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Corporate 'Education Reform': A Moment of National Insanity
I'm beginning to think we are living in a moment of national insanity. On the one hand, we hear pious exhortations about education reform, endlessly uttered by our leaders in high political office, corporate suites, foundations, and the media. President Obama says we have to "out-educate" the rest of the world to "win the future."
Yet the reality on the ground suggests that the corporate reform movement—embraced by so many of those same leaders, including the president—will set American education back, by how many years or decades is anyone's guess. Sometimes I think we are hurtling back a century or more, to the age of the Robber Barons and the great corporate trusts.
Consider a few events of the past week:
- In Detroit, the school system will reduce its deficit by closing half the city's public schools and creating classes of as many as 60 students. These are among the poorest and lowest-performing students in the nation. Parents and teachers should be rioting in the streets of Detroit, along with everyone who cares about these children and our future. This is an outrage.
- The school board of Providence, R.I., voted to fire all of its teachers to address its deficit. Most will be rehired, but now the board has maximum flexibility to choose which ones. At the same time, Providence's leaders are humiliating every teacher, breaking the bonds of trust that are essential for the culture of a good school. Will anyone hold these reckless, heedless, unprofessional "leaders" in Rhode Island to account?
- And, in Idaho, the state superintendent of education has proposed a plan that would lay off 770 teachers over five years, banking on students taking more online courses. Do they know there is no evidence for the efficacy of virtual learning? I don't think they care. For them, this is just a cost-cutting measure. And it's other people's children who will get this bargain-basement training, not their own.
If more was needed to strip away the mask of "reform," consider the deafening silence of the corporate school reformers in response to these events. A few, like Joe Williams of Democrats for Educational Reform, surprised their confreres (and me) by siding with the teachers of Wisconsin. Most, however, complained that public employees are overpaid, have unnecessarily rich benefits, and need a comeuppance. All those who wrote such articles enjoy comfortable upper-middle-class lives; do they want to reduce teachers to penury? Some circulated spurious claims that Wisconsin's schools were dreadful because only one-third of 8th graders were proficient on the National Assessment of Educational Progress reading assessment in 2009; I assume they don't realize that "proficient" on NAEP is far higher than proficient on state tests and is equivalent to an "A."
I was disappointed when my friend Rick Hess, who blogs for Education Week, expressed his support for Wisconsin's Governor Scott Walker (I Stand With Governor Walker); in another piece, Rick reported that the average salary of Wisconsin teachers was about $52,600 in 2009-10. I wonder what the average salary is for professionals at the American Enterprise Institute, where Rick does his thinking and writing. I'm sure it's far more than what teachers earn, and that the working conditions are pleasanter, the stress level lower, and the responsibilities fewer.
The corporate reformers have done a good job of persuading the media that our public schools are failing because they are overrun by bad teachers, and these bad teachers have lifetime tenure because of their powerful unions. (See the corporate reform film, "Waiting for Superman"). I'm sorry to say that Race to the Top, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have stirred up a frenzy of anti-teacher sentiment that hurts even our very best teachers, by their much-publicized search for "bad teachers."
National Board-certified teachers are organizing a march on Washington this July to fight back against the vilification of their profession. Their website is www.saveourschoolsmarch.org.
In the wake of the attacks on teachers and public schools this past year, the haters of teachers feel respectable as they write their venomous diatribes and post them widely. When I recently defended teachers and their right to bargain collectively on CNN.com, I was startled by the raw expressions of rage in the thousands of comments that poured in.
So much madness on the loose. So many districts firing teachers and closing schools. So many legislators slashing education budgets while refusing to raise taxes on millionaires or allowing taxes on the wealthiest to expire as they lay off teachers.
What do we hear from the corporate reformers? Merit pay. Really? Bonuses for some, layoffs for others? Fire teachers with low value-added scores? Ah, more teaching to the test, more narrowing the curriculum.
Nothing to improve education. Just "innovation" (i.e., no evidence) and "disruption" (I.e., firing the whole staff, closing the school).
Our schools remain subject to a failed federal accountability system. We are packing children into crowded classrooms, ignoring the growing levels of child poverty (the U.S. now leads all advanced nations in infant mortality), and putting fear into the hearts of our nation's teachers. Who will want to teach? How does any of this improve schools or benefit children? Do you understand it? I don't.
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44 Comments so far
Show AllOne can only imagine the sense of BETRAYAL that soon will be felt by many students. Some are old enough to recognize hypocrisy, and it's in abundant supply in a society that rewards those who make war and send people OUT of their homes, while punishing those trying to get ahead. A generation's brain-trust is about go into limbo.
The cruelty on view (under the guise of "professionalism" and/or "pragmatism") is the stuff that Charles Dickens' novels are made of. Sinclair Lewis was right... it CAN happen here! Shame on Bill & Melinda Gates for viewing children's minds as another PRODUCT that requires efficient programming! YUCK!
SR
Exactly! Betrayal is the word. This generation of students should refuse to attend classes packed with students in squalid classrooms with no prospects for decent jobs or tuition-free training after high school. They might not learn their chemistry of their English by picketing the shabby schools they are asked to attend, but they might learn something more important: the power of the people to change the wretched conditions forced upon them by corporate culture. It is time for the young to raise hell--no one listens to them or those who would speak for them in the corridors of power. I can only hope they (and their parents) will not give in to the demand of the elite to sacrifice their futures for the sake of those that already possess most of the wealth in the world. Bill Gates, to me, is the nerd he has always been, detached from the world of ordinary people, convinced that he understands education as no one else does--certainly better than the teachers and students that struggle in school. Future historians should get it right--greedy bastards stole the future of millions of young people, stole it cleanly and without a bit of remorse.
I agree with both of you. It would be a good thing if the kids went on strike, except for how the police and the courts would treat them for daring to express their outrage at their treatment by the 'responsible' adults. The media would deride them as delinquents, who didn't have the 'proper' parental supervision (ie they weren't white, or if they were their parents weren't rich).
In some ways they'll get revenge on the idiots who support the government cuts. Ask yourself how, with a piss poor education and no well paying job prospects when they graduate, how on earth will they be able to fund the retirement of those who come after the baby boomers... Damn shame that 'revenge' won't make a bit of difference to those who benefit the most from the current rounds of government cuts.
The police can't enforce truancy laws if thousands of kids disobey them. Think of it as a strike. Such a move would be totally appropriate in a city like Detroit where students may be asked to sit in classes of 60 students. Would other adults regard them as delinquents? I wouldn't. And I would predict victory (increased funding) within a school year. Kids would be proud to help bring about that outcome.
You're quite right, if thousands of kids disobeyed then the police would have a hard time dealing with it. However, you're asking a lot from the little ankle biters. (grin) They've been in a school system that has - for their entire lives - no regard for their opinions whatsoever. They are far less free to think of such things than we were at their age. I think that if there is a spark they could do great things. I hope they go for it if their schools do stuff 60 of them in a class...
Not just shame on Bill & Melinda Gates - take their money away. I'm all for supporting teachers unions and keeping corporations out of schools, but we need to emphasize the idea of taxation as a means of benefiting society as a whole. There is absolutely no reason the Gates family should have spare billions to spend on meddling with our children's education (as well as the nature of foreign aid). Strong unions, progressive taxation, an end to corporate manipulation of the tax code - all these things go together. I'm beginning to think any movement with the word "save" in it is too defensive and those of us who do want to save our public institutions need to go on the offensive - tax the freeloading rich.
Why would the Ruling Class want to educate it's Working Class slaves?
Because the ruling class is useless without a working class that can at least perform some essential services that require education, such as medical care or maintaining transportation or fixing their computers. Or to read directions as we prepare their food and care for their kids.
Or to put it more succinctly - the ruling class serves no useful purpose and is dependent on us for all its practical needs. They just don't want us to use our education to infer that powerful truth.
Good question! The American middle class was built on union activism. Now that private sector union membership has been decimated over the last 30 years or so, a frontal attack is being made on the last largely unionized sector of the workforce: public sector workers. Once public education is turned into private profit, (just like health insurance, they'll make money by NOT providing the service) the quality of education will fall drastically. Then American workers will be totally at the mercy of global capital (as the neo-liberal believes they should be). They will have to compete with the lowest paid workers on the planet. Hence from the point of view of the ruling class, your question is animating their actions.
Exactly! As Reich Minister Herr Goebbels once said when asked want kind of education the Reich had in store for the Slavs. "We'll teach them just enough German so they can read our road signs, so they won't get run over by our tanks heading east!" The GOP version in regard to the poor. "We'll teach them just enough English so they can read the road signs, so they won't get run over by our Mercedes' heading for the beach."
I hope the elite in this country are grabbing all they can while they can, because I believe we are heading for a Middle Eastern moment here, only I wonder if ours will be so peaceful.
Perhaps my opinion is wrong because I am basing it off of readings and not experience. I was fortunate enough to have been born in a middle class family, get a college education, and make a comfortable middle-class living. (I had many reflections on Mr. Jensen's article a couple of days ago)
But in reading any of Kozol's books on education or observing the events in Tunisia, Egypt, etc., it is clear that we generally do not give enough credit to the young and poor in our societies to recognize BS when they see it. Kozol demonstrates quite easily that the poor know their schools are inadequate - it doesn't take someone with a high test score to see the difference. The poor, minorities especially, know this country of ours holds no opportunities for them. Our government becomes more and more blatant in lifting the veil off their greed and hypocrisy every day.
At some point in time, the young and poor are going to do something about it. Somehow, I picture our government reacting more like Libya than Egypt. I hope I am wrong.
Faced with an uprising by the poor, the US government would react in a way that would make the Libyan government look like a bunch of pansies...
Kozol has been pretty much ignored by the powers to be in education as he has been pointing out the inequities in public education for decades. He has very cogently laid out the myriad problems in public education but many refuse to listen. Another good writer on education is Paolo Freire, a Brazilian educator who was exiled from Brazil for many years during the military junta ruling time. Pedagogy of the Heart and Pedagogy of the Oppressed should be read by all who are or aspire to be a teacher.
We have high unemployment, an economy in which most new jobs are low-wage, and a consequent workforce of low-wage, often underemployed people, with few if any benefits and no job security. Look, I live in a right to work state and almost no one I know makes a living wage, gets decent benefits, or pensions. Insecurity is high, and the politics of resentment, always a favorite tactic of Repug-Foxicons, is deployed to the max. In fact, a decent wage, good benefits, a pension are all thing that most workers no longer have. The solution? Not to create a real sustainable economy, and one that provides a living wage, dignity, benefits and job security for ALL workers, which is what unions have done so admirably in the past, but to scapegoat public workers who still get, to some degree anyway, what everyone else wants. Guess what? We can destroy the entire infrastructure of public goods and services, privatize them all, the great Repug we dream, and costs for education, healthcare, food, fuel will continue to rise, while quality and accountability will decrease.
And this phony "battle" sure helps to avoid discussion of why public revenues are down and why we "suddenly" can't afford public education (along with anything else public, like health care, the EPA, the Consumer Financial Protection Commision, etc): How about some discussion of the burst housing bubble, criminal fraud on the part of banks/ finance/Wall Street all of whom benefitted from the bubble, combined with 30 years of corporate takeover of government, corporate tax dodges and tax "relief" for the wealthiest, union busting, and trade poliices that have all led the rest of us (the losers, in their view) to this race to the bottom. Who will these parasites blame once the entire public sector is defunded and privatized, and all the "illegals", the other great scapegoat, are driven into jails or deported? Now that will be interesting to see.
they are redistributing money to the wealthy who will hoard it therefore shrinking the economy
JP's commentary nails it. it is not just right-to-work that is the issue, but the frauds of War and Wall St. While the Walkers or Bushes stir up opposition, the Obamas dampen it. Most places the sheep will go obligingly if fearfully, to the slaughter thinking that at least they have made some gains.
Sorry if you've seen this before, but here's what the NEA will do for good teachers:
http://www.endteacherabuse.org/Geery.html
This is far from an isolated case.
I dropped from the NEA a number of years back as they are part of the problem having embraced NCLB and other nefarious practices. The only thing they did for me when I was being harassed (wanting an assistant principal to file false sexual harassment charges against me-luckily she has integrity and refused) by the administration of the my prior district was to be at the meetings taking notes so that the admin couldn't lie more about the lying they were doing.
I advise all teachers to drop from the NEA unless and until they change their tune. And no you do not need the "malpractice" insurance, your district already has it on you.
Diane Ravitch is an example of one whose sincere dedication to children and education has caused her to evaluate evidence and thus move from a traditional quality education stance (which was always pretty good on the question of enriched content) to becoming a fighter against the status quo. She sees the relationship between taking money away from public education and the baseless "innovations" that disguise its intent and effects. I have great admiration for her.
Diane Ravitch has become a beacon of Reason in a sea of magical thinking. Obama needs to either step up to the challenge or get out of the way. Platitudes of "change" won't cut it next time around. To paraphrase Janis Joplin, if we have nothing left to lose it gives us great freedom to seek alternatives. Education is a public trust and it deserves to be treated as such. I am thrilled to see NBC teachers using their platform to rally for public education, and I hope thousands if not millions of Americans can join them in July.
As any government or religion knows, the dumber you keep the subjects the easier it is to control them and get what is wanted from them. Thus is the use of esoteric and exoteric information and of course the 'subjects' only get the exoteric balderdash for their part.
That is why today the mainstream media is so important. Information control. And now control of the education will give the 'elite' more control because they sure as hell don't want a critically thinking citizenry that would or should keep asking questions on certain issues, uncomfortable questions.
Next is the ostensible technology sector who keep bringing out ostensible new technology which is nothing but repackaged same old technology just designed to distract instead of inform but when used correctly it is what Egypt and Tunisia used to break down their rotten governments.
So the lack of education serves the purpose for when people don't know, people don't care(abdicating their role in the republic's democracy of 'eternal vigilance') or some people find the idea of keeping certain peoples dumb leads, to a good part, what is happening in this country and the world now, maintaining the status quo.
Ocean - 3:15pm
Why would the Ruling Class want to educate it's [sic] Working Class slaves?
jclientelle - 4:29pm
Because the ruling class is useless without a working class that can at least perform some essential services that require education, such as medical care or maintaining transportation or fixing their computers. Or to read directions as we prepare their food and care for their kids. [...]
___________________________________
True enough, but this really begs the question of whether the term "education" becomes a mere euphemism.
The Brave New World codified in "No Child Left Behind" abhors "education" in the classic Enlightenment sense of imparting knowledge and reasoning skills for the purpose of facilitating intellectual development-- especially the kind that precipitates and develops critical thinking, self-awareness, and intellectual depth or insight.
Once upon a time, there was a declared public interest served in cultivating all of the above, on the theory that a vibrant democracy depended on an intelligent, skeptical, free citizenry. But the power elite in Amerika's technobarbaric capitalist culture barely even pay lip service to that "quaint" standard any more-- it's sort of morphed into the warped ideal of maintaining a highly-functional "workforce" to ensure that the nation remains economically "competitive" in a world of rivals and adversaries.
Oh, there's still a need for a range of sharper and duller tools, or coarser and finer gears.
But overall, this reduces the art of education to a skill-set much closer to "programming", or "training" in the behavioral sense. In general, learning and intellectual enrichment for its own sake is superfluous and literally "counterproductive". For all but the highest level in the social pyramid, what is wanted are TAMED, well-trained, unreflective, complacent, compliant, and institution-broken worker units-- and in their spare time, enthusiastic consumers of commodities and pop culture.
In a phrase, "obedient servants". Freethinkers need not apply.
Well stated, OS.
re: "Why would the Ruling Class want to educate it's [sic] Working Class slaves?"
My first thought was something along these lines. It was
Why would we need an educated workforce? We *don't even have* a workforce anymore in America.
Having sensibilities, taste, perspective, specialized skills and knowledge... these are no longer assets in this country... More like liabilities when all that's required these days is a chipper, go-get-'em attitude, political blinders, and a pair of good, ass-kissing lips.
Who needs an education for that?
OB you saved me a late night response to what education means to and for the corporate masters. Stated eloquently and artistically, so thanks you.
The masters of the new-world-order, in regards to finding anyone with a classic renaissance education, I will just quote John Lennon : "Christ, their gonna crucify me."
Although this post is totally non-main-stream media, let's get Marxist for a second. Workers and their bosses are at odds by definition. By definition, the bosses will pay as little as possible to their workers. Workers will try to get more money, hence unions. Bosses will then move jobs elsewhere; elsewhere being wherever labor is cheap--China, etc. They can't do this with teachers , so for the time being, bosses are at a loss. Not for long, though. These crafty fellows will privatize public education, and, for the mass of poor folks, move it online! This is capitalism at work. A heartless system , you will have to agree, even if you're not a Marxist.
'President Obama says we have to "out-educate" the rest of the world to "win the future."'
Well, if you'll look just slightly to the right of this article, you'll note that some brilliantly innovative product of the American educational system has come up with the novel idea that: "Democracy Only Works When People Are in Charge." How's that for the epitome of deductive reasoning.
Good luck out-educating the rest of the world. My guess is that you'll be relying on America's more usual blunter instruments for winning the future (or trying to) for some time to come.
why do we lament the passing of any portion of our failed society?
are we unable to fathom that our educational system is part of the whole, and contributes to the facade within which we exist, a facade based on the denial of resources, and the endless earning of the right to repurchase them from those hoarding?
forgive me, but why is it betrayal to turn kids away from these institutions...wasn't it already betrayal to force them to undergo them?
critical thinking reaches an abrupt dead end when you get to the gunbarrel that is American justice...
after we deal with the gunbarrel, and are able to focus on the planet's health, we might, one day, revisit schooling...
before then, we have alot of crucial matters to attend, and our educational system isn't helping, it is hurting...
my son's school had approached an encampment, with security and police in constant presence, and, in my opinion, causing more trouble than preventing...
he is now schooling from home, online, as that is the least disruptive method...
we cannot continue the thinking that brought us here...
our nostalgia for schools is part of that thinking...
again, I do not disparage knowledge, I disparage what is currently being treated, and taught, as knowledge...
education is an excuse to avoid one's own work in this world, and has brought us to the very brink of ecological disaster...
the planet can't take any more of our education...
I can't remember the author, but the book "Teaching as a subversive activity" is worth looking into. You might be surprised how many teachers are more effective revolutionaries than those who rely on guns .
Speaking of guns, there are probably more guns than people in the US. An earlier poster underestimates the disposition of the average person to use them.
"Teaching as a Subversive Activity" by Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner
See: http://bit.ly/frz6yS
Some great posts but this isn't about closing budget gaps nor is it strictly about breaking teacher unions (one of the last bastions of unionism) - this is strictly about the rich (and professional class - doctors, lawyers, engineers) not wanting to pay for these schools that their own children do not attend.
In short its a bunch of greedy bastards who don't give a damn about society because for the most part they do not live in it. They have gated communities with private security, private clubs, private schools, etc.
More of the same ole, same ole class war and the "average" worker better start waking up to this simple fact. I fear by the time we can close the divide between the "left" and the "right" we all will be living in squalor with no real options to get out of it.
Exemplary explanation by John Cleese
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLNhPMQnWu4
Great posts: JP, Drosera, Jclientelle, Dubet & Obedient Servant.
It's good to see so many who genuinely CARE about this matter, and can tie it in with the other sins of our empire run amok.
All I can say is that I am afraid - very afraid - for the young and those who must raise them in this ravaged country. I lost my only child (a son) two years ago and there are days when I am thankful he will not have to take part in this battle.
When they couldn't figure out how to clone soldiers, they took the next best option.
The year of the no child left behind act was the beginning of the no child can rise above act. My daughter pulled her then 13 year old out of public school, where he was all but failing in every subject. I have home schooled him with books I got from our local library, as well as some excellent websites. As a result in the past 2 years, he has gone from barely passing 7th grade to working at a 10th grade level and making all a's.
The corporate-education-reformers hate the idea of tenured teachers and professors---especially publically employed tenured teachers and professors----because such teachers and professors are educated (and hence have the tools to see through corporate propaganda) and enjoy job independence and security (and hence are able to voice their criticisms of the corporate agenda without fear of destitution).
These corporate reformers advocate "merit pay" because:
(1) they can't conceive of anyone doing anything for any reason other than financial profit (i.e., that a teacher might be passionate about knowledge or his academic field or helping others is incomprehensible to them);
(2) "merit" would be judged either by the dictatorial fiat of administrators (which appeals to the reformers' authoritarian corporate mentality), or by students' standardized test scores (which fosters a narrow "teaching to the test" mode of education, which encourages "mastery of prescribed tasks" in students rather than independent and original thought.
We had it going, educationally, in the 70's. We worked to help our kids become critical thinkers, lifelong learners, experiential learners, self-motivated, self-confident. AND IT REALLY WORKED. The problem was, we did not teach them to value and defend that precious system. We did not teach them that profit has no place in education. We did not teach them that sacrifice is sometimes necessry to ensure that good works continue. We did not teach them to stand up to little minds with little "goals". And now we must make up for that lack of teaching and try to rescue education out of the rubble of school systems.
Outstanding article. There are so many impassioned excellent comments that I don't quite know what to say. I can tell all of you that your thoughts, the persistence of the PEOPLE in Wisconsin, and learning of the SOS March next July give me hope for a future in our country.
THANK YOU, because we (my husband and I) have felt more despairing as we have watched the decline of experiential education and the rise of corporate domination in America.
I am too tired to find the posts regarding student strikes/demonstrations, but I am an adult and support that concept 100%. (Caveat: I am not always a "conforming adult" and firmly believe in the power of active advocacy.) I wish I could help with that, but all I can do is hope that enough adults would mentor student strikes and that they would be organized coherently to make clear, strong points.
Hope to have enough strength to track these activities more closely.
Appreciate the comments above.
By firing all the teachers and then rehiring certain ones, is this on the basis of merit or a weeding out of teachers who do not follow corporate thinking? Schools have always been seen as nests of liberal thinking and there appears to be a drive to privatize, get rich on, and control the thinking/teaching of the minds of our children. Of course there are always jobs to fill, and empire needs soldiers, more so now than ever. Many of our young see the military as 'their job' now. Maybe the armed forces do not want educated men and women to run the machinery of war anymore but need 'lambs to the slaughter'.
I agree with certain comments above that we need to concentrate on stopping the destruction of earth, and maybe return to simpler daily living, without all the useless gadgets that flood our markets. Bring back the work jobs and get away from the idea that money and living is made best off investments and manipulating others money. We need a vision of how to live healthier with nature.
When the battle begins in this country between haves and have nots, it will be fierce and I am afraid quite bloody.
Obama wants to privatize public schools in order to "out educate" the rest of the world and "win the future," just like he makes NAFTA-style trade pacts in order to "out compete" the rest of the world and "win the future."
Just as he escalates the war in Afghanistan and continues to occupy Iraq in order to "change" the foreign policies of George W. Bush and end "dumb wars."
Just as he kills "unnecessary regulations" on GMO crops and allows the oil industry to inspect it's own deep sea drilling operations in order to "protect the environment."
Just as he wants to finance and indemnify the nuclear power industry in order to provide "green" energy and jobs.
Just as he mandates private health insurance purchases in order to "reform" our broken healthcare system.
Obama is a two-faced liar, always was and always will be.
It is time to call the assault on education in the United States for what it is: CHILD ABUSE - fundamentally no different from actual physical violence and sexual abuse. Until the people in large numbers get behind (a) the absolute necessity of the federal government funding all education, (b) taking the very idea of education out of the realm of commodification, (c) understand that all the bullshit about getting the corporate crowd and 'free marketeers' and education experts around the table to get a consensus about what to do about education is just more smokescreening the greed and hypercapitalism that poisons the United States (along with the hyper-masculinism and hypermilitarization, of course), then the U.S. will continue down the bloody toilet.
It is child abuse. Thank you Tara.
Imagine being a kid today and everyone in the government wants to deplete your education, give you nothing but lies and deceit, take away all the stuff that makes you a better developed person...and by 12 you know that this government has stolen your dignity, your opportunity, your future, your life.
Oh boy, there's a group that will shake the halls...let's get the kids in on this. Let's show them what the government is doing to destroy their future. Maybe they'd like to teach their parents a thing or two about protest. Sign your kids up for the Michael Moore school stuff.
He is rallying kids to get their voices heard. HELP.
(( Thank God I was raised by socialists so knew well in advance where our country was headed. And it just keeps getting worse.))