Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
In recent years, we have heard and read a lot about the failure of public schools in the United States. “Our schools are failing” has almost become a mantra with members of the media, many of our politicians, and the advocates of school reform. I have seen few people who have questioned the assertions made by the media, elected officials, and school reformers that schools in this country are not adequately educating our youth and that our educational system is a total and abject failure.
Many of those who criticize our public education system offer charter schools and the privatization of public schools as solutions to the “education problem” in this country.
I’m a retired public school educator. I have known and am friends with many current and former public school teachers. I know that there are many fine classroom practitioners working in our public schools today…and many excellent schools where our children receive a quality education. I am aware that there are also many schools where children may not be receiving the highest quality education. (What often go unmentioned in the media are the real reasons—including poverty—why some schools in this country may be failing.)
One problem with the “our schools are failing” mantra—as I see it—is that all our schools are lumped together in one basket labeled “failing.” How did this come to be? Do we Americans really believe that NO public schools in this country provide their students with an adequate education? Do we believe that all schools need to be reformed? If not, do we believe that even the schools which are actually doing an estimable job of educating their students need to be reformed?
I think it is time we start taking a good look at the individuals and organizations that are behind the push to establish thousands of charter schools and to use taxpayer money to fund private and religious schools as the means of raising the quality of education in this country.
ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council)
Last May, education historian Diane Ravitch wrote the following about one group that has been driving the school reform movement:
Since the 2010 elections, when Republicans took control of many states, there has been an explosion of legislation advancing privatization of public schools and stripping teachers of job protections and collective bargaining rights. Even some Democratic governors, seeing the strong rightward drift of our politics, have jumped on the right-wing bandwagon, seeking to remove any protection for academic freedom from public school teachers.
This outburst of anti-public school, anti-teacher legislation is no accident. It is the work of a shadowy group called the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC. Founded in 1973, ALEC is an organization of nearly 2,000 conservative state legislators. Its hallmark is promotion of privatization and corporate interests in every sphere, not only education, but healthcare, the environment, the economy, voting laws, public safety, etc. It drafts model legislation that conservative legislators take back to their states and introduce as their own “reform” ideas. ALEC is the guiding force behind state-level efforts to privatize public education and to turn teachers into at-will employees who may be fired for any reason. The ALEC agenda is today the “reform” agenda for education.
Ravitch continued:
A recent article in the Newark Star-Ledger showed how closely New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s “reform” legislation is modeled on ALEC’s work in education. Wherever you see states expanding vouchers, charters, and other forms of privatization, wherever you see states lowering standards for entry into the teaching profession, wherever you see states opening up new opportunities for profit-making entities, wherever you see the expansion of for-profit online charter schools, you are likely to find legislation that echoes the ALEC model.
ALEC has been leading the privatization movement for nearly 40 years, but the only thing new is the attention it is getting, and the fact that many of its ideas are now being enacted. Just last week, the Michigan House of Representatives expanded the number of cyber charters that may operate in the state, even though the academic results for such online schools are dismal.
ALEC Exposed provides a wealth of information about how—through ALEC—“corporations, ideologues, and their politician allies voted to spend public tax dollars to subsidize private K-12 education and attack professional teachers and teachers’ unions…” (You can find the information in Privatizing Public Education, Higher Ed Policy, and Teachers–the ALEC report prepared by The Center for American Democracy.)
Michelle Rhee and StudentsFirst
In addition to ALEC, there is another organization called StudentsFirst that has been helping to spearhead the effort to “reform” our public schools. According to Stephanie Simon, Michelle Rhee, founder and CEO of StudentsFirst, has “emerged as the leader of an unlikely coalition of politicians, philanthropists, financiers and entrepreneurs who believe the nation’s $500 billion-a-year public education system needs a massive overhaul.” Simon added that Rhee, the former chancellor of the D.C. public schools, “has vowed to raise $1 billion” for StudentsFirst, and “forever break the hold of teachers unions on education policy.”
Simon continued:
StudentsFirst has its own political action committee (PAC), its own SuperPAC, and a staff of 75, including a cadre of seasoned lobbyists Rhee sends from state to state as political battles heat up. She has flooded the airwaves with TV and radio ads in a half dozen states weighing new policies on charter schools, teacher assessment and other hot-button issues.
To her supporters, Rhee is a once-in-a-generation leader who has the smarts and the star power to make a difference on one of the nation’s most intractable public policy issues.
But critics say Rhee risks destroying the very public schools she aims to save by forging alliances with political conservatives, evangelical groups and business interests that favor turning a large chunk of public education over to the private sector. She won’t disclose her donors, but public records indicate that they include billionaire financiers and wealthy foundations.
In January the National Opportunity to Learn Campaign published its review of Rhee’s StudentsFirst State Policy Report Card for 2013:
Here’s an excerpt from the summary of the campaign’s review:
On Monday, the pro-privatization education group StudentsFirst, led by former D.C. public schools chancellor Michelle Rhee, released a State Policy Report Card, ranking states and giving each a letter grade based on their implementation of a slew of education reform policies. Rather than focus on issues facing students and families, particularly those affected by unequal access to school resources, the policy benchmarks in the new report reveal StudentsFirst’s obsession with charter schools and de-professionalizing the teaching profession. The report pushes policies that are either untested or disproven — but happen to be welcome in the halls of right-wing think tanks and politicians.
The National Opportunity to Learn Campaign listed five reasons why the StudentsFrirst Report Card is “a veritable wish list for privatization advocates and a recipe for failure for everyone else”:
1. Ironically, It Ignores The Needs of Students
2. It Opposes Personalized and Student-Centered Learning
3. It Argues That We Don’t Have Enough Quality Teachers… While Advocating That We Lower the Bar for Teacher Preparation
4. It Continues the Disastrous High-Stakes Testing Drumbeat
5. It Advocates “Equal Funding” and “Equitable Access” for Charter Corporations and Private Schools, Not Students
The DeVos Family
In May of 2011, Rachel Tabachnick wrote an article for AlterNet about the DeVos family, a wealthy family that has “remained largely under the radar, while leading a stealth assault on America’s schools” that has the “potential to do away with public education as we know it.”
Quoting Tabachnick:
Vouchers have always been a staple of the right-wing agenda. Like previous efforts, this most recent push for vouchers is led by a network of conservative think tanks, PACs, Religious Right groups and wealthy conservative donors. But “school choice,” as they euphemistically paint vouchers, is merely a means to an end. Their ultimate goal is the total elimination of our public education system.
The decades-long campaign to end public education is propelled by the super-wealthy, right-wing DeVos family. Betsy Prince DeVos is the sister of Erik Prince, founder of the notorious private military contractor Blackwater USA (now Xe), and wife of Dick DeVos, son of the co-founder of Amway, the multi-tiered home products business.
According to Tabachnick, the Devoses, who are big contributors to the Republican Party, spent millions of dollars “promoting the failed voucher initiative in Michigan in 2000.” Following that defeat, Tabachnick claims that the family decided to alter its strategy.
Tabachnick:
Instead of taking the issue directly to voters, they would support bills for vouchers in state legislatures. In 2002 Dick DeVos gave a speech on school choice at the Heritage Foundation. After an introduction by former Reagan Secretary of Education William Bennett, DeVos described a system of “rewards and consequences” to pressure state politicians to support vouchers. “That has got to be the battle. It will not be as visible,” stated DeVos. He described how his wife Betsy was putting these ideas into practice in their home state of Michigan and claimed this effort has reduced the number of anti-school choice Republicans from six to two. The millions raised from the wealthy pro-privatization contributors would be used to finance campaigns of voucher supporters and purchase ads attacking opposing candidates.
Dick DeVos advocates “stealth” strategy, Heritage Foundation, December 3, 2002
Last April, Daniel Denvir wrote an article for City Paper about the push for a school voucher program in the state of Pennsylvania. He said that names on the fliers of “legislative hopefuls” sounded like the names of “homegrown” candidates. He said that a “different picture” emerged when one followed the money:
…that of a statewide campaign, funded by wealthy donors, to stack the Pennsylvania primary battles on April 24 in favor of those supporting school vouchers, which allocate taxpayer funds for private and religious school tuition. The pro-voucher political action committee (PAC) Students First — funded by Pennsylvania hedge-fund managers and American Federation for Children, a Washington, D.C., pro-voucher group headed by Amway heiress and major right-wing donor Betsy DeVos — emerged on the state’s political scene with a bang for the 2010 elections. And they are back to spend big in 2012.
Lawrence Feinberg, co-chairman of the anti-voucher Keystone State Education Coalition, said, “I see a move by essentially a handful of very wealthy people who want to privatize public education for a wide variety of reasons. Not the least of which has to do with crushing labor unions, but they also want tax dollars going to private and religious schools.”
School Reform and The Profit Motive
In his Salon article The Bait and Switch of School “Reform,” David Sirota writes about the profit motive behind some of the reforms being advocated by “Big Money” interests.
Sirota:
As the Texas Observer recently reported in its exposé of one school-focused mega-corporation, “in the past two decades, an education-reform movement has swept the country, pushing for more standardized testing and accountability and for more alternatives to the traditional classroom — most of it supplied by private companies.”
A straightforward example of how this part of the profit-making scheme works arose just a few months ago in New York City. There, Rupert Murdoch dumped $1 million into a corporate “reform” movement pushing to both implement more standardized testing and divert money for education fundamentals (hiring teachers, buying textbooks, maintaining school buildings, etc.) into testing-assessment technology. At the same time, Murdoch was buying an educational technology company called Wireless Generation, which had just signed a lucrative contract with New York City’s school system (a sweetheart deal inked by New York City school official Joel Klein, who immediately went to work for Murdoch.
Such shenanigans are increasingly commonplace throughout America, resulting in a revenue jackpot for testing companies and high tech firms, even though many of their products have not objectively improved student achievement.
At the same time, major banks are reaping a windfall from “reformers’” successful efforts to take public money out of public schools and put it into privately administered charter schools. As the New York Daily News recently reported:
“Wealthy investors and major banks have been making windfall profits by using a little-known federal tax break to finance new charter-school construction. The program, the New Markets Tax Credit, is so lucrative that a lender who uses it can almost double his money in seven years…
“The credit can even be piggybacked on other tax breaks for historic preservation or job creation. By combining the various credits with the interest from the loan itself, a lender can almost double his investment over the seven-year period.
“No wonder JPMorgan Chase announced this week it was creating a new $325 million pool to invest in charter schools and take advantage of the New Markets Tax Credit.”
SOURCES
Ravitch: A primer on the group driving school reform (Washington Post)
Activist targeting schools, backed by big bucks (Reuters)
5 Ways Michelle Rhee’s Report Puts Students Last (National Opportunity to Learn Campaign)
Right-Wing Campaign to Privatize Public Ed Takes Hold in Pennsylvania (AlterNet)
Big corporate money in support of school vouchers hits primary races statewide. Will it tip the scales in Philly? (City Paper)
The bait and switch of school “reform” (Salon)
The Deep Pockets Behind Education Reform (Forbes)
Privatizing Public Education, Higher Ed Policy, and Teachers (The Center for American Democracy)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_%28Internet%29
“In Internet slang, a troll (pron.: /ˈtroʊl/, /ˈtrɒl/) is someone who posts inflammatory,[1] extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as a forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response[2] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion…”
Only because it’s true, AY.
Excellent Gene…. Excellent….
Wow. You should really get a grip, Bruce. This is a free speech blog. People are generally free to say what they like. There are very few rules here, but the ones we do have, we enforce.
The rules are:
First Rule: Don’t Hijack Others Identity. If someone other than you posted as “Bruce E. Woych″ and/or used your avatar and you complained about it? Upon finding that you were indeed being impersonated, that faux-poster would be blacklisted.
Second Rule: Anonymity. Everyone has a right to post here under a pseudonym and not have their true identity revealed either by other posters or by “blog staff”. The right to anonymous political free speech is guaranteed by law and respected here.
Third Rule: Civility Is Encouraged. General civility is encouraged, but to cross the line on this rule requires something egregious like taunting other posters about dead children, the inability/unwillingess to use something other than ad hominem tactics or something like that. Encouraging vigorous debate and discussion kind of necessitates that rule being flexible. It is a rule that will probably eventually end with nick eventually being banned because his standard response to being proven wrong is to go on an ad hominem spree. However, we do go to great lengths to avoid banning anyone.
Aside from those rules, there are a couple of editorial guidelines that only apply to guest blogger articles (try to set up a scenario for debate and/or conversation, etc.).
Generally speaking though, it’s a free speech zone.
These policies are the only ones I know of as a guest blogger, they are set by JT and subject to change of course at his discretion. This isn’t your blog nor do you have any editorial control. You aren’t the blog owner or even a guest blogger.
Is that a clear signal?
If you want a blog where you make the rules? It’s easy enough to set up your own.
http://www.wordpress.com
Equivocation? No. We’ve had professional trolls (as in paid propagandists), true believers and the merely unpleasant here. Even a few outright crazy people. They come and go like the ebb and flow of the tides. There are distinct differences in methodology, but as to outcome? I’ll stipulate it is perhaps a difference with only minor distinctions.
quibbling…
signal to noise ratio 63 up, 16 down
The ratio of useful information to useless information in any given statement.
———————————————
oppositional distortions
of signal to noise ratio
create pseudo-complexity
event clouds rising,
above the Dark Pool…
threatening to obscure
with great snare and boom;
and the people run for cover
to flight; or fight.
———————
This stream holds some of the best materials collected as educated research links for people to fight against the dark clouds and noise from big money and tyranny that threatens this great nation. The attack on our public education is a direct attack on the public’s cultural wealth. Your personal messages are interruptions. You should apologize to Elaine and to the serious people attempting to disseminate real information.
Is that a clear signal?
Then you’ll fit in just fine around here Bruce. Unlike some people.
BTW, welcome aboard. Your posts have been value adds and generally good content.
Bruce,
Being trollish is not the same thing as being a troll proper. One requires intent, the other just an unpleasant personality or lack thereof.
…mere equivocation.
I forgot..I’m also sexist. My bad.
Bruce, I was called stupid, troll, etc. months ago. I have been absolved of those charges by The Gang. I’m now “angry” and “a hypocrite.”The Ivy Leaguer actually said, “You’re not stupid” and the law school grad underachiever absolved me of trolldom @ least a few months ago. You’re the first to call me a troll this year. Get up to speed and then check back. Hope all is well in Wonderland. Remember to buckle up and always wear white when you’re walking, jogging or biking. Keep your sunnyside up!
You are professional…I don’t feed trolls;…I expose them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_%28Internet%29
“In Internet slang, a troll (pron.: /ˈtroʊl/, /ˈtrɒl/) is someone who posts inflammatory,[1] extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as a forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response[2] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion…”
That was a joke. Geez. Lighten up and take a walk. Just did 2 more miles. One of the many benefits of walking is it keeps your sense of humor well honed. Looks like the sunset will be a bust..some rain coming in this evening. Beats that snow! Stay well and happy.
My husband knows how to keep me happy. He respects me, treats me as an intellectual equal, listens to my ideas and opinions on different subjects. He knows he doesn’t have to buy me material things. I’d be insulted if he thought he had to do that to keep me happy in our marriage.
TonyC, I was trying to follow your train of thought on your 4:30 comment but I ran out of breadcrumbs. I’ll get to the store and try and finish real soon! I did get as far as my family seeing corruption and abiding it. These were blue collar people, and standing up to union bosses waqs too intimidating for them. Can you understand that? And, they worked in a closed shop and had no choice to be part of the union. Teachers in Wi. had a closed shop until 2 years ago. Unchained, they are leaving in droves.
Your last comment was more cogent. You are assuming a fact not in evidence. I do still work some cases for clients I like. Just prior to coming out here I worked my ass off on a corporate swindler. Our client loaned this swindler 32 million and there was a quick default. The client is an honest man and didn’t do his homework..but the swindler is very good. Part of the loan agreement was my client could begin taking over the corporations and appointing his own officers. Did some computer work, surveillance, and even got to repo a Class E Mercedes from the swindler’s errand boy president. Nice f@ckn’ ride! My client was so pleased w/ my and my partners work he gave a great deal on the car to my partner. His wife loves it. Got to keep our women happy, otherwise we end up divorced, and living in an apartment listening to compalints from the tenants. My partner is currently doing work on the other corporations in several states. He works fulltime and then some. I turned over my biz to him and I just work when I want. Also, as I’ve said previously, I do volunteer tutoring for @ risk kids who are marginalized by public schools. I don’t just gripe about public schools, I do my part to give these kids what they don’t get. I’ve said all this previously. I was pretty sure you were a “There is no spirit” guy. Thanks for confirming. Stay well.
Nick: Do you ever question why it’s the same group of 4 or so of you that herd together?
Not really. We do not “herd,” we agree. Are you “herding” if you agree with somebody? No. And it is hardly surprising, with the number of posters here, that several of them would agree on many subjects.
As for the rest of your post, we are body. The mind is part of the body. There is no spirit. I am happy you think your life is fascinating, although that seems like a bit of navel-gazing to me.
I think it is pretty typical of your shallow thinking skills to presume that what does you good would do me good. I do not need a long walk, it would waste good time I could spend on research, which this month is to improve aircraft safety, which I think benefits everybody, not just me.
I am happy too, Nick, and I could retire, too, but alas, I am not so fascinated with myself that I am ready to just crawl into my head for twelve hours a day and get nothing new done. I would find that quite sad. But that’s just me.
🙄
Just took a 8 mile walk on the beach. I’ll get in another 4 or so later this afternoon.I get in 70-80 miles a week when I’m in San Diego. Got up to a 100 miles for one week last year but alas I am a year older. The beach @ low tide is perfect for walking. It is much easier on the old joints. I always remember we are body, mind and spirit. I have lead a fascinating life, have a wonderful family and good, close friends. I am happy and earned my ability to vacation w/ intellect, hard work, integrity and honesty. Do you ever question why it’s the same group of 4 or so of you that herd together? Of course not. Your joy seems to come from the comments you’ve made in the last couple hours. Quite sad. Body, mind and spirit, folks. Go take a long walk, it will do you wonders. God bless.
Mike,
Gee! I feel left out. I wasn’t asked to share my story.
BTW, the fight will go on and on and on as long as folks like Rhee are leading the charge in the school reform movement.
The rest of the E mail got cut off in copying it, but of course it was from Michelle Rhee and StudentsFirst.
Elaine,
I received this in an “E Mail” today. There was a link to share my education story with her. I followed the link and “shared” my story, which was to denounce her as a corporate shill who was trying to destroy our public schools
and explained that if she followed the link I gave (to your guest blog) she would see ample evidence of her fraud. Nothing will come of it of course, but it felt good. 🙂 It show the deviousness of this movement since they probably got my E mail address from the many progressive organizations that have it.
“Studentsfirst.org
We all have our reasons for caring about education, Michael.
The other week, we asked members like you to share their stories, and tell us why they’re working to put students first. The stories we received were incredible, personal testaments to the fact that the fight for a good education is still ongoing.
Thousands of educators, parents, and students responded — and I couldn’t help but nod along as I read the same frustrations and motivations that drive me to action reflected in their responses.
We’re in the midst of sending signed copies of my book, Radical: Fighting to Put Students First, to more than 100 people who shared their stories. It’s our way of saying thank you to the people who make this organization so strong and keep us moving toward our goal. And it’s the kind of thing we intend to keep doing.
If you haven’t already, share your own motivation. I want to know: What moves you to put students first?
Share your story
Heidi L. from California has spent hours in inner-city classrooms with great teachers achieving great results, but she’s seen too many initiatives fail because we prioritize adults over the students.”
Nick: Some were staunch union, most were objective.
I see, anybody in favor of the union must NOT be objective? What a crock of schit, as I said before, there are reasons to support a union even if you see corruption in it; the question is whether or not people are better off with it than without it, and for the vast majority of unions, the members are better off with it.
Nick: They were hard working men and women and could not abide the abuse and corruption they saw.
And yet they did abide it, didn’t they?
Nick: But, it didn’t involve kids. Hopefully you can @ least concede that point.
No, I will not, I see no difference between that and a union, of say, nurses, or medical technicians. They work with patients far more vulnerable than kids. Or a union of food workers refusing unsafe conditions, that involves ingested products that could kill people. Or a union of rehabilitation specialists working with disabled or injured adults, or nursing home employees working with the addled elderly.
There is nothing unique about the vulnerability of kids. In every case, the union exists to protect workers and make sure they are treated fairly, including in matters of compensation, and indirectly that protects the people for whom they are responsible.
You do not harm a child by going on strike for a month over pay. You do the child good, because the independently wealthy do not become public school teachers. Although I believe you get more than you pay for with public school teachers, if you reduce their pay too much, the rewards of teaching will not pay the mortgage, and the ones that can will be forced to move on to better paying jobs they like much less.
Higher pay for teachers, secured by a union, are good for kids, because they allow a higher quality of teachers to teach, even though they could make more money doing something they enjoy less.
I think it would cause vastly MORE harm to kids to have the ranks of public school teachers become filled with minimum wage babysitters from the bottom of the class that aren’t really capable of earning any more than minimum wage.
That is what you will get if you eliminate teacher’s unions; and that is why the rich WANT to eliminate teacher’s unions, to force the pay down, force the quality down, and then scream about how public school is a failure that should be abandoned so they can earn a profit, while naturally excluding those that cannot afford their private schools.
Like most ideologues, I think you settled on an emotional trigger that you cannot get beyond, and unfortunately for you and us the truth is a little more complex than you are capable of comprehending. You want a simple solution where none exists.
True objectivity is beyond your capacity, when you apply the label only to those that agree with you.
I actually do not like unions, I think they are a poor substitute for the laws that SHOULD be protecting union members (some of which they helped pass, despite knowing it would contribute to their decline). But our lawmakers are corrupted by the rich so they will not countenance the laws that should be there, and since I do care about kids and education, and a union is better than nothing, I think they are a necessary poor substitute.