In city after city, state after state, the privatization movement is seeking to take control of public sector institutions and to turn a profit.
They begin by attacking the public sector as costly, wasteful, and inefficient. This is the classic use of FUD (look up the term in wikipedia, it has a long history in public relations as a way to destroy your competition): Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt.
In the case of public education, they say our schools are failing when they are not. Our schools are doing exceptionally well, and where test scores are low is in schools with high levels of poverty and racial segregation. The privatizers don’t want to talk about poverty and segregation. Instead, they blame unions, teachers, and public control. They want what privatizers want: private control of public dollars.
The good news: the public is growing aware of this attack on the commons. The pushback has begun. The public is beginning to understand that the private sector “succeeds” by pushing out the toughest cases. The private sector does not do education or prisons or hospitals or parks or libraries better or cheaper.
When the public understands the raid on the commons, the privateers lose.
That is why we must all tell the public what is happening. We must defend what belongs to us all. We must defend it not to be defensive but to preserve it for the future. We do not want the “status quo.” The status quo is testing and privatization. We reject the status quo. Nor do we want to go back to a mythical past.
We want better schools. We want good schools in every neighborhood. We want schools that are subject to democratic control, not to corporate or autocratic control. Restoring democracy is at the heart of our struggle against privatization. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “The arc of history is long, but it bends towards justice.”
We will continue to resist all efforts to turn schools into profit-making enterprises. We will demand that our nation resume its struggle for equal opportunity for all, a goal that has been cynically abandoned these past dozen years.
May the private sector grow and thrive. And may we work together until the public sector once again recaptures its purpose, which is to serve the public without fear or favor.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Everyone knows that the Public Sector is a Communist Plot.
when all is privatized, the people become nothing more than a source of profits to those who control what used to be public facilities and services. The facilities and services decline, we pay more in taxes and purchases, the wages of workers declines, as do benefits and income security for old age, all so that a tiny portion can get incredibly rich – rich enough to buy for themselves and their kith and kin the quality in what had been goods and services that they deny to the rest of us.
As the profit potential increases, so does the corruption.
A judge basically sells juveniles so that a privatized place of incarceration can increase its profits.
The taxes diverted to charters that are ostensibly still “public” but not subject to public oversight become a means of funneling money to hedge fund operators and exorbitant salaries to their operators.
Even the massive amounts we spend on security of various sorts, domestic and national/international, increasingly go to the profit margins of a decreasing numbers of corporate operators.
We have socialism for the rich and capitalism at its worst for the rest of us.
They privatize their profits, either sheltering them overseas through “creative accounting” or by getting tax laws changed so that they avoid fair taxation.
Their costs get dumped on the rest of us, including the costs of air pollution, water pollution, destruction of natural resources, decaying infrastructure.
Schools are the canary in the coal mine of democracy. Insofar as we cannot sustain meaningfully public education, what is left of democracy will be lost forever.
teacherken: “socialism for the rich and capitalism at its worst for the rest of us” goes right along with “welfare for the rich” and “private profits and socialized risk.”
The leading edupreneurs [with the aid of their educrat allies and accountabully underlings] are seeking the greatest assured profit at the least possible risk with the strongest possible guarantees that it will continue forever and beyond. That’s who they are and what they do—in reality, not “in Rheeality.”
As Pitbull might say, “the bidness of bidness is bidness” as he rakes in his “Money, money, money, money” while counting up his $tudent $ucce$$.
Manipulate the “free” market? Pour huge resources into FUDifying the body politic? Bald-faced hypocrisy and shameless lies that know no bounds? Make a mockery of taking risks and being truly creative?
Bidness as usual. Just ask the BillionaireBoysClub and their mouthpieces.
One of the only flies in the ointment? This blog and others like it.
Turns out the rough-and-tough business community can dish it out but they can’t take it.
Democracy. Democratic discussion.
Go figure—lil ol’ Diane Ravitch with a few blog buddies against some of the most powerful people the planet has ever known and the edubullies keep crying foul.
So on this July 4th, a fitting tribute to the owner of this blog who invited us into her house and gave voice to so many: “One man with courage is a majority.” [Thomas Jefferson]
Diane, you’ve already got them outnumbered!
🙂
May the private sector survive without public money. It’s too bad that the head of the national DOE doesn’t support public education as evidenced in his speech to the national charter org.The charters should be supported by private money instead of co opting public monies for private purposes. If there wasn’t this type of money to make in charters, would there even be this proliferation of them. Duncan in his speech continually alludes to the high performing charter. What does he mean? Aren’t all charters supposed to be high performing? What per cent age of charters are not high performing?
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
(Edward Everett)
I believe a strong PUBLIC education system is the heart of this nation. I believe with all my heart that education is the greatest equalizer and that without a strong public school system we risk the loss of true democracy. I believe that those of us who are members of the public school systems across this nation are in the midst of the greatest fight of our life. We must do all in our power to preserve our public school system. I also believe that at times we are our own worst enemy. Teachers, parents, students and administrators must work together to sing the many praises of the system. Teachers and administrators in particular need to stand shoulder to shoulder as we do this. A strengths based approach is the only way to go. I am going to follow my heart and take the approach mentioned in Steve Farber’s book the Radical Leap. Love, Energy, Audacity, and Proof (LEAP) is the fundamental framework for what he calls Extreme Leadership
Cultivate LOVE
Create ENERGY
Inspire Audacity
Provide Proof
Peace be with you!
People are finally beginning to understand what the words “Private Control of Public Dollars” mean to the future of our country. I use these words whenever I can when I am discussing politics, policy, economics and the ideal of a government which functions for the common good. The corrupt corporate business culture in this country has trampled upon our communities for far too long. People are beginning to understand that those with obscene amounts of stolen wealth will continue to practice their infinite greed to the detriment of our nation until we stop them. They may have severely wounded our democracy, but they CAN be contained by the good citizens of this country. We have done it before and we can do it again.
Private Control of Public Dollars
Hold you calls, we have a winner …
More generally speaking —
Private Control of the Common Wealth
I will begin using this, as well, because this phrase nails it. Thank you.
I claim that there is no money belonging to the public. There is only private, individual money, temporarily pooled with that of others to deliver certain services such as police, fire, and roads. It’s a matter of convenience. Education can be one of those services organized by geography but it’s still only a convenience. The service can be delivered by charters and vouchers just as legitimately as by a monopoly school system. Those who work in a public school system tend to look on education funding as something they are entitled to as employees of the school system. But the taxes in essence were never theirs just because the voters established a school district. The idea of teaching as a privileged middle class career is totally a creation of the union mentality. Teachers have forgotten that they are working in the private economy just like the rest of us. They want to get into the government bureacracy so they can’t be fired. When an economy goes into a recession their layoffs may be delayed by federal funds for a while, but eventually the stimulus funds run out after the have secured the votes of the bureaucrats. The bureaucrats were always overpaid, but only now are the chickens of excess coming home to roost. Rich districts could always have superior schools on the principle that you can have what you daddy can pay for. Teachers in the public systems think the wealthier daddies should pay for children they didn’t father. That is inherently unjust. That teachers continue to defend that injustice when their own salaries are at stake loses them credibility with the general public. And when they fight back with mean and moralistic language, they shouldn’t expect to win friends. They act as if they are members of the priesthood of an established religion. Their religion is being disestablished. No wonder they don’t like it. And now the state they worshipped is going to evaluate them on how many souls they have saved. What a betrayal! What an impossibility! Welcome to the real world. The warm cynosure government bureaucrat world was so much nicer. But now the priests must compete for congregants with other denominations. It isn’t and never was public money. Pass the plate.
A HUMBLE OPINION ON THE CHANGING OF THE
GUARD
How will privatization of our school system over the presently run public school system be certain to have any effect on education let alone making education improve by having students achieve better grades? Is the hope to have education improved only because it is privatized? Is the hope to give people a choice in school variety? But we already have four choices in which school to send children: public school, Christian school, parochial school, and private public schools like Groton in Massachusetts. Maybe all that is certain with privatization is that one owner and manager, public education is dismissed and another owner and manager now runs the show, the profiteer. Now, who benefits for certain from this change of the guard of poor performing schools? The students? The teachers? The new owners?
Whether student learning will be bettered, whether ALL students, the present goal of NCLB, will improve is unknown for certain. If charter schools methods are so much better all that is necessary then would be for the public school to adopt same such methods. Who can say: is it possible student achievement can get worse with charter schools? Students learn their subjects through a teacher not who owns or manages or runs the educational system. Education should not be run as a business like management runs a business of selling and buying goods and services. Teachers and children are people, not commodities. In a way students are both employer and employee of their own business in their own education. Education is for them, not management to make a profit from. The teacher is the conduit, the aqueduct of bringing fresh water of learning for the student. Fire one teacher after privatization takes over and there is now no union there to help the dismissed person the class gets another teacher who may be worse yet and not better. So, fire and hire, fire and hire, like in private work places since charter schools have no unions; interesting fact.
It surely must be easier to gauge the effectiveness of say a machinist whose handiwork is an inanimate creation. The outcome of a machinist’s labor rests on 90% of the machinists’ competence and ability and 10% on the material used, that is whether the steel, iron etc, is flawed, etc. But to gauge effectiveness of one teacher with just one gauge, the test, when student class participation, seatwork, homework, or graded papers handed in of student’s answers to a video just viewed are other means of teacher evaluation for student achievement and progress, must surely be inaccurate. Why? Reason one: if a student gets a D on the test but does well with class participation, etc. the student can raise his score to a C or better. So the student achieves better than the test show’s she is. According to the test results, the teacher is poorly performing, along with his student, but the student herself, by her own effort and intelligence and with help from her teacher brought her grade up unknown to the test observer. The student has been an overall success unbeknown to the test observer (these tests include the regular classroom tests as well as those tests necessary for NCLB). Second reason: Because, apart from these other methods of evaluation the effectiveness of the teacher depends very much on the infinite variety of the personality, physical health, emotional health, of 20 or more human beings in the classroom, including the teacher’s own, as to whether pupils are listening to a lecture or are working on that written test. Such human qualities will determine much of the motivation of each student, and as such, in the words of that renown first and second century Roman professor and orator of public speaking, Quintilian, have “study and learning depend very much on the good will of the pupil,”(towards their classmates, education, their school, and their teacher) “a quality which can not be secured by compulsion,” and which was then and remains to this day a very big reason for the success or not of a student.
But with many, if not all unions weakened, or maybe some worse off, partly due to reaganism and globalism, and giving in to a successfully rapid and furious political and corporate abusiveness and assault to have the public blame union and teacher for total student failure, when in fact it is at least both participants to blame, the corporatists’ and political allies’ derision and the union and teachers defensive posturing, serves only to weaken education. Just how little or how much is less important then that some weakening occurs. And, with the general population down on education even before this abusiveness and also due to the billions going overseas for both wars and for foreign aid, many politicians of all parties ride this wave of popular discontent with education to the shoreline of and for their own political advantage.
Now, unless this is the primary intention of the political and corporate derision to weaken all but the classroom, where the real education exists and occurs and is insulated and protected, for the most part, by the noble teacher from the weakening of the system, then there is no good, or not enough good to condone the continued existence of the current group of reforms, is there?
I believe a successful attempt at privatizing any or all of the general welfare and public health and happiness is at best risky and at worst maybe illegal or even unconstitutional. Privatize social security, public schools or any other public function and where the government will seek to aid, equalize, and help retirees, etc, the private enterprisers will first need to determine the cost of helping and the need for securing a profit for themselves before considering promoting the public welfare and health and happiness. If a profit cannot be made, can profiteers be trusted to promote the public health and happiness which is a very important concept of our Enlightenment heritage? Profiteers will only promote the PUBLIC good once and foremost their own PRIVATE interests, made in profits, is promoted first, correct? The people’s trust and happiness should not be allowed to reside with people who will likely have a conflict of interest in promoting the general welfare. Once social security, public schools, health care, or any other public interest is privatized what will keep the profiteers, now the owners of that specific public interest from one day deciding that they now no longer want to own that public interest and either sell it to who knows who or downright just decide not to have it anymore?
And one last thing which should surely show the short-sightedness and poorly considered set of current reforms. Schools which continue to fail are ultimately closedown. The students of these closed schools now go to charter schools or to the schools which were closed when they were public schools and which now are reopened and managed by private enterprise. And now, like magic these children who were failing before will “poof” miraculously begin to achieve better, will now be a success for no other reason then because another manages the school. How much better will the programs, directives, etc. of the directors of a privately run school be, which will have no governmental restrictions, when the public schools now could likewise take the initiative if allowed by state and federal regulations to implement programs, no one knows. Why wait to privatize a school which will have little if any restrictions, when all that need be done today is lessen if not eliminate restrictions on our public schools so they can initiate programs on their own with no government interference and become more like the charter schools would be? Ludicrous.
In health care, individual health savings accounts puts the consumer at the center of choice. In Singapore everyone has to have such a health savings account, but how it is spent depends on the choices the citizen makes. This is supplemented by catastrophic health insurance. This approach is much superior to government RUN health care in which the government decides who gets what.
That is an analogy to vouchers, possibly. Each parent gets a voucher provided by the state, but the parent chooses how to spend it. Much better than forced, monopoly education in my view.
Beautifully written. Thank you, Diane.
It is difficult to be an educator in the public sector and not, over the years, learn to think about the common good. As teachers, we become more and more aware of the multiple needs of the students we are hoping to mold into members of a society that is caring and interested in the well-being of the nation, the community, and the individual.
I have found that, as the years have marched on, inclusion of respect for all religions and thoughts has been “questionable” to some people who wish to preserve one view of America.
For me, this has led to the recognition that for some people, democracy is defined to suit their own personal needs and desires for their communities and their children, not for society as a whole. For many of these people, those who feel as I do, are somehow “socialists” because we feel that we should educate all children with values, but not with one religion to dominate those values. To me, this has led to the current situation.
Some of the push for privatization of education has been fueled by money from both the right and the left. I see from posts on here that both views are represented. But, we have devolved to the present status, no matter how we got here.
To me, the fact that input into local schools, fire departments, and police departments (and other things funded by a pool of money from all in that district) is th/e most personal form of democracy, it is leading us in the wrong direction to make that which is for the common good subject to the private ownership and decision making of corporations, often not even located within that state or locality. Democracy stems from the home/family, to the neighborhood, to the community, to schools, townships, cities, counties, states and the federal government. Top-down is not democratic. Certainly, corporate-down is even further from democracy. I don’t know why there has been a convergence of the ideas between the 1% and the far right has resulted in the idea that corporate-ownership of public services is good for our democracy, let alone for fair for students.
I run into opposition everywhere I turn from people who are related and who have been friends who seem to feel that this whole turn of events is “necessary” in order to maintain a “Godly America”. I maintain that we never HAD a “Godly America”. We want to think we did. We want to rest on the history that says that we did what we could to secure this land for “us” … whoever “us” was at that time and now. It feels like some people believe that the only “us” that exists is those who are descendents of the explorers from the European continent and often the white, monied, male, Judeo Christians who were allowed to “call the shots”.
So, I think the effort to reclaim that feeling of “superiority” has motivated some to think that the only way to rid the educational services of the “pollution” of multi-cultural acceptance, truth in history, and research through scientific discovery, let alone the development of critical thinking skills is to cleanse the teaching profession from “liberal” thought that disrupts the neat little package of basically “one religion” schools of thought want to deliver. They don’t see this as breaking from the first amendment. They don’t realize that our ancestors left that oppression and came here. They don’t even recognize that we oppressed the First People. They don’t really seem to understand that we are not One Nation Under God with Liberty and Justice for ALL if we don’t educate all races, all ages, all religions, all genders … equally.
But, I am in the minority, at least among my friends and relatives. How long must the fight continue? On this day, July 4th, 2013, I have seen multiple posts from friends and relatives espousing a brand of patriotism based on absolutely false “quotes” about religion, education, politics, and history.
It is difficult to fight “manufactured facts” with evidence-based reasoning. It is like trying to swim through a rock wall.
Happy 4th.
You speak of the importance of local funding for local schools and services to provide as a personal form of democracy. Does state or federal funding of these schools or services erode personal democracy? Was Dr. Ravitch wrong to place the blame for deterioration of the schools in Philadelphia on the state of Pennsylvania rather than the citizens of Philadelphia?
I don’t wish to get too political here. But, in Ohio, there has been an erosion of local support for paying taxes for ANYthing. Policemen, firemen, teachers, to name a few are faced with cutbacks. Salaries are slashed. Experienced people are pushed out, sometimes gently, but pushed out nevertheless, with no other jobs available except maybe minimum wage jobs. People lose houses, dignity, hope, etc. People are stressed and becoming unwell. What we thought was secure is no longer secure. Yes, it is that way for many, in many jobs. There is a sort of “life source” issue with teachers, not all, but many, that they have given more than their contractual days to educating, molding, and loving those kids. To have it disrespected because somehow the public views salaries as “unnecessary” in service to the community jobs, is just watching the profession die.
I am not saying Diane is wrong or right. I am just stepping back from the topic to look at how factions from the left and right have come to similar conclusions, for different reasons, and they are “blaming” schools for the ills of society.
People’s voting that is most close to home is the voting for school boards and levies. Many people don’t even register to vote. Many people voice a lot of negative commentary, but they won’t register to vote. Many people don’t want to serve on a jury because of the low pay and the expectation that they will lose pay from their jobs. So, we have a non-representative government from the get-go because those who vote aren’t representing everyone’s needs or desires.
I just mean to say that we are undermining the infrastructure of America when we break the units from the bottom up and allow commandeering to come from the top down. We have turned over and gone to sleep.
And, the foxes are running the henhouse, at least in Ohio.
The problem of factions has long been recognized. My spouse routinely teaches Federalist paper 10 in political and social philosophy classes, along with Federalist 54, though that one is not often anthologized.
One important example of public funds going to private organizations is head start. Another is federal financial aid for post secondary adulation. Should we stop this flow of public money to private organizations? How about NSF grants? NIH grants?
It is so hard to tell if you really are an idiot, or just really good a pretending.
Perhaps you can provide a prince pelted argument for when the government can pay private organizations public funds and when it can not.
Anyone of average intelligence and a modicum of acquaintance with practical affairs can answer your quibbles with a half a second’s thought — but the sad fact is that multitudes of patient people hereabouts have already done exactly that on a multitude of occasions, time and again to the very same childish quibbles, and short of programming a bot to do it for all future times it is simply no longer worth the exercise to do so.
Alas, I can not see how you can makes distinction that would prohibit public funds given to private organizations for education but would allow public funds given to private organizations for healthcare, for food, for housing, for education before K-12 and after K-12, and for research to benefit the common good among other things.
Your razor may be sharper than mine, or you may simply reject many or most of the other ways that public funding goes directly to private hands. It would be enlightening to see which way you go. Is the funding model for head start illegitimate? Should Medicare and Medicaid patents be treated exclusively by physicians employed by the government? Should food stamps be spent exclusively on food provided by government employees?
Why don’t you sleep on it — you might just think of something as the fireworks fade into the night.
I don’t know if you are a teacher, but perhaps you could teach me, a person that you refer to as an “idiot” (I hope you do not refer to your own students that way if in fact you have ever been a teacher). Explain how you can draw these distinctions do that I can be educated.
But it is easy to tell that t.e.’s arguments are always a distraction and waste of time.
Either way, he certainly has difficulty understanding when he is being invited to go pound sand.
Just looking for someone who can make an argument.
Enclosure of the commons, read 18th c English history! Our founding fathers thought they had left that monster behind in Mother England. Instead, it followed us home, as Manifest Destiny and Corporate Capitalism.
Shall we ask the fishing fleet (and for that matter the environmentalists) how the commons has worked out for them?
You have lots of questions but no answers teachingeconomist. Why not give all of the people here a taste of your superior thinking powers and answer some of the many questions that you love to ask?
I think the answer here is that the common resource pool is a problem. There is a tragic shortage of blue fin tuna, but arguably too many cows. The commons nature of deep water fish is part of the explination.
I ask questions because they are short. Dr. Ravitch has deleted my posts when she thought that I had gone on too long.
Enclosure is covered briefly, if at all, in American history texts. Don’t confuse this with Garrett Hardin’s discredited argument. Parliamentary enclosure was the systematic removal of small landowners from land held in common, http://michaellangford.org/2012/02/09/the-enclosure-movement If that doesn’t satisfy you, there’s a similar article in The Land (English agrarian magazine online), or on Stephen Lewis’s blog The Wild Peak.
You never seem to run short of red herrings, though …
I certainly agree that the north sea herring collapse is relevemt. I am not sure if they were red, however.
A commons works with there is social sanction to prevent tragedies of the sort that have occurred with fishing. TE is right about this. The Fish Count Study (see fishcount.org) estimates that approx. 2 TRILLION fish are taken from the oceans each year. To give you an idea how large a number that is, a million seconds is eleven and a half days. A trillion seconds is almost 32,000 years. David Pauly, head of the Fisheries Centre at the University of British Columbia estimates that at current rates ALL commercially fished wild species will be in collapse.
Why didn’t we see the degradation of the agricultural commons in Europe before enclosure–social sanction. Local governance is extremely important as a check on the fouling of the commons, and that’s another reason why we need to put teachers back in control of our schools, subject to the watchful eyes of their communities.
There is vastly more to the concept of the Common Good than commodities to be traded in some trading pit, but most of what we call civilization, community, and culture is simply invisible to Homo Ecomoronicus.
You might look at Simon Schama’s Citizens for part of that answer. France had a revolution instead. They DO have small freehold agriculture. In the U$, town commons exist in New England, but further south and west the laws are structured post-enclosure. But essentially, Robert, you’re arguing an ambiguity. The English commons were not the same as the fisheries. The history of enclosure has been deliberately obscured, but it is at the heart of the American revolution, the industrial revolution, and our notions of economics (Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham).
The French do indeed have smallholders, subsidized bt the common agricultural policy, usually abbreviated as CAP. That is not the same as holding land in common, however. If you want to look at how local communities deal with this problem, you might want to look at the work of Elinor Ostrom, Nobel prize winner in economics in 2009. The technical paper is here: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic-sciences/laureates/2009/advanced-economicsciences2009.pdf
Thanks. Commons interest me. The definitive work on English enclosure of commons (if you are interested in the historic context) is The Village Laborer by J L and Barbara Hammond, of which the first chapter “The Concentration of Power” was considered so provocative that it was omitted from every printing but the first. Available online as a PDF, it is well written, and definitely worth reading.
Of course we’ve a accumulated common wealth. If you don’t believe it, I have a glorious bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.
The question is CONTROL of the common wealth. The corporate “reformers” conspired to take political control of wealth that isn’t theirs, not to break it up and return it to individual control. Using the power of executive mechanisms we had created to serve our common democratic governance, they direct our tax dollars and govern our children for their own profit. This has gone far beyond regulatory capture, and even beyond the military-industrial complex Eisenhower warned us about.
They gave themselves a name when they came right into the library of my public school in 2006. They had trained our new principal and certified him in one of their many business-dominated programs (The National Institute for School Leadership), and he showed us their Powerpoints.
They are the “public private partnership”, through which private interests wield the awesome power of the state to compel compliance. Decisions of war and peace, trade regulation, public safety and education are made now in the narrow interest of increasing their wealth and power.
“Education reform is coming. It’s like a bus; you’ll either be on it or under it.”
Interesting. Our “governor” Kasich in Ohio tells people to “get on the bus or to he run over by it”. That is one of the main reasons I do not trust him. Leaders shouldn’t have that attitude!
:”be” not “he”
I agree that leaders should not have that attitide, neither. Such talk should be directed towards an enemy, not your own citizens, correct?
The public sector reflects the private sector. After WWII when the large corporations in the private sector provided their employees with health benefits, defined pensions, job security and enough time to serve on public boards (like the school board), public employees negotiated and received the same benefits. The school board members and elected officials all saw this as fair and just. That was then. Now corporations have scaled back on health benefits, offer 401K plans instead of defined benefit pensions, and outsource wherever possible to 1099 employees. Members of the voting public who have lost jobs, have limited benefits, no pensions, and no expectation of earning as much as public employees see their taxes going to “greedy” teachers and are resentful. We are witnessing the deconstruction of the public sector that mirrors the deconstruction that has already taken place in the private sector. My hope is that as the public sees the effects of the erosion of public sector funding we can reverse direction. That requires someone in power to speak forcefully for government services and regulation, to advocate that wealth to be transferred so that children raised in poverty have an opportunity to advance, and to show the voters that austerity measures like those affecting Detroit, Chicago, and Philadelphia are anti-democratic and corrosive.
Your analysis of the causes sounds correct to me. Your advocacy for same size or bigger government does not sit as well. So many of the problems could be handled by putting the administration of the grants into the hands of the individuals (e.g. health savings accounts) rather than retaining administration in the hands of the bureaucrats.
Diane,
I often have parents at parent-teacher conferences and other times despair over their child’s future. After I have listened to them and have a good sense that they are doing the right things I give them an analogy. I also tell them that this is my recipe for avoiding despair. The child may be the mountain, but we are the wind and the rain that over time shapes them. You are a powerful source of wind and rain falling on the educational landscape. Those of us shaping things from the classroom appreciate your support and continued efforts.
Teachers union sues state for $200 million; second $65 million suit possible:
Some progress in taking money back from Jindal’s cronies and the failed voucher system.
Check it out! Diane if possible could you add you thoughts. I;m sure they will soon spin this into union/teacher bashing and your voice could help mitigate that.
http://www.nola.com/education/index.ssf/2013/07/teachers_union_sues_state_for.html
Charters, vouchers, e-schools are good for education. We have been arguing for years on how to improve public schools. There has been some successes, but the bulk of schools are still failing, especially in the big inner cities. Tons of money have been pumped into them with very little improvement. Maybe the introduction of charters, vouchers, e-schools, and other forms will spur the schools to real reform. Blame is put on the teachers, students, parents, politicians, and god knows how many others. Change has to begin with all. Unions have to become flexible in changes. The battle seems to be the power of the union verses the power of big business. Teachers, students, parents and the community are the big losers here. I read all the blogs here and elsewhere and see the big picture. In my former district I watched a principal give up his post to go back into the classroom. He will not get a cut in pay, but keep his principal pay. This puts hardship on district. There is something wrong here. I can see both sides. Superintendents and other high officials get ot add vacation and sick pay to salary before figuring retirement. Again, this hurts districts. There has a balance somewhere.
Test scores are low because students often blossom at different times. In addition childhood stress, malnutrition and lack of a support system are among the problems.
It is important to recognize that poverty, by itself, does not cause low test scores. This is evidenced by the schools that skim off high scoring poverty kids with a strong support system and take credit for the school. That is insulting to the parents who provide the strong support. An example is Dr. Ben Carson who succeeded with the support of his mother.
The only solution and the only way to save the public schools is to develop Indy schools (individualized). That way we can show individual progress no matter from where they start. Currently the only thing of importance is the artificial test score. Success in this depends on a completely different kind of mind set than does real learning.
It is important not to be tricked into the belief that test scores are an indicator of academic achievement. They are not! Academic achievement must be assessed in a real way, including demonstrated learning.
Remember, proficiency is not just scoring at the same place on an artificial test, but also at the same time. When we have a range of skills from cognitively disabled to book learned geniuses, only a nut case would believe they will be at the same time. When we have obstacles in the way of learning like childhood stress, malnutrition, chronic illness, lack of a strong support system etc. it is immoral to force everyone into the same standardized box full of word games and math riddles.
Take kids from where they are, not where we wish they were, and make failure a learning process that is not devastating. That’s what we do in life. The ONLY way to do this is with Indy (individualized) schools. And every public school can become an Indy school. That is the only way to save public schools.
When I was getting my Masters Degree, I took a course in Individually Guided Education. I found it to be “the way to go” in my mind. However, I mentioned this during my orals and the professors told me to never mention that in an interview or I’d never get hired. How times have changed! Then I took a course many years later with the Ohio Writing Project, which I really enjoyed. We had to write a “Credo”. I thought mine was accurate, but I made the mistake of saying “all children can learn, but not at the same pace or ar the same time”. That was met with negativity. I don’t care. It is realistic. I don’t know where some of the ideas are developed.
Individualized schools are the only savior for the public school system. It sounds simple but is difficult and worth it. It is doable because teachers are professionals. This way they can take back their profession. Individually guided means taking kids from where they are with failure being a learning process not a devastating loss. We did it in Milwaukee in 1995 and wrote about it in our two books, Quashing the Rhetoric of Reform and Saving Students from a Shattered System.
Remember, Individualized not only means individual rates but means teach in individual learning styles utilizing the students personal background and then expanding to the moon and back.
http://www.wholechildreform.com Read our books and then call us and we will help your teachers develop the program. You do not need expensive consultants to tell you what to do. Your teachers know your schools.
This can be done today in your public schools right now
It appears that some people have never learned the Logic of Democracy — or else had it washed from their brains by Market Mythology somewhere along the line. At any rate here is my continuing recitation of the indelible lessons our parents and teachers used to impress on our minds with some dreadful efficiency so many years ago.
In a democracy, the people are sovereign, the sole rulers of the nation. The sovereign requires the education and information to rule wisely, or else the nation perishes.
Becoming educated and remaining informed, realizing ones potential as a citizen, is not just one’s duty to oneself — it is one’s duty as a citizen.
That is the ultimate rationale of universal free public education in a democratic society — the education due a citizen is an essential part of the democratic franchise, indeed, on a par with the right to vote.
True enough, Jon Awbrey, but we must also consider the citizenship content of that education for all. I would argue that the public schools of the past have failed to identify and transmit the principles of a constitutional republic to its students. Among those principles are the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness through the means of protected private property. Public schools now preach that if someone is rich the state has a right to take his property through progressive taxation. To each according to his need; from each according to his ability. We recognize that as the essence of communalism, rather than the fundamental individualism of private property. By condemning private property, the public schools have transmitted the wrong dogma, and thus have failed the citizenry they were supposed to have been educating in the principals of constitutional democracy. Thus the public schools have totally lost their way, and thus their claim on support from the citizens. The privatizers are correcting the philosophical error by crude means, dismantling of the public school systems. If one can’t fire the fools, on must close the plant.
Is this not so?
Inasmuch as all the rich individuals you advocate became rich through exploitation of other peoples’ labor, the state doesn’t only have a right, but a moral obligation to redistribute the wealth from those extracting it back to those that actually created it. Sadly the cult of private property defends exploitation and demands ever more of it. We need a far more progressive tax system, to ameliorate the inequity brought on by the private holding of the means of production. Real democracy begins with equity.
When you say equality, do you mean equality of opportunity or equality of outcome?
Thank you for your candor. You view illustrates EXACTLY why the public school teaching cadres have no credibility with the vast citizenry, who believe that Constitutional government rests soundly on the institution of private property. Your redistributionism cannot be morally defended UNLESS capitalists did really steal the money from the workers. But your premise is wrong. The labor theory of value is incomplete. From a political point of view, UNTIL redistributionist such as yourself (and President Obama) reverse your views, there can be no compromise. Pity though.
A very moving statement, but you left out the part that the education must be provided by government employees.
When you add that, might you also add something about an informed citizenry? And how the information the citizens get must also must be provided by government employees?