Arizona: Education Inc.

by David Safier

On Imagine School's website, you can read a list of the corporation's Six Measures of Excellence. Most of them are the usual stuff -- values, achievement, character development -- but one, as the old Sesame Street song says, is not like the others. The final sign of excellence is the development of more and more schools.

New School Development enhances our ability to reach more children, more families, and more communities. As we increase our family of schools, more opportunities abound for Imagine Schools’ educators to grow professionally as well.

Forget their rationalizations about wanting more schools for educational reasons. Like many for profit companies, Imagine needs to grow to survive and prosper.

by David Safier
I've been out of town, so I haven't written about the second and third installments of the Fort Wayne, Indiana, Journal Gazette's series on Imagine Schools: Education Inc. This is about Part II, It's 'Our school, not theirs,' which is a doozy.

The glue in this installment is the email Imagine CEO Dennis Bakke sent to the top people in the corporation, saying the local school boards should be little more than rubber stamp groups whose job is to vote Yes on whatever Imagine Schools wants to do.

"But what's wrong with that?" Imagine higher-ups want to know. After all, the corporation decides where to put the schools.