David Lentini in Maine shares his insights about the current situation:
Raymond Callahan’s analysis of the dynamics that forced a business-industrial model on American schools in the early part of the 20th century seems very relevant here.
The 1% pick on the teachers, because they bet the unions or the Democrats would not stand up to their bullying. Decades of union bashing using a compliant press made the ground fertile for an incessant campaign of disinformation and outright lies to get the public fearful of “bad” schools that were full of “bad” teachers. With the heat on for the next unionized villain, the 1% didn’t have to worry about proving their case for charters and virtual schools–We’re in a crisis! We have act now! There is no alternative!
And didn’t Milton Friedman prove that free markets always provide the best solution? Didn’t our 30 years of Reaganomics demonstrate that business school graduates know best? Shouldn’t we let the likes of Steve Jobs, a man with no serious education at all, tell us what to do, given Apple’s valuation?
And decades of off-shoring jobs and closing factories made parents terrified for the future of their children. But instead of demanding re-investment of the profits made by the likes of the Romneys and Bushes in shuttering American industry, and running a rigged casino on Wall Street, care of the Clintons and Democrats, people ate-up the old American fantasy of rags-to-riches wealth care of Horatio Alger; so they wanted low taxes for when they would be rich too. So, why demand higher taxes that would only slow the great party we’ve had for the past 20 years? Why admit that your children would need to find good jobs instead of living off of their investments like Mitt’s kids do? All of this was reinforced by the “gospel of greed” coming out of many churches too; a gospel that insisted that the righteous are rewarded with riches now and later, and sinners and lazy get punished with poverty.
Also, a close look at the real situation might get unrcomfotable for parents. Perhaps they’d have to get serious about making sure their kids studied and the schools were well managed. That would take time away from making money, buying cheap crap at Walmart, and televised sports. School should be flexible and technology oriented, like the call centers where they work.
And of course, we can’t blame the kids. We can’t ask them to make a committment to their education. Education should be entertaining, not hard work. The best teachers lecturing over the airwaves or wires will make learning easy–for a fee.
That’s why.
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Diane Ravitch's blog 
hrmph… It’s not just about the 1% blaming teachers. From what I hear it’s a bigger percentage than that. It’s the brainwashing that has occurred that has caused the public to accept that test scores are the ultimate measure on a school’s or teacher’s performance. No matter your political affiliation, this is what most Americans believe. Media is largely to blame for this, but so are politicians on both sides of the “house”.
The 1% is not interested nor worried about the failing school system. They are the “HAVE’s” and believe they will not loose. The people who are fed up with the system are the ones who live in it. The ones who pay for it. If not a standardize test What should be used? Anyone outside of the education department can clearly see the current system is not working. We now have schools in impoverished neighborhoods paying $14,000.00 per student to get educated. That is $400.000.00 per class room Have the principals explain that. have an administrator explain it. As for the teachers who are deathly afraid of evaluations that effect pay or job status get together and create the evaluation. Why do you consistently want to be linked to the ineffective teacher down the hall. Wouldn’t your job be easier if the teacher the student had the year before was better?.
Read “The Myths of Standardized Tests: Why They Don’t Tell You What You Think They Do” by Phillip Harris, Bruce M. Smith and Joan Harris.
Or read Noel Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” to understand just how invalid the whole process of using standards, standardized testing and grading/grades is due to numerous logical errors in the making, using and disseminating of the results. Follow along with me as I dissect this groundbreaking dissertation for which there has been nary a peep of rebuttal at my blog “Promoting Just Education for All” @ revivingwilson.org . This week I will be posting a summary and discussion of Chapter 2.
Thank you, Dwayne. I was hoping you would pipe up. I haven’t gotten to Wilson’s book yet. I am reading ” It’s the Middle Class, Stupid!” by James Carville and Stan Greenberg. It casts what we are seeing in the corporate attack on public education in broader terms.
Milton Friedman, of course, did not prove that the a decentralized market always provided the best solution. He would be the first to point out where markets fail, though he would also be the first to point out where governments fail as well.
I think that he would also violently object to the idea that Steve Jobs, or anyone else for that matter, tell us what to do. That was the whole point of his book Capitalism and Freedom.
Milton Friedman’s so-called free market policies were enacted for the first time at the point of a gun, when Pinochet’s CIA-backed coup overthrew the elected government of Salvador Allende in Chile on September 11th, 1973.
The current neoliberal policies on education, while not yet involving weapons, are nevertheless being imposed with social violence: usurpation of local democratic control of education, destruction of neighborhood schools, attacks against labor, and theft of public resources. No one should fool themselves into thinking that this is not a form social violence, present and prospective.
And his ideas on education were peacefully adopted in Sweden.
I am sure that Milton Friedman would say that the reason schools are getting screwed up is because a handful of people have the power to screw up large number of schools and students just have to live with those decisions.