A reader sent this comment:
If I may be so bold and presumptuous, it is time for a deep breath, a time-out from the issues of the day, and a focus on the issues of tomorrow: THIS ELECTION IS LIFE OR DEATH FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION.
I got a wake up call on many fronts on Sunday in dialogue / debate with a staunch union member who, understandably, is really angry. I appreciate Diane’s honest comments to me. Aside from the issues at hand, and there are many, the bottom line is that this teacher can’t see casting a vote for President Obama.
Are there really a few, hundreds, thousands of teachers (and unions and parent activists) considering not voting for President Obama and/or Democratic House candidates?
If so – PLEASE – appeal to them for a moratorium on being ticked off at Arne Duncan, President Obama, and RTTT. We can hold the President’s and Duncan’s feet to the fire later. They are not going to tinker with policy in the next 30 days. I’ll lead the charge with you. I’ll drive. I’ll meet you on the steps of where that stupid little red school house used to be – but for now – let’s get him elected.
You all have a voice. You know those with voice in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, and other swing states.
I’ll just say it – I don’t care how angry a union member or any teacher is right now. A GOP White House and GOP House – and the inevitable (at least one) Supreme Court appointment in the next fours years would be the end of public education for every child not to mention women’s rights, social justice, and dozens of other issues.
No matter how angry teachers and others may be about RTTT or their union leadership – I would compel them to hold their noses, hold their breath, or hold whatever criticism they need to hold and get Mr. Obama in the White House and democrats in the House. Go radical and angry again on November 7; but for now they must vote – especially in key states and every House vote.
I offer the following worst-case but sadly possible worst-case scenarios if R and R take over:
An eventual ultra-conservative 6-3 majority in the Supreme Court with all the implications on public education, privacy, privatization, civil rights, immigration, curriculum, free speech, and others
A shut down of the Department of Education (not a bad thing) but along with it will go civil rights protections and special education protections (which are federal)
A return to the 20th and 19th century versions of school and society. All things public education should be left to the States – which is what the Constitution provides – but in the “red” states the “states rights” stance will be a jaunt back to the first half of the pre-Brown, pre-Sputnik, pre-Title IX, pre-P.L. 94-142 (IDEA), and pre – non-discrimination on sexual orientation schools.
Kansas manages to get evolution evicted from the curriculum every few elections. That will only be the tip of the iceberg.
The demise of unions for public employees.
Corporate-determined direction of education
Privatization for some; the heck with the rest
Some Children Left Behind
An Ayn Rand screw-the-poor (sorry) philosophy of leadership and business
College for the rich and a few more, but not all.
More charters
Vouchers
Merit pay based on invalid and unreliable methods of value-added testing and test-based teacher evaluations
Segregation
The end of tenure
A narrow, low cognitive curriculum
ESL bilingual prohibitions like Arizona and Massachusetts
More Wisconsins
Perhaps the most appropriate analogy is Butch telling Sundance, “The Fall’ll probably kill ya!”*
Does it really matter if Obama will perpetuate RTTT when a Romney win “will probably kill ya!”
Butch Cassidy: I’ll jump first.
Sundance Kid: Nope.
Butch Cassidy: Then you jump first.
Sundance Kid: No, I said!
Butch Cassidy: What’s the matter with you?!
Sundance: I can’t swim!
Butch Cassidy: [laughing] Why, you crazy — the fall’ll probably kill ya!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I understand the argument that Romney is worse, but please don’t vote for Obama thinking he’s going to change (ask any woman who married a man thinking he was going to change how well that worked out). The corporate reform agenda is the real Obama. He’s not simply misguided – he knows perfectly well what education should look like for his own kids. You have to ask why he doesn’t think other people’s kids deserve that kind of education?
At the risk of melodrama, I’m begging people not to include their support for Obama (or at least their current support) in their letters tomorrow. At least make him think he doesn’t have your vote wrapped up, even if he does. This letter writing campaign is perhaps the last hope of getting him to change course before he’s firmly ensconced in another four year reign of edukation rheeform. But the only hope we have is to appeal to his re-election, not his decency.
By the way, with the exception of vouchers and the Supreme Court (the latter of which I will admit is a serious concern), which of your list of negative effects of a Romney presidency isn’t already happening now? And even the Supreme Court is significantly more conservative than it was just four years ago. Obama might not appoint more Scalia clones like Romney would, but he’s sure not going to appoint any liberals either.
Exactly what I was going to say, Dienne — thank you.
Now, are vouchers worse than what we have now? Are they worse than charters? I don’t think so.
The difference between vouchers and charters is about as significant as the difference between blinds and shades – they both have unique features, but ultimately they do the same job.
I was going to post the same thing. Almost all of that list is happening right now. I will NOT be voting in this election. I voted Obama in, but I will not vote for him again and I can’t vote for Romney. If Obama loses, I hope the democrats take a real hard look on their education stance and wonder to themselves if Race to the Top was worth it. They must be pretty proud of themselves right now, b/c I couldn’t help but notice Obama brought it up more than once during the debate…like it was actually a good thing!!!
I’m sorry, but the comments above are simply wrong in so many ways. You have no memory of 8 years of Bush/Cheney, et al.? You seriously can’t distinguish between Obama/Biden and Romney/Ryan? You think that it doesn’t matter to you or those you love and care about which two win next month?
Congratulations on swallowing the main story of the media: there’s really not much to choose from; both sides do it, too; why not give the new guys a chance, since at least they can work with an entrenched Right-Wing Congress to get some things passed.
No way, no day. I will never vote for the likes of Mitt Romney. And there is no sensible alternative than to vote for Obama AND every Democratic candidate I can (unless there’s material evidence that the GOP candidate is better).
Of course, since I voted yesterday (60+ voters here automatically qualify for an absentee ballot and mine was in the mail by 5 pm yesterday), there’s no going back (not that I wish to). I’m all for putting pressure on Obama. I’m all for hanging Arne Duncan from the rafters. But that’s for after Nov. 6th, 2012. Don’t cut your noses off to spite your faces, folks. If Romney gets in, you won’t have anything left to spite .
I agree with you.
To the writer of this post: Please contact me so that we can go to the “boats” and make a fortune as obviously you can see the future with such sure statements as you made (too many to list).
No thanks, not voting for the drone man, the man who has determined he has the right (and has used it at least three times, once killing a sixteem year old American) to kill any American anytime without even an indictment, much less a conviction of a crime. Nope, not voting for the neoliberal who continues ordering the killing of innocent women, children and elders in far off lands because they happened to be around (physically) supposed militants. Nope, not voting the lesser of two evils.
I will vote my conscience! I will vote for the person who most represents my views and concerns and that will be either R. Anderson or J. Stein.
And I haven’t determined whether I will write him tomorrow as I’ve written the WH before and not gotten any response. The current occupant couldn’t care less about us peons-except to use as cannon fodder in the empire’s current illegal wars of aggression.
Speaking as one who agrees with nearly everything you write, I do hope that you will write a letter. It may not do much good, but every voice counts. Even if you know you’re not going to vote for him, letting him think that you might could be just one more voice that nudges him to do the right thing at least for practical reasons if not for the right reason. And if for nothing else than to be on record having voiced your opposition to the road we’re heading down.
I’m not hopeful, but we can’t do nothing. The more of us who do something, the more something is likely to happen.
I have written to the WH in the past, and been disappointed, except for one time, a couple of years back. Our school was set to be closed and moved 11 miles away. Then parents emailed like crazy and called, even calling in the middle of the night.
Did you know there are WH operators standing by 24 hours?
Someone much wiser than I am once said that when you vote for the lesser of two evils, you get less evil.
Is that as good as voting for more good? Of course not but that’s not one of the choices. It hardly ever is. Less evil is clearly better than more evil. What can I say? It stinks to live in an unredeemed world.
Everything that Obama has done or promises to do that I don’t like, Romney would also do, and do more of. He’s not going to call back the drones; if anything, there is more of a possibility he would involve us in even more war and armed conflict. He will certainly make life much more miserable for the less priviledged here in the US, that I know for sure.
I live in what might be the “swingingest” swing state of all, Ohio. Maybe if I lived in a reliably Blue State, like New York, I could entertain other possibilities. For now I just repeat to myself, “Supreme Court, Supreme Court. More Kagans and Sotomayors or more Scalias and Thomases?” That question answers itself.
Every right you mentioned, i.e. women’s rights, etc…, hinges on strong public schools. Obama has demoralized teachers and killed public schools with his illogical charter advocacy.
Obama needs to lose, and it needs to be on count of teachers that openly admit they didn’t vote for him because of his disaster of public education policy.
This is a chance for public school teachers to take a stand. This is a chance to bring the democratic party back to its roots to support the “little guy”, and shift democrats away from DFER and other hostile organizations.
This is nothing short of a chance for public school to “strike” at the hand that is supposed to be supporting them. The democratic party needs a shift back to a more classical stance and away from neoliberalism.
This is our chance to say “no” to the billionaires that are running this country by buying politicians. This is a chance for public school teachers to vote their conscience, for a third-party candidate and to later advocate that the democrats get somebody on their platform in 2016 that really cares.
Voting for Obama is hardly different than voting for Romney in terms of economics and education. And it may just be me, but those are the two major issues that influence my vote the most. Obama fails on both counts.
In fact, I think Diane Ravitch ought to be more vocally opposed to Obama’s reelection. It is going to take unions and well-known researchers to publicly vocalize the damage that is being done and to advise teachers to vote for a third-party candidate.
Could you imagine if some non-reformer figures were to take a stand and publicly tell Obama, “enough is enough”? That would capture some attention, and that is what public school teachers need.
Yes. As young Malala Yousafzai’s life work shows us, education *IS* women’s rights. And much as I hate to say it, which impacts women more? Education rights or Supreme Court wedge issues?
I totally agree, ME!!!
If Obama abandons teachers and they choose not to exercise their voice in reaction, then the teachers’ unions and associations will have lost their voice in the Democratic party for the foreseeable future.
Four years of overreach and failure from a potential Romney administration will re-focus the Logical Left and potentially sweep away the corporatist class warfare into which our nation has sunk.
Had Obama performed demonstrably well on other important issues, I could hold my nose and vote as suggested in this post.
But with unmanned drones sweeping the Middle East, with no national policy on underwater mortgages, with mixed State Dept. signals on Libya, Syria, Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan– No. I will not cast my vote for Barack Obama. I’m ashamed that it took a personal issue to change my mind, but I certainly have been changed.
Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is very likely to be the Next George H.W. Bush, just as Obama has proven to be– as I feared from the outset– the Next Jimmy Carter.
No one can use fear to manipulate me RE Romney. It just does not ring true.
I too have issues with how Obama has chosen to express his education policy and the priorities Arne Duncan has brought to his job.
But fundamentally, Obama does believe in the importance of getting every child a good education. Although he sees it as a role for the states, he does think funding matters. He cares about science and technology. He knows that education is how we grow our nation. The improvement to the student loan program and his support of Pell Grants is also critical.
Fundamentally, Romney does not appear to care about education for the sake of the kids at all. He seems interested in moving money out of public schools and into corporations. He is anti-science in all of his policies. He and Ryan think that the most important thing we can do for today’s kindergarteners is to increase class sizes and cut funding to create tax cuts for the wealthy that somehow via some heretofore unknown process is supposed to benefit those kids later.
And Romney wants to go back to the days of middlemen taking a cut of every low-risk, federally guaranteed student loan, a policy that makes absolutely no practical sense unless you’re one of the middlemen. I think this point in specific is the hallmark of the Romney attitude towards education.
With Obama, we have something we can work with. With Romney, I fear we will be looking back at 2012 as the good old days of public education.
I’m not sure Romney would, in the long run, be so bad for public education. It might even be better if he wins this term.
The Economist recently printed a “run down” of the candidates on major issues. The Economist, for those who don’t know the magazine, is a staid London-based magazine on business, society, and politics. They look at things–especially American things–from a high-level viewpoint.
When they compared Obama to arguably the most conservative nominee for president in a generation they concluded that their policies were… about the same.
Maybe its because I live in a blue state, but for me the most destructive thing for education right now is that its traditional defenders–the Democrats–are on the same side as the Republicans. I talk to people all of the time who consider themselves “liberals” who buy into the entire right-wing agenda of eliminating public schools. They do this because their party does this and because the president does this. They don’t fight against it because they don’t see anything to fight against. They trust their president and we “wonks” who live this stuff every day should not underestimate the complexity of our subject. If the Administration came out against a certain food additive you’d probably trust them. Nobody has time to be an expert on everything.
You have to be realistic and imagine that we’re not going to dismantle the privatization movement in just a couple of years. This is a marathon and not a sprint.
Romney getting elected will make him the new champion of the privatization of public schools. His being elected will, in effect, legalize the backlash against privatization by democrats. It will open the door for us experts to be heard once again, and allow Democrats to once again lead the country in the right direction when it comes to public education.
I fully agree. I welcome a win by Romney, not because I think he will do any good, but because I believe he will be viewed as enemy #1 for public schools. I believe democrats would then get their act together and fight accordingly.
Can you imagine if Romney won how silly DFER would look in supporting Romney’s agenda? This is the type of behavior we should expect from republicans, not democrats, and they would stick out like a sore thumb by supporting Romney.
In fact, just think about it, how would DFER deal with a Romney win? It would seem a marvelous contradiction in terms for them. I think they would lose considerable amounts of support from democrats, which is what we need.
I tend to agree too. Perhaps a Romney- led privatization charge will regalvanize the Democrats currently in the thrall of neoliberalism. Things would likely get plenty worse first, though. That makes me apprehensive. I will likely vote Stein.
I’m not ready to hand total control of our government to hedge fund managers, corporate stooges and paternalistic foundations. I’m not ready to concede that corporations are people. I’m not ready to allow the government to control women’s reproductive choices. I’m not ready to condone the end of special education protections. I’m not ready to allow immigration policy dictated by people who have forgotten that most of us are immigrants or the descendants of immigrants. I’m not ready to hope that I don’t get sick and be unable to afford healthcare. I’m not ready to rely on short-term energy policies that enrich the few at the expense of our long term future. I’m not ready to give up on democracy and submit to life under an oligarchy.
“I’m not ready to hand total control of our government to hedge fund managers, corporate stooges and paternalistic foundations.”
Too late, Obama’s done that.
“I’m not ready to concede that corporations are people.”
Too late, Obama’s done that.
” I’m not ready to allow the government to control women’s reproductive choices.”
I wouldn’t consider Obama a champion of the women’s right to choose while president. I think he was an avid promoter of this agenda as a senator.
Same with same sex marriage.
He’s paid lip service to both, but he is no where as ‘radical’ as I thought he’d be in these categories.
” I’m not ready to condone the end of special education protections.”
Too late, Obama’s done that. They are tested as all students are.
” I’m not ready to allow immigration policy dictated by people who have forgotten that most of us are immigrants or the descendants of immigrants.”
I don’t think Obama’s really championed this cause. I would have imagined before he was elected to ease citizenship issues among the demographic. I haven’t really seen it.
” I’m not ready to hope that I don’t get sick and be unable to afford healthcare. I’m not ready to rely on short-term energy policies that enrich the few at the expense of our long term future.”
I think Obama’s clearly got him here.
“I’m not ready to give up on democracy and submit to life under an oligarchy.”
Too late, Obama’s done that.
“I’m not ready to concede that corporations are people.”
Obama didn’t do that. The Supreme court did. If Romney is elected, the next judge will seal the conservative agenda.
While Obama has not been an outspoken advocate for the marginalized in our society, Romney thinks he is a self-made man because he didn’t take an inheritance from his father. Really? He doesn’t even recognize the entitlements he received growing up.
I saw an article a few months ago that proposed this way of voting for President:
For each candidate, I can vote YES or NO. But I can only vote one time.
I could vote NO for Romney because I don’t like either of the two main candidates, but I dislike Romney’s views more.
When the votes are counted, the YES votes for each candidate are totaled, and then the total NO votes for each candidate are subtracted from their YES total.
Who would win that way?
Please watch and listen to this video/song about Indiana’s (and America’s) current education situation… http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=JfrKDoeG_Gk