business because after our education is thoroughly privatized the business owners will be raising their rates (our taxes) so their business turns a better profit.

We bailed out the banksters & Wall Street in 2008.  There is no way that these folks can be trusted to be in charge  in any way about our children's education.

You do know Public schools fail and close each year right.

Due to NCLB legislation (signed by GW Bush) that took funds from public schools that needed help and funneled that money to privatized schools.

neatoday

Closing public schools not only has a negative impact on student performance but also creates hardship for communities already struggling with disinvestment, according to   Linda Darling-Hammond,   who moderated one of two panels for a Congressional forum held on Dec. 10 at the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, D.C.

“If your only recourse for school challenges is closing schools then you are not figuring out strategies and building on what succeeds,” said Darling-Hammond, a faculty director at the Stanford University Center for Opportunity Policy in Education. “School closures seem to be the primary remedy for any sign of failure in a school.”

At the forum, “Closed for Learning: The Impact of School Closures on Students and Communities,” Darling-Hammond said mass closures reflect shortsighted policies rooted in punitive reform models such as the   recently rewritten federal K-12 education law , No Child Left Behind (NCLB).

“NCLB has contributed to widespread school closings across the country because it required schools to be ranked by test scores,” Darling-Hammond said. “We need a new approach to accountability that uses assessment for improvements to build professionalism and capacity.”

Federal and state policy decisions increasingly emphasize closings as an accountability measure for schools where standardized test results are low.

But public schools are much more than that, panelists said.

Aside from an academic setting, school buildings are hosts to a variety of education, social, business, and civic activities. Shutting them down has a ripple effect that can lead to a systematic disinvestment of other community institutions such as public housing units, recreational facilities, and small businesses.

“When they close schools, they are closing hospitals, grocery stores, and police stations,” said Jitu Brown, national director of the   Journey for Justice Alliance   (J4JL), an organization of community, youth and parent-led groups based in more than 20 cities. “There is something wrong with a system that blames children.”

Brown said that an inordinately high (90 percent in some areas) percentage of school closings impact predominately African-American and low-income communities.

“This is a human rights issue,” he said. “It’s about equity.”

The worsening inequality across the nation indicates that access to academically sound schools is often dependent on   a student’s ZIP code . Policies that promote residential mobility while also reinvesting in racially segregated and high-poverty neighborhoods are critical to reducing inequality, Brown added.

“A society that doesn’t take care of its children is a morally bankrupt society,” said Judith Browne-Dianis, co-director of   Advancement Project (AP) , a civil rights organization. “School closings are not isolated incidents but rather a movement toward privatization.”

Analyses by J4JL and AP   reveal that since about 2000, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) has closed, phased-out, or consolidated about 160 schools and adopted policies that have promoted a proliferation of charter and contract schools in the West and South Sides of the city. In May of 2013 alone, CPS closed 49 elementary schools and one high school. Improving student achievement by relocating students to what is perceived to be higher-ranked, more efficient schools has not materialized, according to the recent studies.

“Closing schools has had little impact on student performance,” said   Julian Vasquez Heilig , a researcher and professor at California State University at Sacramento. “Student achievement didn’t go up … didn’t go down.”

Instead, Heilig said mass school closures in Chicago, Los Angeles, New Orleans, and other cities has created a multi-tier system where academically strong schools at the top are located in higher-income neighborhoods and not readily available to all students.

“Only certain students with various types of capital can gain access to good schools,” he said. On the lower tiers are the low-performing schools that are “under-served and under-resourced,” he added.

Public schools have more scrutiny and higher government accountability than charter schools.

Not in Michigan.   Charter school are held to the exact same standards as Public schools.  

Please stop pushing this disinformation.

  Public schools MUST accept all of the students in their district.  Charter schools can choose who to accept.

Wrong again for Michigan.   Charter school must accept all students who apply.   Again, they have to follow the same rules regulations and laws as Public schools.   The only limiting factor for most Charter schools is classroom space as they don't have a mandate like Public schools have for taxpayer funded facilities.   For the most part they fund their own facilities and therefore are a bargain for taxpayers  

So due to the popularity of Charter schools many have more students applying than they can accommodate.   In which case, as noted above, they get put into a lottery to get in.   There is absolutely no discrimination other than the lottery which isn't really discrimination at all.

Please stop pushing this disinformation.

  The charter schools do not have to accept the immigrant children who do not understand English and hire bilingual teachers  in the same ways that the public schools do.

More disinformation in Michigan

Please provide your links that prove otherwise for all of your assertions.  

Otherwise, please stop trying to spread disinformation.

'Some folks are more interested in bagging on Betsy Devos than dealing with facts.'

There's no bagging on Devos - these are legitimate claims dealing in facts and the charter schools embezzling funds and our tax payer dollars.  

The billionaire philanthropist whom Donald Trump has tapped to lead the Education Department once   compared her work in education reform to a biblical battleground where she wants to "advance God's Kingdom."

Trump’s pick, Betsy DeVos, a national leader of the school choice movement, has pursued that work in large part by spending millions to promote the use of taxpayer dollars on private and religious schools.

Her comments came during a 2001 meeting of “The Gathering,” an annual conference of some of the country’s wealthiest Christians. DeVos and her husband, Dick, were interviewed a year after voters rejected a Michigan ballot initiative to change the state’s constitution to allow public money to be spent on private and religious schools, which the DeVoses had backed.

In the interview, an audio recording, which was obtained by POLITICO, the couple is candid about how their Christian faith drives their efforts to reform American education.

School choice, they say, leads to “greater Kingdom gain.” The two also lament that public schools have “displaced” the Church as the center of communities, and they cite school choice as a way to reverse that troubling trend.

There's no bagging on Devos

Lol and i bet you said that with a straight face right?

You're really digging deep now.   You quote one young Politico reporters opinion.     Not very compelling.

That said, taxpayer dollars can not be "legally" spent on Private/Religious schools except in generally extreme circumstance.   Students with disabilities, low income families, etc.   Each state is different and not all states have "voucher" programs so not all state even make exceptions to allow for taxpayer funded school vouchers.   See link below:

ecs

Hope that helps get you on the right track on this topic!

Cheers!

More disinformation in Michigan

Please provide your links that prove otherwise for all of your assertions.  

econofact

The Facts:

• Charter school policies   vary   widely across states. Charters have greater flexibility—freed from many of the regulations that apply to traditional public schools—but are held to a performance contract (charter) that specifies results.   Authorizers, the entities in charge of regulating charters in a state, play a critical role. They determine who may open a charter school, oversee schools once they are up and running and have the power to renew or revoke a charter depending on their performance. States decide who can be an authorizer (which varies from local school boards, colleges, non-profits, to a state-level entity depending on the state), how many schools they can authorize, and what penalties authorizers face if they fail to close poorly performing charters.

• Relative to other states, Michigan charters are less tightly regulated, something DeVos has advocated.   Michigan has 45 authorizers, while some states have only one. Lackluster schools in danger of losing their charter can “shop” for a different authorizer who will allow them to remain open; unsurprisingly, the state shuts down fewer charters than other states on average. (See the   National Association of Charter School Authorizers   and also see   here   for an example of authorizer shopping.)

• Some Michigan charter students fare better than they would in traditional public schools. One   study   found that 35 % of Michigan charter schools did better in reading and 42% did better in math than their counterparts in the same school district. But quality varies more across charters than traditional schools. More than half of Michigan’s charters did no better in reading or math than traditional schools, and some did significantly worse. Nearly half of Michigan charters are in Detroit, where public schools have an   abysmal performance record, setting a low bar for the comparisons made in the study.

• Whether having to compete with charters has improved or hurt traditional public schools in Michigan is much more difficult to answer. Michigan students from both traditional and charter schools have been   lagging behind   the rest of the country.   The presence of charters remains relatively small in the state (9% of public school students attend charters) but is significant in Detroit and Flint.

• Differences in state policies towards charter schools make cross-state comparisons difficult.   Linking charter success to a particular state policy requires ruling out other state characteristics. While some of Massachusetts' charters have shown   exceptional results , for instance, it is unclear to what extent that is due to the fact that the state allows only one authorizer, or that only non-profit companies run charters (most Michigan charter schools are run by for-profit companies), as opposed to the specific “No Excuses” model used by the schools, or the quality of teachers available in Massachusetts.

I knew you were lying about the charter schools in Michigan. 

How do these for-profit companies make money on a charter school?

How do these for-profit companies make money on a charter school?

Good question.  I believe the majority of us understand that businesses expect to make a profit regardess of the quality of the product they are selling.

According to a Forbes article there are several ways to make profits even from a non-profit charter.  

forbes

Occasionally politicians and policy leaders will try to thread the needle on charter schools by saying that they support nonprofit charters, but not those for-profit ones.   Candidate Clinton tried that trick   for keeping both sides happy back in 2016. But it's a distinction without a difference. Running a nonprofit charter school can still be a highly lucrative undertaking-- all financed with taxpayer dollars.

Here's how to make a bundle with your nonprofit charter school.

The Real Estate Business

There is such a thing as   a business that specializes   in charter schools and real estate. In some states, the   government will help finance   a real estate development if it's a charter school, and in general developers have noted an abundance of cash. Though, as one charter real estate loan bond financier told the Wall Street Journal , "There's a ton of capital coming into the industry. The question is: Does it know what it's doing?" Many states have found a problem with   charters that lease their buildings   from their own owners as well.

Why such interest in charter real estate? One reason: the Clinton-era Community Tax Relief Act of 2000   made it possible for funds that invested in charter schools to double their money in seven years. And the finance side can become so convoluted that,   as Bruce Baker lays out here , the taxpayers can end up paying for a building twice-- and the building still ends up belonging to the charter company.

Management Companies

Once you've set up your nonprofit charter school, hire yourself as a for-profit charter management organization. Over the last decade, there have been   numerous examples   of   this arrangemen t, sometimes called a " sweeps contract ," where the charter school hands as much as 95% of its revenue off to a for-profit management organization. As with real estate, there have been instances where the school's assets (books, furniture, computers, etc) have been ruled to be   the property of the management company -- so even if the school tanks, the organizers walk away with assets they can cash in.

Not every CMO is run by the same folks who own the charter school, but it's not an uncommon arrangement. Eagle Arts Academy in Florida not only paid its founder to develop a curriculum, but paid him   for the rights to the school's name and logo .

Depending on your state, some of this is legal and some of it might not be. If we get into the grey areas, then we start seeing some really crazy stuff, like the Gulen charters. One of the largest chains in the US,   the Gulen charters are connected to Fethullah Gulen,   a Turkish religious opposition leader.   The schools have been dogged by controversy,   including allegations that their mostly-Turkish immigrant faculty are required to kick a portion of their salaries back to the movement. The Gulen schools are potentially using US taxpayer money to finance a government-in-exile. These schools are mostly nonprofit charters.

Charter schools, whether nominally for-profit or nonprofit, face the same basic problem-- they are businesses that do not control how much they charge for the service they provide. This means that every dollar spent on students is one dollar less to go into the bank account of the business; the interests of the students and the interests of the businesses involved in the school are in opposition to each other.

Nor can you assume that the laws protect taxpayer dollars in any meaningful way. In some states, the laws against self-dealing are strong and well-enforced. In other states, not so much. Eagle Arts Academy is a disaster by any measure, and local school authorities know it-- but state law does not give them, or anyone else,   the clear authority to shut it down .

There are charter schools out there that are neither directly nor indirectly attempting to profit from the taxpayers via the students they are supposed to serve. But if you are shopping for a charter school for your child, knowing that it's nonprofit is not enough. Ask if there is a for-profit business operating the school, and if there is, think twice. If that for-profit business is operated by the same people that run the school, don't think twice-- just walk away.

How do these for-profit companies make money on a charter school?

Some numbers to explain why the millionaires/billionaires are pushing for the privatization of public education.

It is all about the profits.

Do we really want Wal-Mart, politicians and hedge fund managers in charge of our children's education? 

huffpost

Many charters, including those not-for-profits operating by leading de Blasio critics, are about making money for top executives. Educating children, when it actually happens, is at best a by-product.

De Blasio backed off in his criticism of charter school companies and their wealthy backers following a $3.6 million television advertising blitz that accused him of abandoning quality education for inner-city Black and Latino children. The campaign was orchestrated by Eva Moskowitz, founder and chief executive officer of the Success Academy Charter Schools, who has a number of wealthy and politically powerful backers. Governor Andrew Cuomo spoke at a pro-charter rally organized by Moskowitz and targeted extra funds fort charters in the state budget. Moskowitz and Success Academy received financial support from 2007 to 2013 from among others the Robin Hood ($1 million), William Simon ($75,000), Tiger ($850,000), Walmart ($4.6 million), MRM ($400,000) and Broad ($11.4 million) Foundations, as well as donations from hedge fund and corporate managers Paul Singer (no relation to me), David Tepper, and Daniel Loeb.

The recent televion campaign in support of charters was financed with money from the Walton Family Foundation (Walmart) and hedge fund billionaire Paul Tudor Jones . Jones, less well known than Walmart, was the founder and chair of the Excellence Charter School. After initially being associated with progressive political activities, he drifted to the right and donated heavily to Republican Party presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012.

Currently, there are approximately 2.5 million students enrolled in publicly funded charter schools in the United States. These charter schools are operated by both profit-making companies and “not for profit” organizations. In New York City every charter school is operated by what is known as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. In New York State, only 16 out of 209 charter schools are operated by for-profit companies. In other states, particularly Michigan, Florida, and Arizona, for-profit companies dominate the charter school movement. In Michigan, about 65% of the charter schools are run by for-profit educational management organizations

However, operating non-profit charter schools can be very profitable for charter school executives like Eva Moskowitz . Moskowitz earns close to a half a million dollars a year ($485,000) for overseeing school programs that serve 6,700 children, which is over $72 per student. By comparison, New York State Education Commissioner is paid a salary of $212,000 to oversee programs with 2.7 million students or about 8 cents per student. In other words, Moskowitz earns about 100 times more than King for each student enrolled in a Success Academy Charter School. Carmen Farina, New York City School Chancellor is paid $212,000 a year to oversee 1.1 million students or about 19 cents per student.

According to my calculations and The New York Times , other non-profit charter school administrators also make some very heady profits. The head of the Harlem Village Academies earns $499,000 to manage schools with 1,355 students or $369 per student. The head of the Bronx Preparatory School earns $338,000 to manage schools with 651 students or over $500 per student. The head of the Our World Charter earns $200,000 to manage schools with a total of 738 students or $271 per student. The local head of the KIPP Charter Network earns $235,000 to manage schools with 2,796 or $84 per student. By comparison, the chief educational officer of Texas is paid $214,999 to manage a system with almost 5 million public school students.

Charter school operators are not the only Not-for-Profit or s ocial entrepreneurs making money off of public schools. Charles Best created DonorsChoose.org so that public school teachers can raise money to pay for class projects. Best and his non-profit organization have received support from Oprah Winfrey, Stephen Colbert, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and has been a featured speaker at a Forbes magazine summit on philanthropy. A former public high school teacher in Bronx, New York, he would have been making about $85,000 a year if he remained as a teacher. As a not-for-profit entrepreneur, he makes about three times as much, almost $250,000 a year from Donorschoose.org plus whatever he earns from lucrative speaking engagements.

that's a lot of informatin. Thanks.

I thought that charter schools were publicly funded but I see that a lot of corporations are funding them, too

Sounds almost like the privatization of prisons. Making money off of a revolving door.

Wow I was right about DeVos and her privatizing the school system.  It appears DeVos feels only white christian children are deserving of an education.

Talk about installing the person to dismantle the program they were hired to head.  

Draining the swamp, my ass

Sounds almost like the privatization of prisons

Yeppers.

Just about everything that can be outsourced has been.

Now the race is on to privatize everything that cannot be outsourced.

This has been happening over several decades.  Recently, the privatization of military housing back in the 1990s has been in the news because of the deplorable conditions of on base housing after being privatized.

Our money is being squandered and there has been a push to pour Social Security into Wall Street coffers since the 1990s.  

Please read the following article about the political drive to give tax payer money to Wall Street and private business.

talkingpointsmemo

The History of Privatization

How an Ideological and Political Attack on Government Became a Corporate Grab for Gold

Today,   after 50 years of attack on government , privatization is a standard conservative response to tight public budgets, a key pillar of attacks on government, and a lucrative market opportunity for domestic and global corporations. Large corporations operate virtually every type of public service including prisons, welfare systems, infrastructure, water and sewer, trash, and schools. For example:

• Private prisons didn’t exist thirty years ago. Today, publicly traded, billion-dollar corporations are key players in prisons and immigrant detention. Privatized immigration facilities now house over two-thirds of all detained immigrants.

• In 1988 AFT president   Al Shanker   proposed a new idea: To create charter schools where teachers could experiment and innovate and bring new ideas to the nation’s public schools. Today, nearly 3 million children attend charters, and large corporate chains and billionaires are funding the rapid growth of privatized, publicly funded charters.

• Former defense contractors, IT corporations and publicly traded corporations are running welfare, food assistance, and other safety net systems in many states across the country.

• Today the federal government employs more than three times as many contract workers as government workers, and state and local governments spend a combined $1.5 trillion on outsourcing.

• Across the country, a well-established network of conservative think tanks, industry associations, investors and corporate lobbyists –   The State Policy Network, ALEC , and others – are on the front lines developing privatization legislation and proposing privatization projects.

What follows is how that happened.

What did i lie about?  

I'll answer that for you.   Nothing.

Nothing in that link directly refutes anything i've said or linked on the topic.   Nothing.   Yeah, some of it is weak-assed rationalizations/spin that can be disingenuously applied to the topic at hand but that's about it.

Like usual, you know jack-shit about what you're talking about.

• freed from many of the regulations that apply to traditional public schools—

Good to know.   What regulations?

• Relative to other states, Michigan charters are less tightly regulated, something DeVos has advocated.

Relative to other states?   Again good to know but so what?   Problem is it doesn't refute anything i've said here about Michigan Charter schools.   Keep digging though.   Perhaps the NEA sources you are likely using can help you out with some more propaganda.

Recently the DOD did a survey of all their privatized housing. Mr Giggles was involved because of where he works. He was the head of a team that consisted of Civil Engineering, hospital, and other staff to evaluate the living conditions of base housing. It was all driven by housing resident complaints DOD wide. Don't know what they found, but after they privatized the housing at LRAFB, they built new houses and renovated some, but also tore down a lot of housing.

I don't know if it's any better under a contractor or not. We moved out before it went privatized

John,

That is part of it, but come on, a lot of this has to do with bad parenting. The fact that the semi rich Jones want to keep up with the really rich Jones is just the icing on the cake. It brings it to the light, since it makes it interesting to the public. 

People who have the money can bribe their kids way into colleges that they want. 

People without the money don't have that "bad parenting" option. That is why it is about income inequality. 

Things will probably not get better until the affluent can appreciate their common ground with the rest of us and see that the superwealthy for what they are: the killer of dreams for us all.

That's quite an over-generalization! 

Sure, its true of many (perhaps even most?) of them.

But not all-- many have contributed much more to society than many of us have:

The Giving Pledge:

The Giving Pledge is an effort to help address society’s most pressing problems by inviting the world’s wealthiest individuals and families to commit more than half of their wealth to philanthropy or charitable causes either during their lifetime or in their will.

In August 2010, 40 of America’s wealthiest individuals and couples joined together in a commitment to give more than half of their wealth away. Created by Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett, the Giving Pledge came to life following a series of conversations with philanthropists around the world about how they could collectively set a new standard of generosity among the ultra-wealthy. (cont'd)

But not all-- many have contributed much more to society than many of us have:

Uh, some of this "giving" is a tax dodge and buying "goodwill".    If the tax code is changed to eliminate the estate tax, the "giving" might be less or non existent.

Also, who is actually benefiting from this "giving"?  Where is the oversight so we know that the charities are not funneling money to heirs as overseers of the charities?

insidephilanthropy

Bloomberg Business recently dug into the track record of billionaires who have signed the Giving Pledge, which was developed by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Thus far, 193 individuals have made the promise to give away half or more of their fortunes either during their lifetimes or at death. It turns out that the fulfillment of this promise is not as simple as the charitable world expected. Why is that? 

First, understand that the Giving Pledge is not a pledge you are contractually bound to honor. Those who sign the pledge are under no legal obligation to donate any of their money to charity. Moreover, giving away 50 percent of your wealth is not the simple calculation that many may think.

I'm a CPA, so one of the paragraphs of the Bloomberg article caught my eye. A paragraph near the end of the article indicated that the IRS plays a big role in every donor’s gift program and in their Giving Pledge. The article noted that a person with a $1 billion fortune, subject to the 40 percent estate tax actually has only $600 million of funds after tax. In that case, his or her 50 percent Giving Pledge amounts to $300 million and not $500 million that most everyone assumed was the case.

I thought it would be worthwhile to examine this comment a little more closely to help you understand the tax code and its impact on philanthropy.

Since the estate tax is one of the laws that the current administration chooses to enforce, the billionaire must pay the 40 percent tax on his or her $1 billion fortune. However, charitable contributions can be deducted from the $1 billion fortune  before  applying the 40 percent tax to the remainder.

If you do the math, you will see that the donation figure for a $1 billion fortune is $375 million — substantially less than $500 million, which represents half of the original $1 billion fortune. This is why the charitable community is surprised at the contribution amounts made under the Giving Pledge.

Why is tax such a motivator for charitable giving? Again, let’s look at our individual with the $1 billion fortune. With no charitable giving, the estate tax would be $400 million, leaving $600 million for his or her heirs. While $600 million is substantially more than the $375 million the heirs have after donating $375 million to charity, the charitable contribution has provided the family with a good deal of intangible benefits — good will, testimonials, etc. And their $375 million gift to charity actually only cost them $225 million; the difference between inheriting $375 million vs. inheriting $600 million. The family gets to spend an extra $150 million on the charities of their choice (the difference between $225 million and $375 million) and it was all paid for by the Internal Revenue Code.

The charitable world is divided on the value of the estate tax in charitable giving. There are those who believe philanthropic individuals will give regardless of the tax impact as well as those who believe that the tax savings is a great motivator. But that will be a subject for a future post.

Aww. The poor 1% is feeling a little of keeping up with the Jones'.

Somehow I don't feel bad for people with 300 mil in the bank just because they have people with 300 bil over them.

They are not hurting as this article suggests.

Somehow I don't feel bad for people with 300 mil in the bank just because they have people with 300 bil over them.

I do feel bad for them.  It sounds like such a shallow existence.  

We should be looking at why the cost of college tuition has increased at a ridiculous rate...not at who can out bribe a university.

cnbc

Not too many folks fight the fight against the "COST OF LIVING".

They're GREAT at fighting the fight to …… GET MORE...... to keep up !

Many of the costs for college have been rising as the states are reducing the levels of funding they provide to those colleges.

Everything today is a race to the bottom line to the benefit of shareholders. States cut taxes for businesses in a hope they will stay in their states.  (see how that has worked out for Kansas).  The resulting reduced tax revenue mandates cutting state spending on infrastructure, health care, and education.

This is just math people.  If we want and need things like roads and good schools, we have to pay for them.  Toss in the simple economic fact that money has to change hands for our economy to work.  If it pools in bank accounts, it doesn't circulate, and the system grinds to a halt, and that's what we're seeing today.  Furthermore, that money has to circulate in OUR economy.  Investments overseas don't do a damn bit of good for the USA. 

The economic world has changed.  Corporations no longer have loyalty to their employees, nor feel any community, or national responsibility. Corporations only loyalty are to their shareholders.       

Many of the costs for college have been rising as the states are reducing the levels of funding they provide to those colleges.

This is an interesting opinion...

BOULDER, Colo. — ONCE upon a time in America, baby boomers paid for college with the money they made from their summer jobs. Then, over the course of the next few decades, public funding for higher education was slashed. These radical cuts forced universities to raise tuition year after year, which in turn forced the millennial generation to take on crushing educational debt loads, and everyone lived unhappily ever after.
This is the story college administrators like to tell when they’re asked to explain why, over the past 35 years, college tuition at public universities has nearly quadrupled, to $9,139 in 2014 dollars. It is a fairy tale in the worst sense, in that it is not merely false, but rather almost the inverse of the truth.
The conventional wisdom was reflected in a recent National Public Radio series on the cost of college. “So it’s not that colleges are spending more money to educate students,” Sandy Baum of the Urban Institute told NPR. “It’s that they have to get that money from someplace to replace their lost state funding — and that’s from tuition and fees from students and families.”
In fact, public investment in higher education in America is vastly larger today, in inflation-adjusted dollars, than it was during the supposed golden age of public funding in the 1960s. Such spending has increased at a much faster rate than government spending in general. For example, the military’s budget is about 1.8 times higher today than it was in 1960, while legislative appropriations to higher education are more than 10 times higher.

Interestingly, increased spending has not been going into the pockets of the typical professor. Salaries of full-time faculty members are, on average, barely higher than they were in 1970. Moreover, while 45 years ago 78 percent of college and university professors were full time, today half of postsecondary faculty members are lower-paid part-time employees, meaning that the average salaries of the people who do the teaching in American higher education are actually quite a bit lower than they were in 1970.
By contrast, a major factor driving increasing costs is the constant expansion of university administration. According to the Department of Education data, administrative positions at colleges and universities grew by 60 percent between 1993 and 2009, which Bloomberg reported was 10 times the rate of growth of tenured faculty positions.

nytimes