Newly elected Indiana State Superintendent Glenda Ritz won a smashing victory last fall, collecting even more votes than Governor Mike Pence. Since taking office, she has been an effective leader.
However, those hoping for a slowdown of the attacks on public education in Indiana were disappointed to learn that Governor Pence had selected the executive director of the state charter school board as his education advisor. She has a long history as an advocate of privatization.
What’s happened to the Republican Party? Why are so many Republicans dedicated to harming public education? Do they hate public schools? Why?
What is it about having a dual school system that appeals to them?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I’ve had kids attending public school for the last 20 years (mine range in age from 25 to 10) and I don’t recall Republicans ever supporting public schools.
The lunacy of the priorities of school reform continues to amaze me.
Duncan said the other day that 6% of US public school.kids attend privatize charters. 6%!
Yet the entire public policy focus is on charters.
They’ve effectively abandonded 94% of US students. THAT is insane.
Well, Chiara, this is in the master plan to starve off the public schools to force that remaining 94% into their charter$. (Except, perhaps, the special needs students–for them, we’ll go back to the days before P.L. 94-142, and they can stay at home and be homeschooled. Oh, wait–I forget–K12 Virtual Charters will take care of them–at home–while the school districts foot the bill to the tune of $8K/student.) KA-CHING!
Republicans and Democrats are doing the bidding of their corporate masters, bust the teachers’ and dip into a huge pot of public money.
Bad people. Both parties are corrupt and are lining their pockets and getting political favors that suit the deformers and the rich. .
Agree that sadly the Dems are as greedy as the Repubs. Both of the major parties have succumbed to the free market ideology that all things can be done better by the private sector….and the wealth that brings to these privatizers will be vast.
My sister in law lives in a suburb of Indianapolis. Indiana, of course, has gone for “school choice” in a big way.
I spent some time with her and her children at their home this summer, and I thought it was sad. None of the kids in the neighborhood know one another. They all go to different schools. The parents drive the kids to arranged play and social events with the
children from each child’s respective school.
The parents don’t intersect or cross paths, either, so they don’t know one another.
It’s not really a neighborhood.
Chiara: you just described, in very non-inflammatory but down-to-earth and practical terms, what conservatives used to ferociously denounce as “social engineering.” In this case you have touched on—remembering that yesterday was the fourth of July—the edupreneurial dream of changing the de facto motto of the US from “out of many, one” to “out of many, even more.”
Why no belching forth of thunderous attacks on this pernicious form of “social engineering”? Just one benefit out of many if you are an edubully: it is easier to pit neighbor against neighbor when people don’t think of and feel like they are neighbors. Just think pRev aka Parent Revolution aka Parent Disembowelment.
Thank you for your posting.
🙂
It is called divide and conquer. if parents are kept at bay and do not have a common cause of their neighborhood public school, they are easier to fool, to manage, to usurp…yes a low form of social engineering.
Anyone who wants to work against Parent Revolution, please contact me at
Joining Forces for Education
joiningforces4ed@aol.com
This particularly pernicious form of privatization is spreading like wild fire across the US. We must join together to educate the community about parent trigger laws and how the inner city parents are manipulated to sign phony petitions to essentially give their schools away to free market, for-profit, charters.
I live in Fort Wayne, and this has been happening for 20 years. I provided childcare for 2 children (now young adults), while I went to college. There were several families on the block, and everyone of the families went to a different school. One family went to the arts magnet, one family went to the neighborhood school, one family went to the science magnet, one family went to school in the next neighborhood, one family went to Catholic school in the neighborhood and other other family sent to their son to the elite prep school.
After school they all played together, and I run into many of those young people today. Many are involved in entrepreneurial efforts together, no matter the schooling.
Chiara, thanks for the excellent comment. You describe EXACTLY what ALEC has in mind for the future of our nation–fragmentize the population, divide-&-conquer. Many time, in this blog, when people ask how they can stop what is happening to their schools, Diane and commenters advise the writers to find like-minded people (in their school community for example), and have at it. In numbers there is strength. By breaking school communities–thus neighborhoods–apart, where will these people be able to find others of their ilk? Again–the ALEC/BBC agenda to destroy our country and its founding principles.
And–as for the parties–a new name came to mind for the Dems–
(another one for the Reformy Dictionary!) the Demoncrats–those politicians who pretend to be/run as Democrats but who are beholden to ALEC, the BBC, and who were the founders and perpetrators of DFER {Demoncrats for Ed. Reform).
“What’s happened to the Republican Party? Why are so many Republicans dedicated to harming public education? Do they hate public schools? Why?”
I ask that same question about Democrats, beginning with the one we put in the White House and those we sent to Congress, as well as all those whom we elected to be our Governors and state legislators!
Democrats are no less complicit in the charter school cabal and other privatization efforts than are Republicans. So long as candidates for public office remain dependent on private sources for raising the huge sums of money it takes to get elected, they’ll continue to push the ALEC agenda. Whether it’s right or wrong, good or bad for the nation and our communities, they’re indifferent to philosophical arguments about the importance of America’s common schools in sustaining democracy and ensuring equal educational opportunity.
On this July 4th holiday, I find it difficult to be optimistic about the future of our public schools and the direction this country seems hell-bent on following.
I completely agree. We should probably leave the words Republican and Democrat out of our discussions as both sides seem to have left education in the lurch for a little immediate change in their own pockets. Obama’s choice of Arnie Duncan was typical corrupt Chicago politics (and I should know I’ve been watching it my entire life…it works for a city but not for a country and certainly not for children). Both sides seem equally guilty and corruptable by the 1%. It is more a fight against VERY big money and everyone else’s best interests. This is a clear case of the rich working against the GREATER GOOD for their own best and very short termed interests.
I can use the analogy of what happened with the parking meters in Chicago to what is happening in Public Education (it plays better in Chicago as they get the problems, but…). As Mayor Daley was leaving office he leased the city’s parking meters to a private company to save money (?) and make a boat load of money just before he left office….well now Rahm is mayor and the private company is still in charge but they added all these fees, and the city has no recourse but to pay them because they didn’t really read the contract (or have been pretending they didn’t) and the city is going to lose millions in this deal, much more than they were paid originally. Privatizing public works does not save money, it only makes a few people money in the short term, leaving the public to pick up the tab for the mess that is left afterwards. To get those meters back, Chicago would have to buy all new meters, pay all the bills and buy back the contract from the private company and start all over again…all on the tax payers dime. If we sell out the schools in Chicago, but then over time (and this will surely happen) feel we want them back…we’ll have to buy back or build all new schools, desks, books…ie everything and start all over again, at such an enormous costs (and I’m not even talking the social and emotional mess they’re making in these communities…I’m just talking dollars, like they are)….so we should really be skipping the republican democrat thing…it is an anyone who is willing to take a buck thing.
Exactly. They initially provide the service for less but then over time charge more. The public pays more in the end but the politician got their campaign money in the beginning. I agree, the same thing will happen with schools over time.
Love your comment: “I completely agree. We should probably leave the words Republican and Democrat out of our discussions as both sides seem to have left education in the lurch for a little immediate change in their own pockets. Obama’s choice of Arnie Duncan was typical corrupt Chicago politics (and I should know I’ve been watching it my entire life…it works for a city but not for a country and certainly not for children). Both sides seem equally guilty and corruptable by the 1%. It is more a fight against VERY big money and everyone else’s best interests. This is a clear case of the rich working against the GREATER GOOD for their own best and very short termed interests.”
This is more than true.
Q:” What is it about having a dual school system that appeals to them?” A: Schools for “their kind of kids” and separate schools for “those other kids– e poor, minority, special needs, discipline problem, tough family kids. All kinds of euphemisms are linguistic niceties are employed but that seems to me to be what’s driving the choice movement– resegregation so that “the good kids” get to go to school together without the distractions of “the other kids.” It’s a very selfish view of the world and ultimately does a disservice to the children, including the privileged “choice” kids who grow up learning little to nothing about the backgrounds and experiences of those different from them. But it is helping .drive popular acceptance of choice, charters, vouchers and of course the government’s disinvestment in the common schools that most of us who read your blog hold dear and vital to our democracy. IMHO of course. See also: http://www.salon.com/2012/01/24/the_ugly_truth_about_school_choice/
And the answers to today’s quiz are:it’s too hard to solve problems of funding for public schools, it might involve a bit more in taxes (the horror!) and so require real leadership. It doesn’t provide enough opportunities for vacuous photo-ops. Public schools don’t line their pockets all they so is ask for money. Their kids might have to attend a school with “those people”. What really bothers me is the Republicans set this agenda in the 70s, perhaps even before and the Democrats are mindlessly following that agenda, so there are no new ideas from either party. Whats worse? Republican venality or Democratic cowardice?
The power of salesmanship and marketing and the lack of consumer awareness by the public play a huge part in the success of the privatization of our schools. The old axiom “buyer beware” certainly applies. I saw a recent you tube video produced by Ohio Parents showing the new textbooks for elementary ELA which appeared to be teaching children t o apply rather than deny the faulty methods of persuasion once reserved for the advertising world but now legitimized by professionals. It is no mystery why the re form pitch has been so successful in our society of “have it your way” and “the customer is always right.” From there it is just a hop, skip and a jump to flat out deception and lies that permeate the reform rhetoric. Three editorials I read just this morning in the local news were permeated with lies, false statistics and baseless assumptions all promulgated by the writers from the Chamber of Commerce, the Louisiana Assoc. of Business and Industry and private business owners. How does one combat this well funded foe without resorting to the same tactics?
The takeover of our public schools was cleverly orchestrated by removing the specter of conflict of interest via non profit status of most of the benefactors of reform and by touting charters as “public schools” with non or not for profit mgt companies. How else could our former TFA CEO Supt. John White get away with gifting millions of taxpayer dollars to TFA? How else could our Bd. of Education member Kira Orange-Jones, currently serving as New Orleans head of TFA, get away with serving on that board with the caveat that she abstains from voting for TFA contracts while at the same time signing the contract on behalf of TFA? The Director of the Louisiana Assoc of Public Charter Schools is sister of BESE president Charles Roemer and her presence is well established at all BESE meetings. Ethics have ruled that her only limitation is that she cannot personally testify at those meetings (although she has on occasion).
This is partially a result of the public electing and politicians appointing unqualified people to serve in these positions. Educators should be running education just as doctors oversee the administration of their hospitals. Hence again the purpose for degrading the profession of teaching to make way for replacing educators with “businessmen.” We need to take back the respect and support of the public with our own advertising campaign but lack the financial backing that reform enjoys.
The biggest thing they did was feeding a line of bull that it was all about saving minority children. They got famous minorities to promote it and sell the message. The children and community are getting less while super rich connected people are getting wealthier. It is the ultimate con. I can’t believe how easy it was to do it.
Yup,
“Educators should be running education just as doctors oversee the administration of their hospitals.”
Not anymore! Since the push for profits in the healthcare field started to take effect in the 80s the trend has been for the doctors to become line workers, albeit decently paid.
She’s on the board for KIPP College Prep in Indianapolis.
The school performs below the state average, (so is it really a KIPP school?).
http://compass.doe.in.gov/dashboard/overview.aspx?type=school&id=5860
There are underperforming KIPPs in Ohio and Michigan too. Def. nothing to replicate.
I just think none of the reformers gave any thought to how different “communities” will be without public school systems.
They just threw it away with no consideration of broader effects on these kids.
I can’t imagine this country in 20 years if they succeed. A big group of individuals with no commonality at ANY point in their lives, battling for a piece of whatever “voucher” funding is available.
It’s already happening in Ohio. There’s an INTRA charter fight over funding, because the most politically connected charters got a disproportionate share of funding.
It’s just all narrow self-interest. “My school” means MY kid’s school for the time MY kid attends.
In Philadelphia you have Catholic schools losing students to charters, so there’s another intra-battle. I don’t imagine religious schools have the giant advertising budgets of the chain charters.
Did reformers consider ANY of this before they rushed in to dismantle public schools?
The arrogance is breathtaking.
As they say “where there’s confusion there’s profit.” That explains the Chaos Theory of the reformers.
I read a piece on New Orleans and I was struck by how often the kids change schools.
Maybe I’m old fashioned on child rearing, and I’m no expert, but I have yet to meet a 7 year old who yearned for the inherent instability of “market forces”
Do the kids in Chicago know where their school is yet? Do the kids in Philadelphia know if they’ll HAVE a school to go to?
It’s July. How are tgese parents supposed to plan anything?
Also, there’s an economist, Hirschman who rebuts Milton Friedman beautifully on privatizing schools.
As you’re all probably aware, “reform” is grounded in the views of ONE conservative economist, which is why there’s no real dissent. There’s DEGREES of fealty to Friedman, but no real dissent in “reform”
Duncan is just a squishy Friedman disciple.
“Choice” is really no “chioce” at all. It’s narrow. Markets Rule!
What do you expect from a crooked politician. No surprise.
The old guard Republicans realized they allowed the crazies to run the show. So much so that they have an ad running trying to protect Mark Rubio because the Tea Party now hates him for standing up for immigration. With the Tea Party, it’s all or nothing.
But the REAL question is: What happened to the Democratic Party?? Many of them have turned into Neo-Liberals. And when it comes to education, are also turning to privatization. But it goes further than that. Democrats are turning against the middle class as well. This is why I have decided to change my party affiliation from Democratic to Independent. When I see life-long Democrats endorsing Thompson for Mayor, I have to shake my head. His alliance with Tisch has very deep roots. And, if people believe he will turn around the bad reforms, then I have a bridge to sell you. I have also seen my union agree to VAM, testing, unfair teach evaluations, etc., and then write a statement they are against it. It cannot work both ways.
Well, I wish I could say that I’m shocked that Ms. Fiddian-Green is a former Eli Lilly executive…Finance, no less…but I’m not. I could see the handwriting on the wall when Mitch Daniels, another former Eli Lilly executive, began to drive a stake through public education here.
For those that don’t know, the state cut the education budget by $300 million.
Link: http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/gov-daniels-to-cut-million-from-schools/article_0ca86211-09ab-5b74-9723-36d08d36ba75.html
Then, suddenly, they found $300 million in an account that they, um, forgot.
Link: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1211/69937.html
And did they say, well, we need to put that money back into the public schools? Nope.
In addition to this sad news, I was watching CSPAN this morning, and they had a retired General on there promoting….I hope you’re sitting down….putting military personnel into schools —-preschool through high school. This, he says, is to get them ready for military service. But then he says that this is to get them ready to be good citizens, in case they don’t want to go into the military. Nazi Germany, anyone? Israel, anyone? (where they force people to serve in the military).
Interesting that CSPAN has yet to put the interview up on its website, so I can’t link to it. However, if anyone is interested, you can go to missionreadiness.org and look at their website.
Diane: Assuming your comment was not just rhetorical, allow me to offer two observations.
1) Among the dedicated, ultra conservative leaders of the Republican Party (My party, btw), educators are the tip of the iceberg of the liberal, Democratic establishment. Anything that can be done to damage them, strengthens the Republican Party.
2) There exists within the Republican Party a group of moderates who are pro-public education and tolerant of unions as a necessary factor in our society. In Washington state, these moderates are known as Mainstream Republicans. They are worth getting to know. You can connect with them at:
https://www.facebook.com/washingtonmainstream
or
http://www.washingtonmainstream.org/
My grandson’s 11th grade English teacher gave her end-of-the-year exam several classes early so she could get them graded and thus get her grades in on time, but the school rule book said that the class HAD to meet during the scheduled exam period. Her assignment in connection with the final book of the year (in AP English Language and Composition), ONE FLEW OVER THE CUKOO’S NEST, was to come to the exam period dressed like a character in the book or like a character in the Jack Nicholson movie of the book.
It all seems innocuous enough, and we who have been under grading deadlines, know what a stressful situation it is to get exams read and graded and year-end grades calculated. Yet even my daughter, a big supporter of public schools in our town thought the exam day dress up was a little foolish and undistinguished intellectually. She came over to borrow some shirts and hats that would help her son fulfill the assignment, but clearly that English teacher’s method of coping with the end of the year pressure did not lift her in our esteem as a representative, public school, junior year, Advanced Placement English.
Thus, as I read these postings, almost all directed outward, at some one—Republicans, privatizers, profiteers and so forth, I have begun to wonder whether there is anyone in the public school systems interested in internal reform of any sort. And if so, what are the needed internal reforms? Was there any reform that my grandson’s English teacher needs or am I just being priggishly intellectually elitist?
One year, I myself held a ‘tea dance’ for the students while we were reading THE GREAT GATSBY in 9th grade. They dressed up, brought punch and cake, and I taught them all how to do the Charleston, which I had learned, and learned how to teach, from a professional Arthur Murray dance teacher-demonstrator back in the early, early fifties. But that was not the final exam.
In a small class one year in which I was experimenting with a kind of student directed approach involving democratic methods, where the kids voted on what they wanted to read and how they wanted to be tested, I was given permission to give an “alternate” exam in my classroom during the scheduled exam period, where we could conduct the exam using some of the quiz techniques they had developed, specifically an ‘acting quiz’ where one or more students reenacted in their own language scenes from the books. I only did it once because the kids in the other sections complained that my students got off easy although the ‘results’ (as scored by me) came out with the same distribution as the other 9th grade sections taught by the other teachers. .
It’s all very well to expose the failing charters, to show the cronyism, to lament vouchers, and the decline of the neighborhood school, but what, in practical terms, could be done, right now, by teachers, within their schools to improve or sustain the education being offered, to in a sense exhibit to parents that the public schools are capable of offering a better education than the charters, voucher schools, on-line schools, even private schools?
That’s what I’d like to see addressed on this blog.
A lot could be done, but teachers don’t have a voice. All this ridiculous pressure and testing is not of our choosing. What can be done–start with reducing class sizes. Let teachers teach the curriculum and not to a test. Increase support services for the students who need it–right now one guidance counselor is not enough to service a school. Bring back The Arts and afterschool programs. Allow teachers to be creative. Stop the scripted lessons. Offer alternatives for students who need extra help as well as for students who excel.