Mark Naison, one of the founders of the Badass Teachers Association, here explains that the foundational idea of the privatization movement is a lie.
Naison writes:
“Public School Failure- “The Big Lie” on Which Current Education Policy Rests
“As someone who has worked in the Bronx for the last 45 years, it drives me crazy to hear business leaders denounce public schools as the one failed institution in an otherwise thriving society. Hello! During the 1970’s, when factories in the Bronx closed, business districts shuttered, banks refused to make loans and landlords abandoned and burned buildings that once held nearly half a million people, leaving the southern portion of the borough looking as though it suffered aerial bombardment, the public schools remained open, serving traumatized students with a shrinking array of resources. And these same schools were there ten years later when a crack epidemic hit the Bronx, providing a refuge from flying bullets and war torn streets.
“That the academic performance of these schools suffered as a result of serving batteeed communities with limited resources is hardly surprising, but let us not forget they were there, on the ground, when private businesses ran away because they could not operate in such conditions.
“And the teachers!! The Bronx teachers who went to work among burned out cars and vacant lots and crack vials and flying bullets were the Bronx’s unsung heroes, valiantly serving children living in a war zone, helping young people abandoned by the rest of the country achieve a measure of self confidence and success at a time when few cared what happened to them
“And now, the Arne Duncans and Wendy Kopps and Bill Gates of the world have the nerve to blame these same schools and teachers for the so-called “achievement gap” and the persistence of poverty and inequality in the United States. In a time when our biggest corporations have downsized and outsourced, exported jobs, and driven down wages, the public schools have actually done a better job upholding the living standards of Americans and defending it’s best traditions, than their private sector counterparts.”
Mark D Naison
Professor of African American Studies and History
Fordham University
“If you Want to Save America’s Public Schools: Replace Secretary of Education Arne Duncan With a Lifetime Educator.” http://dumpduncan.org/
Yes, businesses run away from blighted neighborhoods. And now the “reformers” want the public to believe that the business model in the form of charter schools is the answer.
If the ” reformers” truly cared about educating children, they would examine how public schools, their administrators, teachers, and students continued to function against all odds. I’m sure this “data” would be worth our attention.
Thanks Diane. a big thank you to Dr. Mark Naison who speaks straight and impactful truth.
I met South Bronx teachers in the early 80s, and those in Bedford Styvesant, and South Side of Chicago, when I was an educational researcher going into their schools to do research studies in their burned out neighborhoods. I only had to stay a week in each district, and was so thankful that there were brave dedicated folks who could withstand the crime, poverty, abuse, and remain as teachers. I could not have done it.
My reports read more like a Tom Clancy than Diane Ravitch. No one who has not seen this situation first hand can even comprehend it.
Brilliant! Thanks Diane and Mark . .
It is true that public education is the scope goat for society’s ills at the present time. We are an easy target, for a variety of reasons.
I read another comment/post where someone took ownership that yes public education does have problems (nobody ever denied that), but the particular solution of forcing a market-like situation on public schools just seems to be causing more problems. And the method of tracking a school to see if it needs to “go market” is also not working.
I think it is time for the conversation to include three things:
1. How to encompass a more global view on a more local scale (for schools). NOT by testing, and not by mandates from the top down! Communities need to discuss how their schools can reflect our new global economy, without it being foisted, mandated, tested or made into a market playground.
2. To factor stewardship into the equation. Too much money is spent chasing the next nation-wide solution (on all fronts). The reaction to this currently is states like my NC just slashing everything to possibly clear the way for imposed market values (?)–that remains to be seen. But having spent time in developing countries and hearing talk about sustainable models, I would dare say that a public school is a much more sustainable model than charters popping up and down here and there. Within the public school model, there needs to be more stewardship stemming from the communities served. (And stewardship includes economy of human capital—that is no human CAST ASIDE). Local industry should consider how they can help local public schools from a materials stance (not just money). Do they have items that can be used in science? Do they have items that can be used in art? Do they have professionals who can visit the school and present a lesson? etc.
3. I’m no economist, but I do have a degree from a well-respected school. My degrees are in music, which of course encompasses history, the physics that go along with music theory, and applied music (mastering its language and nuance). I take issue with the notion of Milton Friedman’s “monopoly” of government in education. I thought a monopoly was a term that could only be used in a market situation. So if public schools are not part of a market situation, then those terms do not apply (just as we do not call a slow piece of music “fortissimo”–as “fortissimo” describes volume and intensity, not tempo). “Monopoly,” imho, does not apply to a system that is not part of the market system. Children should not be made to feel pressure to be accepted into a school. That is why it has typically been high school level (some at middle school) where selective competition begins. Young children need the assurance that they matter enough in their society to be welcomed at any school. I am furious, offended and saddened that my society is forgetting to enable that pathway for our young. Competitive market systems within the system of public education seems OK—but to turn the system itself into a market where children feel competition to be accepted or good enough for a school is not only bad stewardship, it is a terrible way to embrace the raising of children.
My children’s generation will have every reason to have disdain for those before them if we don’t get this figured out.
The conversation needs to change. What is best for children? What is best for communities? What enables stewardship on a local level?
Also, saying that public school is a government monopoly is like saying mothers have a monopoly on breast feeding. Well, yeah. Duh. I mean my husband could have tried to breast feed our son, but I doubt it would have done much good.
The public has a responsibility to educate its young in a free and appropriate, least restrictive environment. We collect taxes for the purpose of roads, sewers, stoplights, law enforcement, fire departments and schools. What’s next? Choice in fire fighters?
There sure are some silly conversations going on. We need to have some of the “reformers” sit down with small children (like in one of those investing commercials) and talk about this stuff. Children will let you know what they need if you listen, pay attention, and work to understand.
I don’t see that happening.
AND public schools don’t make money for the state. . .that’s not the point of them. Again, not a monopoly.
I should have taken Milton out for a drink before he died. I’d have told him what this southern music teacher thinks! That was back in my rock n’ roll days. . .I’d have sung it to him.
Monopoly.
Next song I write is going to be called “Milton’s Monopoly”. . .on the education conversation. It will be a hard rock, sort of heavy metal song, juxtaposed with lyrical vocals (like the education conversation going on in our country juxtaposed with the sweet sound of real children in real places).
Local industry should consider how they can help local public schools from a materials stance (not just money). Do they have items that can be used in science? Do they have items that can be used in art? Do they have professionals who can visit the school and present a lesson? etc.
Actually, I’m skeptical of this sort of thing. I think they could help more by paying their fair share of taxes rather than coming into the classroom which is usually just PR. Businesses have been moving from city to city looking for the best tax deal for decades now. It has been a race to the bottom. At the same time, they trumpet the “mentors” they sometimes provide and their “community giving”.
A balance, perhaps.
The government by law has a monopoly on the police power, but that doesn’t prevent neighborhoods from hiring a “private” policeman to patrol the neighborhood, usually through an incorporated neighborhood association to which all residents in the neighborhood pay dues in order to fund the, typically, night patrol.
Private education has always been an option for parents with enough money alongside the public education system. In my town there was a famous pre-school that parents could enter their children in before they went to the public school kindergarten. So, although a public school system may be the norm in a town, there have always been educating entities around its fringes which the public school system did not sponsor. I would argue that such facts show that what might metaphorically be called a “monopoly” public school system really is in a market situation. It is seldom a complete monopoly, even though it does enroll most of the children of a city or town. It would be a strict monopoly if it were by law the ONLY place one could get education. It is like a town in which there is only grocery store. We might say it is a monopoly, but there are options, going to another town, getting stables shipped in, and so forth. Rather than calling the public school system a monopoly then, perhaps we ought to just say tax supported school system. In which case, we can I think readily admit that it is one option, though the dominant one, in a marketplace of education-providing organizations, all governed by state law. Or we might say that the public school system has a privileged position (in the marketplace) of most communities.
Privileged in what sense? Privileged because we pay for it through our taxes (at a lower cost in most situations than private providers)? Are the police or fire department similarly privileged? How about public utilities, social services, libraries, roads, parks, beaches,…? Do we really want all these services provide through the free market? (Yes, I realize that the level of publicly provided services varies.) When we change the primary focus of public services to profit, the mission changes. I’m not sure I want my house to burn because I can’t pay the subscription fee. Neither do I want my children to go without schooling because the cost is beyond my means.
of course I meant Scape goat (but all this mess could use some mouth wash, that is for sure). Listerine, please.
The military has a monopoly on fighting our wars
The register of deeds has a monopoly on housing public records
If you read the book, “Dirty Wars” by Jeremy Scahill you will find that the military doesn’t have a monopoly on fighting our wars (which is a questionable hubris tic, never-ending campaign). Instead, the Cheney inspired JSOC “private army” executes Presidential, McChristal/Patraeus concocted KILL LISTS across the globe! Then there is the totally MERCENARY Black Water rogues (or whatever their new, evasive title is) that adheres to NO rules or code of ethic
We are a nation who has lost its soul, and has substituted a corporate control imposed on former public institutions such as prisons, public schools and the targeted post office.
Exactly! Education should be just one tool to fight poverty. It is insane to expect our educational system to overcome stagnating wages, the movement of manufacturing out of the country, the decline of collective bargaining rights, the replacement of full time work with poor paying jobs with “flexible” hours, a minimum wage that cannot support one person– let alone a family, and automation. It is borderline sociopathic to say that the best we can hope for is to give kids a “fair shot” as if life should be some lottery.
Then, to top it all off our elected officials look to the same people that have put these destructive trends in place to tell us how to “fix” education!
And another thing. Education is a service. It is not a commodity, in my opinion. If we could get off the “feedback” and “tell us how we did” mentality, we could maybe get education back to where it needs to be. Our society is obsessed with feedback and ratings. Every time you go to the store you get a receipt with a number on it to take a survey, tell them how they did and maybe win a prize! It’s a result of the marketing era.
I think sex is the only thing you can participate in anymore that doesn’t have a survey for feedback attached to it. “How am I doing?” “How was it?” Really.
Glad to see I’m not the only one so tired of this trend. Really tired. Really, really tired.
It’s not only a service, it is considered a public good. Privatizers believe all public assets should be sold and all of its functions made private and subject to the profit motive. It is “libertarian” nonsense, which has never worked in the history of world but such ideas create a lot of misery.
Excellent post, Ms. Diane! Nice to see someone mention the BATs – and help get Dr. Naison’s wise words some overdue attention.
We live in a corporate made bubble. Reality is as hunted as Snowden is. AND, for the same reason: the heroic tellers of truth to an increasing, Orwellian “sheeple” nation!
This essay should be posted on every corner. It depicts the world that teachers try to overcome in their shabby, roach infested classrooms. I know because I was one of those teachers in the heart of the slums of Columbus, Ohio. The principal was a drunk, who the district wanted out, so they gave him my school and another that was reputed to be “Even worse” although that is hard to imagine! The school was in the heart of the drug/prostitution area. The principal would peek his hea d into every classroom prior to the opening bell and then hit the nearest bar and leave after the closing of the insane day. Houses of prostitution were across from my window. We were advised to park our cars within eyesight, as NO ONE dare park in the parking lot and risk major removal of batteries, etc.
One day in this Orwellian abyss, several of the locales ran screaming down the halls, cursing the principal and threatening physical attacks on the faculty and him. Seems he had previously turned in this criminal lot for selling drugs on the school property.
“Pay back” time had arrived. He called an “emergency meeting” that afternoon and informed the faculty that he was NOT “Responsible for anyone’s physical safety” that we should come and go in groups.
The faculty were a group of dedicated but riddled educators. The sewer smell that permeated the building made it impossible to eat lunch, so we all hovered in the teacher’s lounge and exchanged combat stories. It was a nightmare beyond my worst dreams.
When I see the Christy lam blasts at teachers, and all the other corporate vultures, I dearly wish I could put their butts into such a morass and see THEM work their
“miracles.”
The whole education system is as rotten to the core as that appalling building was.
Sweatpea: your school situation sounded horrific! Teachers around the nation in our nation’s public schools (title one) do not even need to have a bad principal as you had, to have horrific circumstances. Working in poverty stricken neighborhoods has its dangers. A teacher was mugged right outside the front door of the school where I worked, robbed of her money, and knocked unconscious. Bodies are periodically dumped in the woods behind the school by murderous thugs (just off the highway). Two have been found since I started working at this school. The principal who is a caring and good principal asked the county officials for funds to build a fence around the school for safety… this fell on deaf ears. School doors remain unlocked during the day even after Newtowne… not because the principal wants it this way… there are many grades in trailers behind the main building and the county does not provide keys for classroom teachers to enter main entrances of the buildings (nor FOB keys). Students must use the main building to go to the bathrooms, go to lunch, to science class etc in the main building throughout the day. Ever try to teach a class in 95 degree 70 percent humidity when the AC does not work? Or when the heat is blasting so hot in the winter that students are wearing their summer short sleeve uniforms? The county won’t allow custodians to set the temperature and when there is a break-down, it can take months to fix (if at all). No corporate type “tooting the corporate ed reform” like BILL GATES, JOEL KLEIN, BLOOMBERG, etc.. would last one day in the conditions that public school teachers in poverty areas tolerate! We “tolerate this” only for the passion for the students before us. But nobody should have to endure this. And… imagine how challenging it must be to sit in a chair at a desk all day in a room that has a dripping ceiling, a broken window frame and heat blasting so the room is truly like a sauna. Not exactly conducive to learning now is it!
People wouldn’t believe the working conditions in inner city schools! It’s as though civilization had gone the way of a “Road Warrior” epic. When the faculty I was with would sip coffee and vent at lunch (the building stank so bad no one had any appetite), the consensus was that the children should be removed from their 3rd world, drug-riddled homes, and put into state run orphanages.
Sounds extreme, but the conditions those poor kids lived in would, by contrast make them feel they were living in Club Med if that happened. I had students who couldn’t even name all their sisters and brothers! It was worse than One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest! AND, this was in ’78!
As an educational researcher, I saw schools and administrators like Sweet Pea’s all over the country, in Texas, New York, Illinois, many of the Southern states, pretty much any place with inner city poverty, and now even in LA.
If education is not valued by government and the populace, and if children are allowed to live in the depths of poverty, we do not stand a chance as a nation of laws.
If the government has a monopoly on public education, then the Supreme Court has a monopoly on the law of the land, the President on our nation’s leadership, the legislature on decision-making etc.
The word “monopoly” doesn’t fit here.
The Rehnquist Court showed us clearly that an activist court could elect/impose on us a President, and SCOTUS in the last 20 odd years has been the most activist court in our history. Do not look to them to make this situation better, rather search their stock accounts to see who had investments in charter schools.
As teachers it is now our responsibility to stand on the soap box and challenge this concept that the public school system is a failure at every opportunity. The public needs to know that no, we are not Finland or Slovenia, and there are real differences between us and all those other “Great Countries”.
The elites of this nation have been feeding us lies for a very long time, and are leading us down a very dangerous path.
Mark D Naison,
“If you Want to Save America’s Public Schools: Replace Secretary of Education Arne Duncan With a Lifetime Educator.”
Mark Naison should run for Secretary of Education!
The Secretary of Education is not an elected position. “Run” thus should be interpreted metaphorically. I’m a lifetime educator. Do I qualify? I’d certainly rather see Professor Naison in the position than AD.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
This excerpt is taken from the Jewish Virtual Library:
“Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels was the master of the “big lie” tactic in which a lie, no matter how outrageous, is repeated often enough that it will eventually be accepted as truth. Goebbels explained:
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.””
“…the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
Public “Education” is mandated by the “State”.
Does Public Education serve the State?
With NON- ELECTED, APPOINTEES of the State having greater
power than the ELECTED, are we governed as per Public School
“Lessons” (Representative Democracy)?
The State has put certain classes of labor into competition with
lower paid overseas workers. The American consumer demand
has made this “Policy” successful.
Government Policy and Domestic Demand HAS reduced employment
as well as funding (taxes collected).
Can the objective of Public Education be TRUTH, when
Truth is the ENEMY of the STATE?
Is social hierachy, based on social legitimacy, determined by
Public Education or the State?
Does the STATE determine equality of conditition, wealth and income
or is that a function of Public Education?
Thank you Diane Ravitch and Mark Naison for giving us the strength and sanity by uniting fellow teachers from all over everywhere for the common good of students and the teacher working conditions. I am privileged to have the opportunity to be a part of the FB group Badass Teachers Association & @badassteachersa as I feel that I am branching out of my local fight to unite for true action and change. MUCH LOVE to both of you! Lisa #unity
This piece should be in the OP-ED section of the NY Times.
I just finished reading one of Diane’s posts about her friendship with Karen Lewis. This quote goes a long way towards describing what I see as a major force in the world of “education reform”, today:
“…Karen understands that the hedge fund managers and billionaire philanthropists promoting privatization are destroying public education while claiming to “save” poor children. I was reminded of her words last fall when I was at a small private dinner in Chicago with the city’s leading supporter of charter schools, who is a major equity investor. As we debated charters, I told him that the charters were skimming the most able children and leaving behind those they didn’t want. He defended the practice of skimming and excluding. He said he didn’t care; he wants to provide good schools for the most able; the others are not his responsibility, not his problem. He also doesn’t care if he destroys public education so long as he can “save” those few enrolled in charters…”
As despicable as this “reformers” sentiments are, what’s even worse is the fact that he has no interest in examining the ripple effect that his movement will have on so many people who have relied on the public school systems. People who have thrived under it.