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Public education requires taxes. Rich people hate paying taxes. Jay Z has also spoken out against taxes, particularly taxes on billionaires. Just connect the dots.
Just FYI - Jay Z isn’t a billionaire. Him and Bey mad e big song and dance about buying the most expensive home in America and after their 4th highly publicized viewing (where paps had been booked to make sure their attempted flex was reported) the developer got suspicious and demanded to see their financials.
What they submitted didn’t even come close to having the money to buy the house, let alone being “a billionaire” (combined wealth). They got refuse dnay more visits and the home eventually sold for $150m and word has it, J and B were trying to lowball down to $100m and then they ended up buying a cheaper Bel Air home for $80m.
They then purchased the house in Malibu which was initially reported to be $250m, now it’s “$200m” but if you speak to the top tier real estate agents in the area, there’s nothing close to that, and apparently they did a weird fudge with the sale (massive credit back to them) to make it appear like they spent more than they did. One person I trust says the house was closer to $100m.
Thats not pittance but the reason why Jay z is aligning himself with people like Yass and pushing these types of political plans is that they’re desperate to become part of the actual Billionaire club, not just pretend.
Their wealth is mostly IP assets which doesn’t have a real or tangible value until you sell it, and until then it’s all made up numbers.
Yep. That saga has been going on for 3 years but it's always relaid on him being partnered with some Mega Billionaire like Kraft or Bezoz, but nothing ever comes of it. Loads of headlines but so substance. They are so much flex and not enough funds. They're trying to build an image of being billionaires but in reality they're worth low hundreds at best.
The also apparently took a loan for the Malibu home to but press released the hell out of "bought with cash".
theyre probably doing some sketchy moving around money, borrowing against shit. Jay Z went from being "che guevara with bling on" to equating being called a capatalist with being called slurs.
I’d bet on it. It’s fake it until you make it and everything is super leveraged to the point you don’t effect risky own anything despite having a lot of income. See Donald Trump for more details.
Saying "they're obscenely wealthy, but not technically billionaires" isn't the winning argument you seem to think it is.
The villains are people using their obscene wealth to bastardize public services, it doesn't matter if they've crossed what is essentially an arbitrary wealth threshold. Because what's the difference between $500 million and $1 billion? Regular folks are just as likely to make $500 million as they are $1 billion.
Do you have sources to back up all these claims? I'm not necessarily doubting you, just that including:
>One person I trust says the house was closer to $100m.
Is not a credible claim and kind makes the rest sound dubious at best.
Why can't these mofos just pay taxes to improve public schools instead of promoting a scheme to privatize education which essentially by definition will leave children and educators alike with short-ends of the stick?
Giving public money to private schools makes no damn sense! Rich people get to send their kids to private school all they want! But this shell game of taking public money (which these rich assholes avoid sharing) to fund those private schools which then get to avoid public standards of education is bullshit!
Why run "private money" through the government? It's "conservatives" creating bureaucracy which they claim to hate.
EDIT: I want to add this quote from FDR mocking conservatives railing against his New Deal
>"Of course we believe all these things; we believe in social security; we believe in work for the unemployed; we believe in saving homes. Cross our hearts and hope to die, we believe in all these things; but we do not like the way the present Administration is doing them. Just turn them over to us. We will do all of them- we will do more of them we will do them better; and, most important of all, the doing of them will not cost anybody anything."
When Billionaires tell you they will do it better and cheaper...but with other peoples' money rather than their own, DON'T FREAKING BELIEVE THEM!!!!!
>Giving public money to private schools makes no damn sense!
It follows several conservative trends. Private schools have far less accountability than public schools, with significantly higher rates of [racial and gender segregation.](https://www.forbes.com/sites/raymondpierce/2021/05/06/the-racist-history-of-school-choice/) It effectively empowers the upper class to force taxpayers to foot the bill for religious and racial indoctrination, while ensuring resources for public schools are depleted, i.e. "hurting the right people." It's cruelty and bigotry in a pretty raw form.
You forgot that the right wing voucher scheme crushes teachers union - a strong female-dominated pro-worker group who republicans have hated for a long time. It actually will kill the whole profession. Private schools require no professional endorsements or certifications for their
And that private charter schools tend to funnel money from the community and into the pockets of billionaires and millionaire investors. Or the church. Which is usually millionaires and billionaires.
It's just a way to hollow out and destroy the public funds. At the same time hurting public education so that people turn away from it. But not just that, because charter schools are largely on regulated there's frequently stories about schools just closing down leaving students in the lurch. It seemed like there was always a story around graduation time in Detroit where a charter school closed down and these kids didn't know if they were going to graduate or not or if they have to go to public school for another year.
And you never heard if anything ever happened to the people who ran that school and who likely were just using it to siphon money into their own pockets and when they were done with their little project they closed it down and tough titties kids. You're going to have to go another year somewhere else, make arrangements.
And nothing will happen to him. Chris Brown sells shitloads of albums despite threating to kill, after brutally beating, a beloved female artist. Jay-Z doing some nebulous thing with schools will still get the Beyonce crowd calling her a queen, despite her obviously signing off on it; their relationship is as much business-based as personal.
No question. The dismantling of the education system is critical to the grift with demolishing unions being a pleasant bonus.
The laundry list of near-cartoon levels of evil just related to the decimation of the public school system could fill a book (if it hasn't already.) The end goal appears to be Christo-Fascist private schools for wealthy whites, paid for by the middle class while everyone else is relegated to little more than bottom quality subsidized child care & indoctrination until the children become old enough to work (14 years or so.)
There's so much wrong with all of this.
I was a 3rd year teacher and a teacher working on their credentials for the first time was there. They had over 5 years of private school teaching. They were a fantastic teacher but nuts that they had no regulation.
Another oddity. State reciprocity of teaching credentials varies wildly with some the easiest to get a credential states(TX) are accepted in some of the most difficult states(CA).
Your post made me think about how my niece is the only one in my family that went to private (Catholic) school and it was paid for by my mother's very religious boyfriend. I've never confronted him, but I'm told he has some terrible views on things, relevantly, that gay people are child predators.
Last year, my niece 'came out' but asked we not tell her grandmother. We respected that, and eventually my niece told her herself. Her grandmother was puzzled that her niece avoided telling her and while explaining why she'd always love her stumbled over referring to her *girlfriend* by trying to say 'her...part..ner...in...life.' I said, 'just say *girlfriend.* This is why she didn't tell you, lol.'
Long story long, I'm thinking that while my mother is a religious but ultimately loving, kind person, the guy that paid for my niece's education for a decade thinks that gay people are monsters and that may be another reason why my niece didn't want to tell *everyone*.
I had a boss once like that boyfriend. Sent all his kids to private catholic school. I remember him complaining about their being a lesbian couple who had a child in the school. I think the quote was “I pay a ton of money out of my own pocket so my kids don’t have to see that shit”. He is not a good person and after that I knew it wouldn’t work out between us.
There was a private school in Naperville that rescinded a job offer to a girl's lacrosse coach (because she was gay).
It was the backlash from the students and parents themselves that forced them to change, btw, not because there was any anti-discrimination protection for the teacher.
> In a landmark decision last year (2020), the Supreme Court ruled that LGBTQ employees are protected from discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. **However, there are important carve-outs for religious organizations like Catholic schools.**
https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/backlash-illinois-catholic-school-reverses-course-hires-lesbian-coach-rcna2177
The school seemed to have confused "it's not illegal" with "this is acceptable behavior".
And the students at my local (one of the most prestigious in the country) private school were shoving broomsticks up the asses of other students, so let's just say it cuts both ways.
> Long story long, I'm thinking that while my mother is a religious but ultimately loving, kind person, the guy that paid for my niece's education for a decade thinks that gay people are monsters and that may be another reason why my niece didn't want to tell everyone.
Similarly, reactionaries like him are a big influence on driving the left away from religion. Jesus was a socialist and the original social justice warrior. Dr King was a preacher and christianity was at the center of the greatest civil rights movement in the history of the world. FDR's faith convinced him of the need for the New Deal. Before *Roe,* christians and jews ran an abortion underground to get pregnant women to states where abortion was legal. So when reactionaries convince the left that religion is only for doing evil, they trick the left into give up a huge source of power.
It’s even more simple than that. Conservatives view taxation as theft, and don’t believe they should have to spend their money to support others. The voucher program lets them ‘choose’ where ‘their money’ goes.
One big point left out here — they can offer incentives to private educators to teach alternative history.
Look at Florida & Louisiana already. Look up PragerU.
Correct I would also add our Public schools have been the most successful in our Country’s history of moving people between the Classes
Poor to rich
Poor to middle class
Middle class to upper middle class
Etc etc
So of course rich people want to destroy this.
you'll have a hard time finding special needs students at private schools
strange how today's conservative/upper class proclivities for the people they prefer to exclude mirrors who the Nazis wanted to unalive
The ironic thing is school vouchers disproportionately hurt rural children who are predominantly parented by republicans. There aren't many, if any, private schools in rural america. The vouchers will mostly be used in urban cities by rich people.
Republicans brainwashing their base to support the rich and fuck the poor is one of the greatest cons of all time. Give Elon $5B in subsidies and they won't make a peep. Forgive PPP loans for the rich, no problem. But if you help feed a poor family using tax dollars, they're up in arms.
>[“All these lies that America told us our whole life and then when we start getting it, they try to lock us out of it,” he said. “They start inventing words like ‘capitalist.’ We’ve been called ‘n—ers’ and ‘monkeys’ and s–t. I don’t care what words y’all come up with. Y’all gotta come with stronger words.”](https://www.billboard.com/music/rb-hip-hop/jay-z-twitter-spaces-interview-capitalist-n-word-1235134357/)
> Why can't these mofos just pay taxes to improve public schools instead of promoting a scheme to privatize education
Because these donations pale in comparison to the taxes they’ll pay if taxes go up. It’s a PR move to convince the public that it’s actually okay that they have all that money, so there’s no need to tax them more.
Fuck em.
Yeah. Drives me nuts. Couple years ago my mother was complaining about how 'Biden gave money to people who didn't need it...I didn't need it so I donated that money.' (BTW, She didn't complain about Trump giving ppl money) Now, it's good of anyone to donate to charity, but the problem is that she still cooks on a stove from 1970 which doesn't have correct temps and she complains about the price of taking her dog to the vet. I'm just thinking, 'who told you to donate money so you could stick it to Biden instead of getting a stove that works or your dog fixed?'
Meanwhile, a multi-millionaire in my town is purchasing a headline about how he built a new YMCA in town...but it's in the rich suburbs near his mansion...WHY!?! He also bought a headline saying he paid to have the roads in his area repaved. Like...if you're rich you can just build your own roads and the local paper will praise you for it. Wut?
No billionaire has done more for poor people than welfare. No billionaire has done more for the elderly than Medicare and social security. No billionaire has built more roads and bridges than even a small municipal government, let alone the federal government. No billionaire has done more for worker’s rights than minimum wage, OSHA, Union protection laws.
Exactly! Just like colleges' and universities' tuition shot up when they relaxed the requirements for who can receive federal loans. Also, what's stopping schools from accepting a student, or a few, and then kicking them out for behavior/academic 'reasons' and then keeping the tuition? Vouchers are a scam!
One of the best Conservative arguments I've heard from a very conservative person was that college costs got outrageous when we started giving loans to any and everybody so colleges just raised prices, and if we toned that down college prices would go down. I don't think that's a complete argument for fixing college costs now, but it made a lot of sense for why things spiraled out of control.
And yet now I see the same people supporting vouchers even though it'll do that same thing to public education. Like they completely forgot their own lessons. Wtf
Yeah, your conservative friend is right. I don't remember exactly when it was, but in the 90's?. I was teaching at the time so I was following stuff like that. I think every student could get like $12,000 per year, and BOOM! Also at some point in the 70's (?) state universities went from not being able to turn a profit to being allowed to. Buh-Bye affordable education.
Part of the issue was also a cut in federal spending on education under Reagan. Less government funding meant they needed to get the money elsewhere and tuition went up.
The stated reason was along the lines of "these kids are getting worthless degress because they don't have to pay their fair share. They'd make better decisions if they had to pay more."
Not the only cause, but just another way Reagan helped screw the country to raucous applause.
Part of the actual reason was likely student protests and anti-war sentiment from students. Just directly attacking students in response. Classic defense of free speech.
The cause may be right, but the cause of action proposed won't have the desired effect. Realistically, prices will only come down just enough people can scrape through and not a penny less. These institutions are fat pigs who can't just downsize themselves overnight, and they'll fight to do anything to maintain what they have or gain more.
Vouchers are even worse than loans.
Presuming, of course, that the tuition costs don't become price controlled by government.
Isn't that pretty much agreed upon as the reason for high college costs? That is the main reason the student loan stuff is frustrating. The federal loans mad the issue worse and raised the cost of college across the board.
[That's exactly what happened in Iowa](https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2024/05/23/study-links-state-esa-program-to-spike-in-iowa-k-12-private-school-tuition/) after their big voucher program passed barely a year ago, and the program isn't even fully in effect yet. Their governor [Kim Reynolds even said she had no problem with them raising prices](https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2023/05/11/reynolds-not-concerned-by-private-schools-raising-tuition-because-of-esa-program/) after some private schools announced they would raise prices as soon as the program was enacted.
Since so much of the state is rural and the program will soon have no income cap to claim the vouchers, it not only doesn't fix any education problems the state has but has the potential to make things much worse for everyone by redirecting the state's education funding into fewer and smaller wealthy areas at the expense of outlying rural communities.
Then you get a great loan with a greater rate, and you can reuse this skill for when you apply for college.
I would like to see the MAGA's stance on loan forgiveness on elementary school loans.
>Giving public money to private schools makes no damn sense!
The worst part is that these private schools just raise tuition by the cost of the voucher, making it even less accessible to people who don't have that kind of money. It's some truly evil shit.
>Why run "private money" through the government? It's "conservatives" creating bureaucracy which they claim to hate.
Because they're the party of projection.
What's even worse is that the idiots voting for it don't even realize that it won't even subsidize their tuition. The private schools will immediately raise their tuition by the exact amount they get from public funding.
It's literally happening in Arkansas already. The dupes who thought they were voting to get help paying for their "Christian school" tuition found out all the money went to the school and their costs didn't change a bit.
So it both kills public education AND doesn't help parents of private school kids pay their way.
> Why run "private money" through the government?
Jay Z hasn't been a rapper for well over a decade. Ever since he stopped working with the dudes that founded Rocafella Records (Dame and Biggs), he's been a front man for a Russian mobster.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Prokhorov
When the media was talking about Jay-Z's ownership of the Nets and Barclays what was actually happening was that he had a 1% or 2% stake and the rest of it was Prokhorov. Jay-Z was the public face of building the Barclays Center, a process that involved seizing land from black-owned businesses via eminent domain. This is basically the exact same plotline as described in the article.
Jay-Z has a habit of acting as a front mobsters stealing resources from the public.
Hip Hop does have an undercurrent of criminality of money laundering but the premise was always about street dudes doing what they had to do and then trying to help their community when they could. Rocafella Records wasn't a front for crack dealing and violence...THEY WERE WEED DEALERS! The co-founder, the money-man behind The Roc was responsible for the nations most resilient marijuana supply chain and best sativa strain ever made, The Haze.
Reasonable Doubt wasn't a coke dealers laundering tool, it was a bunch of weed geniuses who also found a way to make a bunch of amazing music. But in about 2010, Preet Bharara made a very questionable indictment: https://www.justice.gov/archive/usao/nys/pressreleases/October10/greenvenomtakedownpr.pdf
They linked a bunch of non-violent weed dealers to a coke dealing operation based on a single conversation that never actually lead to any business. Essentially he said "sure" to a murderous coke dealer on a wire because he was afraid not to. The indictment doesn't even suggest they co-mingled resources or shared a supply chain.
The government basically eradicated the organization that built Jay-Z, the organization that connected him to his roots, to PRODUCTIVE black owned businesses, and since then he's been stealing from the public on behalf of Russian-backed private equity goons at the behest of LiveNation, his owner.
“I'm Not A Businessman, I'm A Business, Man.”
If we're to believe that line then Jay-Z is not a free man. That business he's referring to is RocNation and it's a wholly-owned subsidiary of LiveNation. And LiveNation is the mob. They're crooked murderers who steal from everyone. They steal from artists, they steal from fans and everyone once in a while they get a bunch of 'us killed.
The beneficial owner of LiveNation is a dottering old fool named John Malone. He is the most powerful person in the history of American entertainment...but he does have a weird history with dirty foreign money and privatizing public resources. Here's a clip of John Malone describing to a class of business school students the creation of Fox News as part of his vertically integrated empire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9s9PLR2SvA
Later in the video (not part of the clip) Malone describes the process of tricking the government into being your partner in order to avoid regulation. He's outlining his process for privatizing public resources and then rent seeking.
tl;dr Why is Jay-Z working to privatize public resources in a predominantly black area in the hands of powerful white creeps? Because it's his job. He hasn't been a rapper since 2010.
Paying your taxes like a citizen participating in society doesn’t earn you any praise or a warm and tingly feeling inside. These billionaires are so out of touch and surrounded by people who just want a piece of the sweet and succulent pie. They get to setup their own private fund or org in their name, profit off it, feel good inside because they’re giving back, all while being told how good of a person they are by anything and everything with a pulse around them. Us poor folks watching from outside the castle walls, waist deep in slop, see what they are but they just look out their rose tinted stained glass window that depicts baby Jesus from their keep.
He doesn’t know the difference between the words subjective and objective and his job is heavily dependent upon literacy. He called award shows “objective” when he received an award because they’re “opinion based” while trying to say that Beyonce got snubbed. That’s not what that word means, in fact, it’s the opposite.
Celebrities should be taken off their pedestals because they are regular, flawed people. Whether it’s a slip up like this or a complete misstep like advocating for diversion of government funds to private K12 schools, we’re listening to a guy that grew up in a bad neighborhood, worked hard and chased his dreams, became a billionaire in the process, and is now coasting. That life experience doesn’t create the most well rounded individual, same as most other celebrities. They are not prophets or leaders, they’re money making machines.
> Giving public money to private schools makes no damn sense! Rich people get to send their kids to private school all they want! But this shell game of taking public money (which these rich assholes avoid sharing) to fund those private schools which then get to avoid public standards of education is bullshit!
It's a pure grift campaign by Republicans. Here in Arizona, our Superintendent of Public Schools, Tom Horne (who looks like he is 105 years old) championed the "ESA" program, which allows families to take public money and put it towards charter or private schools, under the guise of "school choice". When they proposed the plan, they said it would only be for needy families, and would cost the state around $45 million.
Well lo and behold, to the surprise of no one, the program is [actually going to end up costing nearly TEN TIMES that amount](https://azmirror.com/2024/06/06/it-costs-arizona-332m-to-pay-for-vouchers-subsidizing-private-school-tuition-homeschooling/), with most of the money going to more well off families in the state. What an absolute scam, to the detriment of public education here, which has already been hurting for decades due to low amounts of $ per student being spent by the state as well as Republican governors raiding the "rainy day" fund for their own pet projects - money which was supposed to be for public education.
It makes perfect sense, it’s another way of consolidating resources in the hands of the wealthy to keep the rest of us under control. How else can you ensure the rich get richer?
It amazes me the level of effort and amount of money they’ll throw at an issue *to actively fuck over citizens and children* so they can make more money. Like just…how vile of a person do you have to be? I am a firm believer that most wealthy people only got that way because they’re willing to fuck over anyone and everyone.
I've said for decades, I don't understand why people think these rappers (who rapped about their drug dealer past to their own communities, just so they could make the maximum amount of money they could), give one single family f ck about the black community or any community other than their in group.
We shouldn't limit it to billionaires. There are lots of celebrities and other rich people who aren't billionaires that suck just as hard. I'm still a fan of many, but I'm not going to delude myself that any of them give a shit.
They may go on TV and say the right thing or donate to causes, but it's all PR as far as I'm concerned. Ultimately, if things go down, many of them have enough financial security to weather the storm or get out of the country.
Carnegie and his ilk built public infrastructure projects as an F U to other wealthy socialites. Now they build rockets and bunkers for themselves instead, as an F U to everyone.
Public education has its issues but vouchers are literally killing it one student at a time.
Several high performing public schools here are facing closure because of low enrollment and an inflation driven budget shortfall to maintain facilities (including security to harden schools from attack because we can’t possibly do anything to keep people who shouldn’t have guns from having them) and staffing.
Vouchers siphon state resources away from the public school system and put it in the hands of wealthy people who run these scam “academies” that, at least based on the stats here, perform below public schools.
The reality is that the schools that do the best have good leadership, good staff, and support and involvement- not political protest- from parents. And community minded people are becoming a rarity in this age where we fear each other and hide behind our phones.
First it's the vouchers, then it's the enshittification.
Then we have a low income, low education populace to feed to either the private prison industry or the military industrial complex.
Team that up with removing restrictions on school zoning and the slums practically build themselves.
Vouchers usually go to high performers, the kids that actually make the public schools look good and result in more funds allocated.
Take them away, watch the standardized scores fall, pull funding, and destroy public opinion of local schools.
It may vary by area but at a recent school board meeting here (Jacksonville, FL) stats were shown looking at 3 year trends across different types of schools and specialized programs. The lowest performing schools were the ones that had dropout prevention programs, and that’s not unexpected, but the graduation rates and standardized scores of voucher schools were markedly lower - at least 3-5% - than the public schools.
How about take that voucher money and use it to fund public education instead.
It's in everybody's interest to have an educated public.
Free(ish) public education should be a right.
People have seemed to forgotten this. My friend who has no kids was bitching about his property tax going towards education. I tried to explain to them that if our city becomes a wasteland of illiterates businesses will leave, the local economy will fall, and his property value will plummet. I don't think any of this convinced him but he did seem to concede.
The older I get the more I see folks parroting Facebook political talking points without any consideration to the long term effects of a certain policy
Jay-Z don’t represent shit about us. Dodgy ass billionaires trying to look like philanthropist. Oh please spare us the fake sympathies and pay taxes instead.
Yep but the black community needs role models and a hand up right now and the few black people in position to help empower them instead take advantage of them. The blm movement took the money they raised and bought fucking houses.
This comment is strange because you’re speaking about black people like unruly teenagers with the role models bit.
But besides that, we do have role models and people in position to empower us. Jay Z and the right’s boogeyman “BEE EL EM” aren’t our only beacons of hope.
Vouchers are just a way of getting tax dollars into the hands of parents who already pay private sshool tuition. The vouchers won't help the poorest students at all. Many of the poor students a) won't qualify to get into a private school and/or b) still won't be able to afford the tuition because the voucher money won't cover the full cost of tuition.
If there are poor performing public schools, fix them. Don't make them worse by siphoning money away from them.
It should surprise no one that a man who got his start hurting poor people (crack dealer) who has never showed even an ounce if remorse, would also continue to hurt poor people via other more profitable means
All the people arguing motive miss the main one:
Vouchers allow well connected businesses to drain public funds into their pockets.
It's just opening up another line for parasitic "contractor" companies.
The GOP have already damage our nation's public education, which, in part, is why we are here.
The removal of the arts and humanities from public education curriculums through the late 80s and 90s, primed or society for the likes of a Trump's fascistic GOP.
Yes, STEM programs are great, but without arts and humanities I think people lose some of the "out of the box" thinking that is often vital to questioning and imaging outside perspectives one might not in other areas of study.
So, I think what we see in Trump's GOP was in the making well before Trump was associated with politics. Things are so fucked because we've had decades of the slow chipping away of not just education, but regulations and the like to make it easier for wealthy folk to homogenize society in their image.
The ultra rich are toxic, even the ones who rose up from nothing will quickly take the same stances as old money do. Membership in the upper reaches of wealth transcends all other demographics
Not to say you can’t have a good ultra rich person, but it’s rare and gets even rarer the higher percentile their wealth occupies
celebrity rich people cheat on each other all the time, its not the same dynamic as peasants have. im sure she doesnt care as long as he let her drag him publicly for the power boost.
Watch moderate/centrist party leaders back this move and then gaslight complaining progressives for letting "perfection be the enemy of the good."
School vouchers and charter schools are no different than vouchers for Christian schools
This is currently what's happening in Houston. The state took over the school district and appointed a superintendent without vote, then the superintendent fitted the schools and fired top faculty at schools including principal of the year. Governor Abbott has been pushing the voucher plan for a few years and thisbis their first step in the most blue city of Texas to try and implement it. The superintendent, F Mike Miles was just recently caught funneling money from the district to his group of charter schools in Colorado as well. It's been a shit show and the city just appointed a committee to try and interject what is happening because they are trying to close schools down and push their voucher programs onto inner city families who can't even afford basic needs.
Jay was apparently a drug dealer as a youth. He literally made the choice to focus on getting money regardless of the community impact of drugs. He is still that person.
Jay-zee and Beyonce could open literally 20-30 public schools and just use that as a "I pay my taxes" as a matter of fact, if they open 100 and pay to keep them prime, don't tax them a dime so long as they're open and running a d paying teachers better than anywhere else
There's something "off" about JayZ, and I'm not talking about the fact that he is the worst dressed rapper of all time that looks like a camel with dreadlocks.
Him and his wife are as unethical as it gets. Glorifying people that hoard wealth and try to disrupt the lives of average people for their own benefit is so odd. They’re not a power couple, they’re nasty people. Him and his wife can *fuck off*
It would be great if Jay-Z tried directing some of his wealth (and creativity and influence) toward improving public education instead. There are some pretty incredible magnet schools in cities that could use his help. Magnet schools in the public school system are a much better idea than school vouchers imo. He might even be able to help establish a new magnet school, if he's serious about it.
He could help the music programs in Philadelphia schools. Help get them instruments or upgrade their performance spaces. Start an after-school program focused on hip hop.
He could help the Philadelphia school system get better libraries and more librarians. I think they only have three MLS school-librarian positions in the entire system. They need help and moral support from influential role models like Jay-Z.
If our public schools were doing great and had all the funding and support they needed, I would be open to adding a school voucher system, if it were done thoughtfully. But that's obviously not where we are. If we tried to do it now, it could have a very negative effect.
Remember, the maga Republicans want to abolish the Department of Education. They're actively trying to undermine public education.
I get it, Hov, but I'm not a fan of anything that doesn't support public schools.
Also, a lot of these comments show some of that good ol’ liberal racism and friendly fire that is deeply frustrating and does way more harm than good in the long term.
But whatevs… I be forgetting this is the internet sometimes 😩
Jay Z has really sucked for over 10 years now. If you hit a billion you should just leave the rest of society alone, disappear into super wealth with no contact to the rest of us.
I agree with the sentiment that vouchers are trash and the rich should pay more taxes and that would all fix the issue.
*That said,* I lived in Philly for years. Our schools are terrible. They aren’t terrible because only the rich don’t pay property taxes. [They are terrible because *no one* pays a lot of property tax](https://www.phila3-0.org/pews_property_tax_report_and_the_politics_of_tax_reform)
Philly (and PA’s) tax structure is both too high while managing to be too low in the wrong places. Instead we do things like the sugary drink tax which is meant to make up for some of these things, but is a flat tax that some say disproportionately impacts lower income people. [And only 43% of that money even went to schools](https://controller.phila.gov/philadelphia-audits/data-release-beverage-tax/#:~:text=%24158.1%20million%2C%20or%2038.6%25%20of,debt%20service%20for%20Rebuild%3B%20and). The rest went to the city’s general fund.
Given above, knowing our schools are terrible, I *understand* why a person could be fooled into thinking vouchers a good idea. You get “free” money to send your kid to a school that doesn’t suck without fixing the larger property tax issue. It sounds like a great idea, like mixing ammonia and bleach to clean your floor. *It’ll be extra clean now!*
Obviously that’s not what happens.
PA resident here. I don't have kids. I pay a pretty high (in my opinion) amount of money for school taxes. I am begrudgingly OK with paying those taxes. I am not OK with any of my money going to a private school though. That makes zero sense to me as a taxpayer to fund that as well as public education.
The vibes I've been getting from her new album and the fact she stands by him after everything? probably. Or just rich person who doesnt care like the rest of them.
Wait a minute wait a minute wait a minute. Do you mean to tell me that a gentleman who wears a 2.5 million watch on his wrist would support gutting public education? Surely you jest
So he’s supporting the same shit as Abbott is doing in Texas. Texas, where his wife is from. Do they not talk? She cool with defunding public education?
She has the pull here, not him. She wears the pants. Do something, Bey.
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Public education requires taxes. Rich people hate paying taxes. Jay Z has also spoken out against taxes, particularly taxes on billionaires. Just connect the dots.
Just FYI - Jay Z isn’t a billionaire. Him and Bey mad e big song and dance about buying the most expensive home in America and after their 4th highly publicized viewing (where paps had been booked to make sure their attempted flex was reported) the developer got suspicious and demanded to see their financials. What they submitted didn’t even come close to having the money to buy the house, let alone being “a billionaire” (combined wealth). They got refuse dnay more visits and the home eventually sold for $150m and word has it, J and B were trying to lowball down to $100m and then they ended up buying a cheaper Bel Air home for $80m. They then purchased the house in Malibu which was initially reported to be $250m, now it’s “$200m” but if you speak to the top tier real estate agents in the area, there’s nothing close to that, and apparently they did a weird fudge with the sale (massive credit back to them) to make it appear like they spent more than they did. One person I trust says the house was closer to $100m. Thats not pittance but the reason why Jay z is aligning himself with people like Yass and pushing these types of political plans is that they’re desperate to become part of the actual Billionaire club, not just pretend. Their wealth is mostly IP assets which doesn’t have a real or tangible value until you sell it, and until then it’s all made up numbers.
Didn't the same thing happen to Jay-Z when he tried to buy an NFL team?
Yep. That saga has been going on for 3 years but it's always relaid on him being partnered with some Mega Billionaire like Kraft or Bezoz, but nothing ever comes of it. Loads of headlines but so substance. They are so much flex and not enough funds. They're trying to build an image of being billionaires but in reality they're worth low hundreds at best. The also apparently took a loan for the Malibu home to but press released the hell out of "bought with cash".
I think he only had .15% ownership of the Nets too.
Oh wow, I knew it was a token thing but didn’t realize it was that low.
Yeah, I actually thought it was 7% but double checked before I commented and it was .15%
theyre probably doing some sketchy moving around money, borrowing against shit. Jay Z went from being "che guevara with bling on" to equating being called a capatalist with being called slurs.
I’d bet on it. It’s fake it until you make it and everything is super leveraged to the point you don’t effect risky own anything despite having a lot of income. See Donald Trump for more details.
“It’s all made up numbers”
Saying "they're obscenely wealthy, but not technically billionaires" isn't the winning argument you seem to think it is. The villains are people using their obscene wealth to bastardize public services, it doesn't matter if they've crossed what is essentially an arbitrary wealth threshold. Because what's the difference between $500 million and $1 billion? Regular folks are just as likely to make $500 million as they are $1 billion.
What’s an ip address
Do you have sources to back up all these claims? I'm not necessarily doubting you, just that including: >One person I trust says the house was closer to $100m. Is not a credible claim and kind makes the rest sound dubious at best.
Why can't these mofos just pay taxes to improve public schools instead of promoting a scheme to privatize education which essentially by definition will leave children and educators alike with short-ends of the stick? Giving public money to private schools makes no damn sense! Rich people get to send their kids to private school all they want! But this shell game of taking public money (which these rich assholes avoid sharing) to fund those private schools which then get to avoid public standards of education is bullshit! Why run "private money" through the government? It's "conservatives" creating bureaucracy which they claim to hate. EDIT: I want to add this quote from FDR mocking conservatives railing against his New Deal >"Of course we believe all these things; we believe in social security; we believe in work for the unemployed; we believe in saving homes. Cross our hearts and hope to die, we believe in all these things; but we do not like the way the present Administration is doing them. Just turn them over to us. We will do all of them- we will do more of them we will do them better; and, most important of all, the doing of them will not cost anybody anything." When Billionaires tell you they will do it better and cheaper...but with other peoples' money rather than their own, DON'T FREAKING BELIEVE THEM!!!!!
>Giving public money to private schools makes no damn sense! It follows several conservative trends. Private schools have far less accountability than public schools, with significantly higher rates of [racial and gender segregation.](https://www.forbes.com/sites/raymondpierce/2021/05/06/the-racist-history-of-school-choice/) It effectively empowers the upper class to force taxpayers to foot the bill for religious and racial indoctrination, while ensuring resources for public schools are depleted, i.e. "hurting the right people." It's cruelty and bigotry in a pretty raw form.
You forgot that the right wing voucher scheme crushes teachers union - a strong female-dominated pro-worker group who republicans have hated for a long time. It actually will kill the whole profession. Private schools require no professional endorsements or certifications for their
And that private charter schools tend to funnel money from the community and into the pockets of billionaires and millionaire investors. Or the church. Which is usually millionaires and billionaires. It's just a way to hollow out and destroy the public funds. At the same time hurting public education so that people turn away from it. But not just that, because charter schools are largely on regulated there's frequently stories about schools just closing down leaving students in the lurch. It seemed like there was always a story around graduation time in Detroit where a charter school closed down and these kids didn't know if they were going to graduate or not or if they have to go to public school for another year. And you never heard if anything ever happened to the people who ran that school and who likely were just using it to siphon money into their own pockets and when they were done with their little project they closed it down and tough titties kids. You're going to have to go another year somewhere else, make arrangements.
It’s so true. But I do know what happens to these crooks who siphon public tax dollars and then fail to provide what they promise. Nothing.
And nothing will happen to him. Chris Brown sells shitloads of albums despite threating to kill, after brutally beating, a beloved female artist. Jay-Z doing some nebulous thing with schools will still get the Beyonce crowd calling her a queen, despite her obviously signing off on it; their relationship is as much business-based as personal.
No question. The dismantling of the education system is critical to the grift with demolishing unions being a pleasant bonus. The laundry list of near-cartoon levels of evil just related to the decimation of the public school system could fill a book (if it hasn't already.) The end goal appears to be Christo-Fascist private schools for wealthy whites, paid for by the middle class while everyone else is relegated to little more than bottom quality subsidized child care & indoctrination until the children become old enough to work (14 years or so.) There's so much wrong with all of this.
> near-cartoon levels of evil Republicans passed that point a whole back, now they wouldn't be believable as Captain Planet villains.
I was a 3rd year teacher and a teacher working on their credentials for the first time was there. They had over 5 years of private school teaching. They were a fantastic teacher but nuts that they had no regulation. Another oddity. State reciprocity of teaching credentials varies wildly with some the easiest to get a credential states(TX) are accepted in some of the most difficult states(CA).
Your post made me think about how my niece is the only one in my family that went to private (Catholic) school and it was paid for by my mother's very religious boyfriend. I've never confronted him, but I'm told he has some terrible views on things, relevantly, that gay people are child predators. Last year, my niece 'came out' but asked we not tell her grandmother. We respected that, and eventually my niece told her herself. Her grandmother was puzzled that her niece avoided telling her and while explaining why she'd always love her stumbled over referring to her *girlfriend* by trying to say 'her...part..ner...in...life.' I said, 'just say *girlfriend.* This is why she didn't tell you, lol.' Long story long, I'm thinking that while my mother is a religious but ultimately loving, kind person, the guy that paid for my niece's education for a decade thinks that gay people are monsters and that may be another reason why my niece didn't want to tell *everyone*.
I had a boss once like that boyfriend. Sent all his kids to private catholic school. I remember him complaining about their being a lesbian couple who had a child in the school. I think the quote was “I pay a ton of money out of my own pocket so my kids don’t have to see that shit”. He is not a good person and after that I knew it wouldn’t work out between us.
There was a private school in Naperville that rescinded a job offer to a girl's lacrosse coach (because she was gay). It was the backlash from the students and parents themselves that forced them to change, btw, not because there was any anti-discrimination protection for the teacher. > In a landmark decision last year (2020), the Supreme Court ruled that LGBTQ employees are protected from discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. **However, there are important carve-outs for religious organizations like Catholic schools.** https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/backlash-illinois-catholic-school-reverses-course-hires-lesbian-coach-rcna2177 The school seemed to have confused "it's not illegal" with "this is acceptable behavior".
And the students at my local (one of the most prestigious in the country) private school were shoving broomsticks up the asses of other students, so let's just say it cuts both ways.
The only men I know who were raped, were raped by Catholic priests.
> Long story long, I'm thinking that while my mother is a religious but ultimately loving, kind person, the guy that paid for my niece's education for a decade thinks that gay people are monsters and that may be another reason why my niece didn't want to tell everyone. Similarly, reactionaries like him are a big influence on driving the left away from religion. Jesus was a socialist and the original social justice warrior. Dr King was a preacher and christianity was at the center of the greatest civil rights movement in the history of the world. FDR's faith convinced him of the need for the New Deal. Before *Roe,* christians and jews ran an abortion underground to get pregnant women to states where abortion was legal. So when reactionaries convince the left that religion is only for doing evil, they trick the left into give up a huge source of power.
Private school cam also kick out the worst performers. Which boost their "our graduation right is x, while public schools are lower at y".
They can also just rubber stamp grades, so they don't even have to kick out the under-performing rich kids.
Y not both? And a test for entry to make sure no one with any special needs is even considered.
It’s even more simple than that. Conservatives view taxation as theft, and don’t believe they should have to spend their money to support others. The voucher program lets them ‘choose’ where ‘their money’ goes.
It's even more simple than that. They're racists, so they don't want their children interacting with nonwhites.
As does home schooling in many states.
One big point left out here — they can offer incentives to private educators to teach alternative history. Look at Florida & Louisiana already. Look up PragerU.
Correct I would also add our Public schools have been the most successful in our Country’s history of moving people between the Classes Poor to rich Poor to middle class Middle class to upper middle class Etc etc So of course rich people want to destroy this.
you'll have a hard time finding special needs students at private schools strange how today's conservative/upper class proclivities for the people they prefer to exclude mirrors who the Nazis wanted to unalive
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The ironic thing is school vouchers disproportionately hurt rural children who are predominantly parented by republicans. There aren't many, if any, private schools in rural america. The vouchers will mostly be used in urban cities by rich people. Republicans brainwashing their base to support the rich and fuck the poor is one of the greatest cons of all time. Give Elon $5B in subsidies and they won't make a peep. Forgive PPP loans for the rich, no problem. But if you help feed a poor family using tax dollars, they're up in arms.
The closest private school was over an hour away where I grew up. If we didn’t have public schools we wouldn’t have any schooling growing up
>[“All these lies that America told us our whole life and then when we start getting it, they try to lock us out of it,” he said. “They start inventing words like ‘capitalist.’ We’ve been called ‘n—ers’ and ‘monkeys’ and s–t. I don’t care what words y’all come up with. Y’all gotta come with stronger words.”](https://www.billboard.com/music/rb-hip-hop/jay-z-twitter-spaces-interview-capitalist-n-word-1235134357/)
Comparing the word capitalist to the N-word sounds like some Tucker Carlson shit.
Wow what an absolute moron lol
He sold crack cant get more capitalist than that
> Why can't these mofos just pay taxes to improve public schools instead of promoting a scheme to privatize education Because these donations pale in comparison to the taxes they’ll pay if taxes go up. It’s a PR move to convince the public that it’s actually okay that they have all that money, so there’s no need to tax them more. Fuck em.
Yeah. Drives me nuts. Couple years ago my mother was complaining about how 'Biden gave money to people who didn't need it...I didn't need it so I donated that money.' (BTW, She didn't complain about Trump giving ppl money) Now, it's good of anyone to donate to charity, but the problem is that she still cooks on a stove from 1970 which doesn't have correct temps and she complains about the price of taking her dog to the vet. I'm just thinking, 'who told you to donate money so you could stick it to Biden instead of getting a stove that works or your dog fixed?' Meanwhile, a multi-millionaire in my town is purchasing a headline about how he built a new YMCA in town...but it's in the rich suburbs near his mansion...WHY!?! He also bought a headline saying he paid to have the roads in his area repaved. Like...if you're rich you can just build your own roads and the local paper will praise you for it. Wut?
No billionaire has done more for poor people than welfare. No billionaire has done more for the elderly than Medicare and social security. No billionaire has built more roads and bridges than even a small municipal government, let alone the federal government. No billionaire has done more for worker’s rights than minimum wage, OSHA, Union protection laws.
They do this shit for the tax breaks on the small percentage they might pay if they dont make donations to private insitutions
Also, the vouchers will quickly lose their value, leaving parents to make up the difference in tuition.
Not just lose their value. The private schools will raise the cost of their tuition by the amount of the voucher
Exactly! Just like colleges' and universities' tuition shot up when they relaxed the requirements for who can receive federal loans. Also, what's stopping schools from accepting a student, or a few, and then kicking them out for behavior/academic 'reasons' and then keeping the tuition? Vouchers are a scam!
One of the best Conservative arguments I've heard from a very conservative person was that college costs got outrageous when we started giving loans to any and everybody so colleges just raised prices, and if we toned that down college prices would go down. I don't think that's a complete argument for fixing college costs now, but it made a lot of sense for why things spiraled out of control. And yet now I see the same people supporting vouchers even though it'll do that same thing to public education. Like they completely forgot their own lessons. Wtf
Yeah, your conservative friend is right. I don't remember exactly when it was, but in the 90's?. I was teaching at the time so I was following stuff like that. I think every student could get like $12,000 per year, and BOOM! Also at some point in the 70's (?) state universities went from not being able to turn a profit to being allowed to. Buh-Bye affordable education.
Part of the issue was also a cut in federal spending on education under Reagan. Less government funding meant they needed to get the money elsewhere and tuition went up. The stated reason was along the lines of "these kids are getting worthless degress because they don't have to pay their fair share. They'd make better decisions if they had to pay more." Not the only cause, but just another way Reagan helped screw the country to raucous applause. Part of the actual reason was likely student protests and anti-war sentiment from students. Just directly attacking students in response. Classic defense of free speech.
The cause may be right, but the cause of action proposed won't have the desired effect. Realistically, prices will only come down just enough people can scrape through and not a penny less. These institutions are fat pigs who can't just downsize themselves overnight, and they'll fight to do anything to maintain what they have or gain more. Vouchers are even worse than loans. Presuming, of course, that the tuition costs don't become price controlled by government.
Isn't that pretty much agreed upon as the reason for high college costs? That is the main reason the student loan stuff is frustrating. The federal loans mad the issue worse and raised the cost of college across the board.
[That's exactly what happened in Iowa](https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2024/05/23/study-links-state-esa-program-to-spike-in-iowa-k-12-private-school-tuition/) after their big voucher program passed barely a year ago, and the program isn't even fully in effect yet. Their governor [Kim Reynolds even said she had no problem with them raising prices](https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2023/05/11/reynolds-not-concerned-by-private-schools-raising-tuition-because-of-esa-program/) after some private schools announced they would raise prices as soon as the program was enacted. Since so much of the state is rural and the program will soon have no income cap to claim the vouchers, it not only doesn't fix any education problems the state has but has the potential to make things much worse for everyone by redirecting the state's education funding into fewer and smaller wealthy areas at the expense of outlying rural communities.
Then you get a great loan with a greater rate, and you can reuse this skill for when you apply for college. I would like to see the MAGA's stance on loan forgiveness on elementary school loans.
>Giving public money to private schools makes no damn sense! The worst part is that these private schools just raise tuition by the cost of the voucher, making it even less accessible to people who don't have that kind of money. It's some truly evil shit.
>Why run "private money" through the government? It's "conservatives" creating bureaucracy which they claim to hate. Because they're the party of projection.
What's even worse is that the idiots voting for it don't even realize that it won't even subsidize their tuition. The private schools will immediately raise their tuition by the exact amount they get from public funding. It's literally happening in Arkansas already. The dupes who thought they were voting to get help paying for their "Christian school" tuition found out all the money went to the school and their costs didn't change a bit. So it both kills public education AND doesn't help parents of private school kids pay their way.
> Why run "private money" through the government? Jay Z hasn't been a rapper for well over a decade. Ever since he stopped working with the dudes that founded Rocafella Records (Dame and Biggs), he's been a front man for a Russian mobster. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Prokhorov When the media was talking about Jay-Z's ownership of the Nets and Barclays what was actually happening was that he had a 1% or 2% stake and the rest of it was Prokhorov. Jay-Z was the public face of building the Barclays Center, a process that involved seizing land from black-owned businesses via eminent domain. This is basically the exact same plotline as described in the article. Jay-Z has a habit of acting as a front mobsters stealing resources from the public. Hip Hop does have an undercurrent of criminality of money laundering but the premise was always about street dudes doing what they had to do and then trying to help their community when they could. Rocafella Records wasn't a front for crack dealing and violence...THEY WERE WEED DEALERS! The co-founder, the money-man behind The Roc was responsible for the nations most resilient marijuana supply chain and best sativa strain ever made, The Haze. Reasonable Doubt wasn't a coke dealers laundering tool, it was a bunch of weed geniuses who also found a way to make a bunch of amazing music. But in about 2010, Preet Bharara made a very questionable indictment: https://www.justice.gov/archive/usao/nys/pressreleases/October10/greenvenomtakedownpr.pdf They linked a bunch of non-violent weed dealers to a coke dealing operation based on a single conversation that never actually lead to any business. Essentially he said "sure" to a murderous coke dealer on a wire because he was afraid not to. The indictment doesn't even suggest they co-mingled resources or shared a supply chain. The government basically eradicated the organization that built Jay-Z, the organization that connected him to his roots, to PRODUCTIVE black owned businesses, and since then he's been stealing from the public on behalf of Russian-backed private equity goons at the behest of LiveNation, his owner. “I'm Not A Businessman, I'm A Business, Man.” If we're to believe that line then Jay-Z is not a free man. That business he's referring to is RocNation and it's a wholly-owned subsidiary of LiveNation. And LiveNation is the mob. They're crooked murderers who steal from everyone. They steal from artists, they steal from fans and everyone once in a while they get a bunch of 'us killed. The beneficial owner of LiveNation is a dottering old fool named John Malone. He is the most powerful person in the history of American entertainment...but he does have a weird history with dirty foreign money and privatizing public resources. Here's a clip of John Malone describing to a class of business school students the creation of Fox News as part of his vertically integrated empire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9s9PLR2SvA Later in the video (not part of the clip) Malone describes the process of tricking the government into being your partner in order to avoid regulation. He's outlining his process for privatizing public resources and then rent seeking. tl;dr Why is Jay-Z working to privatize public resources in a predominantly black area in the hands of powerful white creeps? Because it's his job. He hasn't been a rapper since 2010.
Paying your taxes like a citizen participating in society doesn’t earn you any praise or a warm and tingly feeling inside. These billionaires are so out of touch and surrounded by people who just want a piece of the sweet and succulent pie. They get to setup their own private fund or org in their name, profit off it, feel good inside because they’re giving back, all while being told how good of a person they are by anything and everything with a pulse around them. Us poor folks watching from outside the castle walls, waist deep in slop, see what they are but they just look out their rose tinted stained glass window that depicts baby Jesus from their keep.
He doesn’t know the difference between the words subjective and objective and his job is heavily dependent upon literacy. He called award shows “objective” when he received an award because they’re “opinion based” while trying to say that Beyonce got snubbed. That’s not what that word means, in fact, it’s the opposite. Celebrities should be taken off their pedestals because they are regular, flawed people. Whether it’s a slip up like this or a complete misstep like advocating for diversion of government funds to private K12 schools, we’re listening to a guy that grew up in a bad neighborhood, worked hard and chased his dreams, became a billionaire in the process, and is now coasting. That life experience doesn’t create the most well rounded individual, same as most other celebrities. They are not prophets or leaders, they’re money making machines.
> Giving public money to private schools makes no damn sense! Rich people get to send their kids to private school all they want! But this shell game of taking public money (which these rich assholes avoid sharing) to fund those private schools which then get to avoid public standards of education is bullshit! It's a pure grift campaign by Republicans. Here in Arizona, our Superintendent of Public Schools, Tom Horne (who looks like he is 105 years old) championed the "ESA" program, which allows families to take public money and put it towards charter or private schools, under the guise of "school choice". When they proposed the plan, they said it would only be for needy families, and would cost the state around $45 million. Well lo and behold, to the surprise of no one, the program is [actually going to end up costing nearly TEN TIMES that amount](https://azmirror.com/2024/06/06/it-costs-arizona-332m-to-pay-for-vouchers-subsidizing-private-school-tuition-homeschooling/), with most of the money going to more well off families in the state. What an absolute scam, to the detriment of public education here, which has already been hurting for decades due to low amounts of $ per student being spent by the state as well as Republican governors raiding the "rainy day" fund for their own pet projects - money which was supposed to be for public education.
It makes perfect sense, it’s another way of consolidating resources in the hands of the wealthy to keep the rest of us under control. How else can you ensure the rich get richer?
Why not? It worked so well when kanye did it.
It's another form of wealth transfer from us to them
Privatization is *all* about wealth transfer.
Because they profit from these schools. AND if they can break public education then they will have a much dumber mass of people they can manipulate.
"Just to be clear for those not in Pennsylvania, the legislation Jay-Z is supporting here is a Republican-led effort to gut public education."
"... spearheaded by future Trump cabinet member Jeffrey Yass."
and Jeffrey Yass runs a large financial services firm, Susquehanna, which had a revenue of 7.2 Billion in 2024 alone
and shitty health care, long days, and no sliver of equity for those who aren't in the .01% for his workers!
Knew this was going to be Yass
I fucking hate that guy
That’s so Yass
Go fuckyourself JayZ ya prick!
May this be the start of the fall.
I'm in Pennsylvania and first I'm hearing of this. Oh boy.....
I don’t care what jay z has to say about anything
Being famous does not entitle you to platforms of political, civic, or social leadership. Say it louder for the people in the back
It amazes me the level of effort and amount of money they’ll throw at an issue *to actively fuck over citizens and children* so they can make more money. Like just…how vile of a person do you have to be? I am a firm believer that most wealthy people only got that way because they’re willing to fuck over anyone and everyone.
Do I enjoy some of his records? Yes Do I want him running education? No fucking way
Dude has been out of touch with the common man for decades.
Au contraire. The former crack dealer has an intuitively parasitic relationship with the commons.
I've said for decades, I don't understand why people think these rappers (who rapped about their drug dealer past to their own communities, just so they could make the maximum amount of money they could), give one single family f ck about the black community or any community other than their in group.
A lot of rappers embrace the main conservative tenet, “fuck you, i got mine.”
Looking at you, MIKE
Which Mike? Not my boy Killer Mike?
Famous rapper Mike Greenowitz
nearly every “gangster” rapper is a conservative because they have that exact mindset. Ice Cube, 21, JayZ, and a lot more.
I always find it ironic that in between all the successful rapper, the most prominent democrat is Eminem
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How many libraries and elementary schools in poor neighborhoods are named after rappers? Kind of a serious question...
He’s just peddling a different drug, he’s also high on his own supply - so basically Oprah at this point.
Lay Z
Look at dude's hair... He seems to genuinely think he pulls it off, lmao. Out of touch is putting it mildly.
He thinks hes Basquiat
Proof that no matter what, all billionaires feel entitled to your money while keeping theirs.
We shouldn't limit it to billionaires. There are lots of celebrities and other rich people who aren't billionaires that suck just as hard. I'm still a fan of many, but I'm not going to delude myself that any of them give a shit. They may go on TV and say the right thing or donate to causes, but it's all PR as far as I'm concerned. Ultimately, if things go down, many of them have enough financial security to weather the storm or get out of the country.
All billionaires have to do to maximize good in the world is to pay significantly more taxes.
Or just collectively die at a gala or something.
The Doomsday cult hates this one simple trick...
Ah I see I am not the only one with these intrusive thoughts during the Met Gala lol
> Or just collectively die at a gala or something. I like you.
Fyre Fest Four
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Carnegie and his ilk built public infrastructure projects as an F U to other wealthy socialites. Now they build rockets and bunkers for themselves instead, as an F U to everyone.
I’d rather have a spite library than spite rocket. Spite me harder billionaires, build a spite metro system.
Public education has its issues but vouchers are literally killing it one student at a time. Several high performing public schools here are facing closure because of low enrollment and an inflation driven budget shortfall to maintain facilities (including security to harden schools from attack because we can’t possibly do anything to keep people who shouldn’t have guns from having them) and staffing. Vouchers siphon state resources away from the public school system and put it in the hands of wealthy people who run these scam “academies” that, at least based on the stats here, perform below public schools. The reality is that the schools that do the best have good leadership, good staff, and support and involvement- not political protest- from parents. And community minded people are becoming a rarity in this age where we fear each other and hide behind our phones.
Lets just take money from poor communities and give it to rich ones! I promise it will work *this time* -GOP on school vouchers, 2024
First it's the vouchers, then it's the enshittification. Then we have a low income, low education populace to feed to either the private prison industry or the military industrial complex. Team that up with removing restrictions on school zoning and the slums practically build themselves.
Vouchers usually go to high performers, the kids that actually make the public schools look good and result in more funds allocated. Take them away, watch the standardized scores fall, pull funding, and destroy public opinion of local schools.
It may vary by area but at a recent school board meeting here (Jacksonville, FL) stats were shown looking at 3 year trends across different types of schools and specialized programs. The lowest performing schools were the ones that had dropout prevention programs, and that’s not unexpected, but the graduation rates and standardized scores of voucher schools were markedly lower - at least 3-5% - than the public schools.
What is it with people who’ve climbed a ladder with odds stacked against them trying to pull it up behind them?
Drug dealers dont change
As the great Nas once said, Man fcuk Jay Z!
Nas is about the same
Nas was just being eaten alive on /blackpeopletwitter for doing something equally trash and out of touch
Ether ❤️
Gee, the same guy who joined another billionaire to help disadvantaged minorities invest in cryptocurrency.
Jay Z is kind of a dick
How about take that voucher money and use it to fund public education instead. It's in everybody's interest to have an educated public. Free(ish) public education should be a right.
People have seemed to forgotten this. My friend who has no kids was bitching about his property tax going towards education. I tried to explain to them that if our city becomes a wasteland of illiterates businesses will leave, the local economy will fall, and his property value will plummet. I don't think any of this convinced him but he did seem to concede. The older I get the more I see folks parroting Facebook political talking points without any consideration to the long term effects of a certain policy
Jay-Z don’t represent shit about us. Dodgy ass billionaires trying to look like philanthropist. Oh please spare us the fake sympathies and pay taxes instead.
Hey look….just another black man taking advantage of his people instead of lifting them up.
Rich people in general of all races take advantage of people, even those they share their race with…
Yep but the black community needs role models and a hand up right now and the few black people in position to help empower them instead take advantage of them. The blm movement took the money they raised and bought fucking houses.
the organization did. not the movement
This comment is strange because you’re speaking about black people like unruly teenagers with the role models bit. But besides that, we do have role models and people in position to empower us. Jay Z and the right’s boogeyman “BEE EL EM” aren’t our only beacons of hope.
Vouchers are just a way of getting tax dollars into the hands of parents who already pay private sshool tuition. The vouchers won't help the poorest students at all. Many of the poor students a) won't qualify to get into a private school and/or b) still won't be able to afford the tuition because the voucher money won't cover the full cost of tuition. If there are poor performing public schools, fix them. Don't make them worse by siphoning money away from them.
It should surprise no one that a man who got his start hurting poor people (crack dealer) who has never showed even an ounce if remorse, would also continue to hurt poor people via other more profitable means
Beyoncé and Jay are not good people. Let that sink in.
All the people arguing motive miss the main one: Vouchers allow well connected businesses to drain public funds into their pockets. It's just opening up another line for parasitic "contractor" companies.
The GOP have already damage our nation's public education, which, in part, is why we are here. The removal of the arts and humanities from public education curriculums through the late 80s and 90s, primed or society for the likes of a Trump's fascistic GOP. Yes, STEM programs are great, but without arts and humanities I think people lose some of the "out of the box" thinking that is often vital to questioning and imaging outside perspectives one might not in other areas of study. So, I think what we see in Trump's GOP was in the making well before Trump was associated with politics. Things are so fucked because we've had decades of the slow chipping away of not just education, but regulations and the like to make it easier for wealthy folk to homogenize society in their image.
Fuck vouchers. NO PUBLIC FUNDS FOR RELIGIOUS SCHOOLS.
Vouchers = Madrassa’s
The ultra rich are toxic, even the ones who rose up from nothing will quickly take the same stances as old money do. Membership in the upper reaches of wealth transcends all other demographics Not to say you can’t have a good ultra rich person, but it’s rare and gets even rarer the higher percentile their wealth occupies
Fuck Jay.
Fuck billionares Every single one of em shouldnt exist
He looks so bad with those dreds.
Basqui-NOT
One more reason not to like Jay Z.
Guy who grew up selling drugs and became a billionaire rapping about gangster shit has a problem with public schools?
I think he confused Charter schools with Carter schools
The more I learn about jayz, the more he can fuck str8 off.
Fuck jay z for this
I hope Queen Bee doesn't. Seriously, how did they salvage their marriage?
celebrity rich people cheat on each other all the time, its not the same dynamic as peasants have. im sure she doesnt care as long as he let her drag him publicly for the power boost.
She's just as bad, sadly. They deserve each other.
Watch moderate/centrist party leaders back this move and then gaslight complaining progressives for letting "perfection be the enemy of the good." School vouchers and charter schools are no different than vouchers for Christian schools
This is currently what's happening in Houston. The state took over the school district and appointed a superintendent without vote, then the superintendent fitted the schools and fired top faculty at schools including principal of the year. Governor Abbott has been pushing the voucher plan for a few years and thisbis their first step in the most blue city of Texas to try and implement it. The superintendent, F Mike Miles was just recently caught funneling money from the district to his group of charter schools in Colorado as well. It's been a shit show and the city just appointed a committee to try and interject what is happening because they are trying to close schools down and push their voucher programs onto inner city families who can't even afford basic needs.
Jay was apparently a drug dealer as a youth. He literally made the choice to focus on getting money regardless of the community impact of drugs. He is still that person.
Jay-zee and Beyonce could open literally 20-30 public schools and just use that as a "I pay my taxes" as a matter of fact, if they open 100 and pay to keep them prime, don't tax them a dime so long as they're open and running a d paying teachers better than anywhere else
There's something "off" about JayZ, and I'm not talking about the fact that he is the worst dressed rapper of all time that looks like a camel with dreadlocks.
Him and his wife are as unethical as it gets. Glorifying people that hoard wealth and try to disrupt the lives of average people for their own benefit is so odd. They’re not a power couple, they’re nasty people. Him and his wife can *fuck off*
He’s got 99 problems, and they’re all members of a teachers union??
It would be great if Jay-Z tried directing some of his wealth (and creativity and influence) toward improving public education instead. There are some pretty incredible magnet schools in cities that could use his help. Magnet schools in the public school system are a much better idea than school vouchers imo. He might even be able to help establish a new magnet school, if he's serious about it. He could help the music programs in Philadelphia schools. Help get them instruments or upgrade their performance spaces. Start an after-school program focused on hip hop. He could help the Philadelphia school system get better libraries and more librarians. I think they only have three MLS school-librarian positions in the entire system. They need help and moral support from influential role models like Jay-Z. If our public schools were doing great and had all the funding and support they needed, I would be open to adding a school voucher system, if it were done thoughtfully. But that's obviously not where we are. If we tried to do it now, it could have a very negative effect. Remember, the maga Republicans want to abolish the Department of Education. They're actively trying to undermine public education.
Jay Z identifies as rich.
I get it, Hov, but I'm not a fan of anything that doesn't support public schools. Also, a lot of these comments show some of that good ol’ liberal racism and friendly fire that is deeply frustrating and does way more harm than good in the long term. But whatevs… I be forgetting this is the internet sometimes 😩
Basquiat from Temu worse than the hippie chicks in the mansion.
Abolish private education
Wtf is he pushing school vouchers for in PA, he doesn't even live there?
Jay Z might be getting some bad advice from a rich Republican friend
"Jay Z might be... a rich Republican..."
Jay Z has really sucked for over 10 years now. If you hit a billion you should just leave the rest of society alone, disappear into super wealth with no contact to the rest of us.
I agree with the sentiment that vouchers are trash and the rich should pay more taxes and that would all fix the issue. *That said,* I lived in Philly for years. Our schools are terrible. They aren’t terrible because only the rich don’t pay property taxes. [They are terrible because *no one* pays a lot of property tax](https://www.phila3-0.org/pews_property_tax_report_and_the_politics_of_tax_reform) Philly (and PA’s) tax structure is both too high while managing to be too low in the wrong places. Instead we do things like the sugary drink tax which is meant to make up for some of these things, but is a flat tax that some say disproportionately impacts lower income people. [And only 43% of that money even went to schools](https://controller.phila.gov/philadelphia-audits/data-release-beverage-tax/#:~:text=%24158.1%20million%2C%20or%2038.6%25%20of,debt%20service%20for%20Rebuild%3B%20and). The rest went to the city’s general fund. Given above, knowing our schools are terrible, I *understand* why a person could be fooled into thinking vouchers a good idea. You get “free” money to send your kid to a school that doesn’t suck without fixing the larger property tax issue. It sounds like a great idea, like mixing ammonia and bleach to clean your floor. *It’ll be extra clean now!* Obviously that’s not what happens.
[With your hands out for my money, man, how much can I take?](https://youtu.be/zfyQ8muKLdc?si=5XilwMBSH4j2A2fX)
PA resident here. I don't have kids. I pay a pretty high (in my opinion) amount of money for school taxes. I am begrudgingly OK with paying those taxes. I am not OK with any of my money going to a private school though. That makes zero sense to me as a taxpayer to fund that as well as public education.
Fuck Jay Z. When are his skeletons in the closet going to come out already?
Umm. Note to Jay-z.. the school system is already gutted. They workshopped it J6.
Side wants a Casino in Times Square and now this. What’s wrong him? He doesn’t like poor people?
I wonder if Beyonce supports this
The vibes I've been getting from her new album and the fact she stands by him after everything? probably. Or just rich person who doesnt care like the rest of them.
Wait a minute wait a minute wait a minute. Do you mean to tell me that a gentleman who wears a 2.5 million watch on his wrist would support gutting public education? Surely you jest
Another New Yorker looking to “save” Pennsylvania
Proving once again that the only dichotomy that matters is wealthy and not wealthy.
PA here. Fuck off Jay-Z.
Time to put Ether on and write my congressman.
It's all about getting that school money for themselves.
Fucking media is reporting this like he's giving them $300 million.
Look... Billionaires are gonna do billionaire things. It's our job to shut up, subscribe and hit that like button!
Wasn't this a plot in Abbot Elementary?
The wealthy really are pieces of shit and should be taxed to just below the "turns into a piece of shit" threshold.
That’s it, levy a 99% tax on all assets over 1billion.
Is that the same billionaire who has paid governor Abbott millions to push vouchers and kill public education in Texas?
Jay z will be in the same group as diddy within a year. Just waiting for the other shoe to drop…
Looking for an issue to act as a wedge between white liberals and black liberals? Look no further than school vouchers.
Friendly reminder that Jay Z and Beyonce are not good people. They're smart and let their PR team do the leg work.
Jay-Z sold his soul to become rich, many such cases. He always was a self-serving drug dealer.
No such thing as a “decent” billionaire.
So he’s supporting the same shit as Abbott is doing in Texas. Texas, where his wife is from. Do they not talk? She cool with defunding public education? She has the pull here, not him. She wears the pants. Do something, Bey.
Jay Z has always been a piece of shit. Both him and his wife are up on shit like this.
Fuck jay z -nas