Last weekend the California Democratic Party passed a resolution that forthrightly criticized corporate education reform, including high-stakes testing and privatization. The resolution specifically singled out Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst and the Wall Street hedge fund managers’ Democrats for Education Reform as organizations that are fronts for corporate interests and Republicans.
But this upset the Los Angeles Times editorial board, which is known for its contempt for teachers’ unions. The Times apparently thinks that giving public funds to entrepreneurs, corporations, and hustlers with no oversight or accountability is “school reform.”
They neglected to mention that most of the candidates supported by StudentsFirst are Republicans, not Democrats.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
My dogs use the L.A. Times as their facilities.
There are some facets of society where open capitalism doesn’t work. I hope we remember soon that the goal of education is to educate, not make money.
There’s a cool photo of a lone Chilean student holding a flower confronting a phalanx of riot police, teachers are on strike in Mexico over education reform issues. Students at IU held a campus-wide strike last week over tuition increases and other issues. Who’s reporting all that? Not the major media…
I taught for 30 years in a school district adjacent to LAUSD. I had been a subscriber to the LATimes for most of my life. I finally got tired of the anti teacher and anti union slant of the editorial board and cancelled my subscription . It made feel so good when I told the person from the Times why
I cancelled. I don’t miss it at all. I listen to local news and read the NYT!
LaTimes = frying pan, NYTimes = fire.
Cancelled my subscription after I marched against L. A. Times posting VAM scores, of which my colleagues were skewered. Didn’t appreciate Jason Song and Jason Felch reporting from their ivory tower while teachers were doing the hard work in underserved neighborhoods. One teacher committed suicide over his scores. I have no respect for that publication
I had the privilege of being blocked on Twitter by Jason Felch after I asked him about the teacher who committed suicide. It was a respectful tweet, but I guess he couldn’t handle facing what he had done. Nothing but a coward.
DUH, who do you really think they are. Now put together the last two blogs on the L.A. Times and is there any consistency? Yes, Love those corporatist privatizer hedge fund guy experts in the arcane science of education. They are wizards with magic wands from the “Warp World” that us lowlifes just do not understand even if their magic doesn’t seem to work. Even Ben Austin was there today on the 24th Street “Parent Trigger” which is sooooo parent friendly that in their contract in one sentence it says “We love the parents. And in the next sentence it says Parents will absolutely not be on the governing board” and that is “PARENT EMPOWERMENT.” Do you buy that? No one who I showed it to today did. Their eyes popped out of their head. Documents, documents, documents.
Yes, use their own words to show the inconsistencies and falsehoods behind what they promote. Keep after ’em George!!
Would giving public funds to educational entrepreneurs be acceptable with the proper amount of oversight and accountability?
TE,
Define “proper accountability” as it relates to current laws of private enterprise vs public sevices and then we can discuss.
Thanks,
Duane
I am using the same definition of accountability Dr. Ravitch is using in her original post.