The billionaire GOP candidate has sought to profit off of school children
Background: Rauner’s For-Profit Education Agenda
Chicago, IL—(ENEWSPF)—September 9, 2014. Bruce Rauner’s personal and business investments involve turning education into a profit-making enterprise, so it comes as no surprise that the education plan he unveiled yesterday calls for outsourcing of Illinois’ school services to corporate special interests.
“Rauner must be struggling with the man in the mirror. He says he’ll stand up to the special interests, but he’s one of them,” said Neal Waltmire, Communication Director for Illinois Freedom PAC.
Rauner has admitted the company he headed for decades received a majority of its revenues from public tax dollars and his business record is littered with companies who ripped off the public.
Rauner’s education plan derides regulations designed to ensure child safety and provide well-qualified personnel to deliver non-instructional services as “unreasonable mandates” and pledged to make those services easier to privatize.
However, a company founded by Rauner’s GTCR speaks directly to the need for regulations to protect children and taxpayers. Rauner’s GTCR launched Student Transportation of America (STA) in 1997 in order to profit from what the company would later describe as the “privatization of the multibillion dollar public sector school transportation market.” Although students’ safety was put at risk by STA, Rauner’s firm made a profit. Two of their drivers received DUIs and a 7 year-old child was run over and killed by one of STA’s employees.
Rauner’s privatization record extends into the classroom. Rauner put part of his vast personal fortune behind a for-profit K-12 school in Manhattan called Avenues, which is run by disgraced CEO Chris Whittle. Whittle, is the former CEO of for profit K-12 Edison Schools, which was forced to settled with the SEC after it was accused of inflating revenues. Analysts have predicted a 30% profit for Rauner and other Avenues’ investors while Whittle admitted the company has no social mission.
“Rauner believes school children are fair game for corporations to exploit. If billionaire Bruce Rauner buys the Governor’s Mansion, Illinois families lose,” said Waltmire.
Source: Illinois Freedom PAC
