This week Wisconsin schools took their latest hit as state Republicans introduced a plan to siphon millions of dollars in public money into private schools––the latest example of the influence of the powerful "school choice" lobby on the Walker administration. It comes only months after Walker hit education at the University level, slicing and dicing University of Wisconsin system's budget. A scathing editorial titled "Monopoly Out to Control Education," from our March 1930 issue, shows that the corporate takeover of the nation's public school system has been a long time in the making.
"One of the big issues which will be fought out in the next 25 years is the attempt of monopoly to gain control of education," it begins. "Through the subsidies and endowments of its incorporated foundations monopoly is today seeking to dominate education through the same methods that it controls the press, the movie, the radio, and other instrumentalities for the creation of a favorable public opinion."
Wisconsinites know as well as anyone in the nation that our public school system is under attack from the corporate reform industry, as The Progressive foresaw:
Today educational independence and academic freedom, corner-stones of a democratic commonwealth, are being endangered. With the unparalleled growth of the monopoly system and the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few, selfish and powerful interests are now seeking to obtain the same control in the field of education that they now exercise in the business, political, and economic fields.
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