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The Campaign to Privatize the World
One of the biggest con games going on at the moment is the sustained attack on the U.S. public school system. It’s being perpetrated by predatory entrepreneurs (disguised as “concerned citizens” and “education reformers”) hoping to persuade the parents of school-age children that the only way their kids are going to get a decent education is by paying for something that they can already get for free. You might say it’s the same marketing campaign that launched bottled water.
The profit impulse fueling this drive is understandable. All it takes is a cursory look at the economic landscape to see why these speculators are drooling at the prospect of privatizing education. Millions of students pulling up stakes, bailing out of the public school system, and enrolling in private or charter schools? Are you kidding? Just think of the money that would generate.
Mind you, these “education reformers” are the same people who want to privatize the world—the same people who want more toll roads, who want hikers to pay trail fees, who want city parks and public beaches to charge admission. Indeed, they’re the same tribe who convinced a thirsty nation to voluntarily pay for drinking water that it could otherwise get for free.
Before comparing private and public schools, let’s revisit that bottled water craze, the stunning marketing phenomenon that made beverage companies wealthy and added a billion plastic bottles to our landfills and oceans. For the record, since passage of the Safe Drinking Water Act (1974), municipal water, unlike bottled, has been stringently regulated by the EPA, which is why bottled water contains more impurities and bacteria. In truth, city water is safer, cheaper and better for the environment.
Of course, there are people who refuse to believe one word the government (municipal or otherwise) tells them. They don’t believe the census, they don’t believe the figures in the federal budget, and they regard EPA statistics as state-sponsored propaganda. Fine. You’ll never get these people to change their minds, so save your breath. Let them, Grover Norquist, and Orly Taitz do whatever it is they do.
And then you have your beverage connoisseurs who (even though blind taste-tests tend to dispute this) insist that they can not only instantly tell the difference between bottled and tap water, but can tell the difference between varying brands of bottled water. I’m not saying that some of these epicureans (taste-test evidence aside) can’t do this. All I’m saying is that they’re fanatical about it.
Offer a glass of tap water to a beverage connoisseur who—before the bottled water craze swept the nation—had happily guzzled city water his entire life, and he’ll recoil in horror, as if you’d invited him to drink from your toilet. I’ve joked with these people that if I ever introduced a brand of bottled water, I would name it “Placebo.”
Back to education. The thing about private schools is that they’re very much like bottled water. They are far less regulated than public schools. In fact, they’re largely unregulated. Take California, for example. In order to teach in a California public school (elementary, intermediate or high school), you must have both a college degree and a teaching credential. The private schools require neither.
Not only can you teach in a private without a credential or degree, but private teachers earn significantly less than their public counterparts. Less education, less certification, less salary. The obvious question: Which institution—private or public—is going to attract the better instructor? Would we ever choose a medical doctor with those startling deficiencies? Yet, free enterprise hounds continue to extol the virtues of privatization, pretending it’s the cure for what ails us.
Another component to this anti-public education campaign is the Republican Party’s on-going attempt to subvert organized labor by attributing the flaws in our public school system to the teachers’ union. In 2008, labor is reported to have donated $400 million to the Democratic Party, which has been a rallying cry for Republicans ever since. Their stated goal is to neutralize the Democrats by crippling organized labor.
Of course, the irony here is that labor is furious at the Democrats for having more or less abandoned them. Labor places $400 million in the Democrats’ war chest, and what do they get in return? A pat on the head and a condescending lecture on the virtues of patience from Rahm Emanuel. Talk about your placebo.
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114 Comments so far
Show AllI like it.
Exactly. Privatization and the disease of greed fueled by capitalism is exactly what is killing this entire planet. Unchecked, deregulated capitalism...I'm sickened by it. It's time to brush up on some reading of Marx: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marx/
Less education, less certification, less salary. These are the benefits of a private school education. Wow, who would have thunk. Of course, as Cenk Uygur always says.
And of course, privatization always goes hand in hand with the Repuke Party’s "...on-going attempt to subvert organized labor by attributing the flaws in our public school system to the teachers’ union."
Of course.
The writer shrewdly says that labor is furious with the Democrats for having abandoned them. YES. They surely have. And can we not still hear the president's admonishing words to the progressives, calling us "sanctimonious"???
A pat on the head and a condescending lecture on the virtues of patience is what we'll get more of with the present administration. Four more years. Can we afford another four more years of lowered expectations?
Less education, less certification, less salary. These are the benefits of a private school education. Wow, who would have thunk. Of course, as Cenk Uygur always says.
And of course, privatization always goes hand in hand with the Repuke Party’s "...on-going attempt to subvert organized labor by attributing the flaws in our public school system to the teachers’ union."
Of course.
The writer shrewdly says that labor is furious with the Democrats for having abandoned them. YES. They surely have. And can we not still hear the president's admonishing words to the progressives, calling us "sanctimonious"???
A pat on the head and a condescending lecture on the virtues of patience is what we'll get more of with the present administration. Four more years. Can we afford another four more years of lowered expectations.
Can we afford "Repuke Party’s "...on-going attempt to subvert organized labor by attributing the flaws in our public school system to the teachers’ union.”
At least a "pat on the head" does not kill.
Death is expensive.
Even worse than hiring unqualified teachers is the fact that anyone can be a candidate to represent us in political office, state or federal, without having passed any qualifications tests or showing any particular qualifications at all. They don't even have to show the high ethical standards we should expect of representatives. Just have the money and campaign. That is our major problem.
All candidates for public office should have to pass at least the test given to immigrants seeking citizenship.
I've heard that suggestion before, and I like it. Of course, this could never become law.....not in as anti-intellectual a country as ours (not that passing a citizenship test makes you an "intellectual," but you see where I'm coming from)
Private for profit corporations have effectively bought our government and its regulatory agencies. They are removing the tops of our mountains to extract coal, pumping hundreds of millions of gallons of toxic waste water into the ground to extract natural gas and they will soon be melting the Rockies to get at the shale oil.
The crimes of corporations are legion. They control and poison our food supply, they have a firm grip on our medical care and have all but removed the ability of workers to bargain for better wages and working conditions. In every sector of the economy from energy to finance, to agriculture their greed and corruption worsen our lives.
Many of the people in this country have allowed this situation to exist by swallowing the free market, Randian koolaid served up by the Chicago school and the republican party over the last several decades. More have acquiesced by their apathy.
It will not be long before our water supplies and the air we breathe will be commodities controlled by criminal corporations operating under the shallow legal veneer of a corrupt government.
Just as the American revolution was initially an uprising against the abuses of the corrupt East India Company we must face the fact that the very companies whose products we purchase daily are working hell bent toward our enslavement and rise up to strike them down.
An outstanding summation, Bob. Capitalism is leading the world in the creation of a Dystopian universe. I couldn't help but think of a few of these:
http://snarkerati.com/movie-news/the-top-50-dystopian-movies-of-all-time/
The biggest cause of socialism/communism failing is because of capitalism doing everything it can to ensure it doesn't succeed. If it wasn't for capitalism attempting to strangle Cuba for the last 50 years would they be struggling?
I would guess probably not. Personally I think a mix of capitalism and socialism makes for the best society to live in but both INCLUDING CAPITALISM needs to be regulated. Unregulated capitalism becomes every bit as much of a iron fisted dictatorship as any communist society as we are witnessing it take place before our eyes. Wanting all power and control is the same no matter what the system. A dictator is a dictator.
Here, Here! ticktock. Well stated. I think everyone needs to brush up on some of Karl Marx's theories on the breakdown of capitalism. It is absolutely ruining this planet.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marx/
I went to private schools and public schools. The public had a choice of curriculum whereas the private made everyone study the same shit. Shit one might be predisposed to get nothing out of and have to suffer through (Religion wasn't all a waste, but I really hated history). In the public school I went, I was able to concentrate on math and science which is what I went to college to major in. So... I liked public education better. The university I went to, Rutgers College was state, but it had private sponsors (Nabisco) so it skewed what nutrition research you could go into. FUCK PRIVATIZATION!
I think a complete collapse is going to be the only way that we rid ourselves of Ayn Rand....while I am politically opposed to burning books...could we not just stop printing them...please...