Paul Bucheit writes about five aspects of corporate education reform.
1. Privatization takes from the poor and gives to the rich.
2. Testing doesn’t work.
3. The arts make better scientists.
4. Privatization means unequal opportunity for all.
5. Reformers are primarily business people, not educators.
To read his explanation, open the link.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Good list.
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Why is it so difficult to understand. It’s all about tax-free profits for the rich. I haven’t yet seen the accounting, curriculum, salaries, qualificiations of one charter school.
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Yes, good list. They do no re-form anything and they are not deluded. They know exactly what they are doing. Their bank statement keeps them up to date.
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From the article
‘Los Angeles spent $1 billion for iPads to facilitate testing, using money from a 25-year bond for school construction.’
So they buy a bunch of iPads which last a year or so at most (my experience with iPads is that they break very easily when they are dropped) and are then left with no money for new schools.
When they eventually float another bond issue to replace the money that they threw away on Apple iPorn , the voters will probably turn it down because they were lied to the first time.
I would have thought that using money from a bond for school construction on something else would actually be illegal.
When I vote on a bond issue for a school in my own town, I just assume (perhaps incorrectly) that town officials can’t use the money for Apple iPorn.
That shows how much I know. I guess when you have high powered lawyers on your team, anything is legal.
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And good teachers were duped with this one also. They went out and beat the pavement thinking that they were asking neighbors to vote for a school improvement bond issue, meaning buildings, bathrooms and bleachers – not outdated iPads. Teachers won’t support any bond issue request the next time around because there is no trust.
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Exactly❢
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The reformers are not deluded. They know with every breath they take in and word they spit out that they are spin-doctoring their rhetoric into sound bites that at first blush sound good to the average Joe. They are masterful in their words and massaging and cherry picking of statistics. They know their end game, are patient and relentless, and don’t ever forget, they believe they are smarter then everyone else. They LOVE Obama, because he is the perfect puppet to pull the wool over the eyes of the trusting people of color. He is one of us, isn’t he? He wouldn’t lie, not to us, would he? And Booker in Newark – he started the DEFERS because he, too, knew that we would trust him. THEY are all in it together, to create a worse world for us and an even more profitable world for them.
I am surprised Gates hasn’t been indicted for this because the government went after him for his monopoly before. Now, he has a monopoly on education, but I guess with all the other players involved, that would be the reason to not pursue him.
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“The arts make better scientists.”
indeed, the most creative scientists ARE artists.
But try to convince Bill Gates of that –or that real art has any value at all.
He could buy some of the best art ever produced.
But the guy actually has digital “paintings” (ie, TV’s) on his walls (because having real paintings that never change is soooooo boring.)
Can’ t get any cheesier than that.
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Well, I was going to write my independent reply praising Point #3, but you summed up the essence of my reaction in the first line of your response.
Gates was never a scientist. He was (at best) an engineer. He, also, had a father who taught him how to apply for patents.
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The only delusion that con artists and corporate raiders have is their idea that they can delude others forever …
Then again, some of them almost do …
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“The arts make better scientists.”
This is not a great platform for having students engage in the study of the arts under the auspices of public schools. This is the same rhetoric used in the 1960s when arts educators claimed that studies in the arts would create the larger pool of creative scientists thought to be needed in order to beat the Russians in the “space race. ” The same reasoning is now pursued in an effort to link studies in the arts with the forms of scientific prowess thought to be essential for competition in a global economy. So we see today’s advocates for the arts trying to modify the current high profile investments in STEM by adding the arts, and making that acronym STEAM.
While I am impressed with some generally spot-on points relative to corporate reform, the claim that the arts make better scientists is out of place. In fact, many research citations from studies mistake correlation with causation, and do not acknowledge, for example, that if you want to increase the pool of high scorers on SAT tests, schools should probably be teaching more physics and German, not music. Associations between math and skills in music (especially instrumental music) are neither new, nor likely to make a dent in perennial efforts to position studies and experience in the arts as worthy of dedicated resources in schools.
As a thought experiment, turn the assertion around, “The sciences make better artists.” Notice how the sciences are lumped together, just as the arts are, and just as a slogan demands. But really, when was the last time you heard any expression of national pride or anxiety over the performance of this nation’s artists? Pick any genre and art form–music, dance, theater, the visual and media arts, architecture and design, literature, including poetry. Given the strength of the conservative media machine and enticements of the “arts as entertainment” you have probably not heard as many expressions of pride as you have heard expressions of anxiety or trivial drivel about a particular artist or genre of art .
Just as it is easy to find cases where artists are also scientists, and scientists are also artists–accomplished in both general fields of endeavor–these observations do not offer a platform for policy making about education in the arts and/or the sciences.
For it’s part, the National Endowment for the Arts routinely promotes the “economic impacts” of the arts–including the virtue of attracting a “creative class” of workers, and having a public presence for the arts among other “cultural assets” (e.g., concerts, libraries, museums, theater, parks, festivals, celebrations, sports) within a larger “quality of life” metric that might include air quality, real estate values, and schools.
Meanwhile, many of these “cultural assets” are, in fact, becoming havens for relatively low-cost corporate advertising and sponsorships. Few advocates for the arts and arts education seem to grasp that the generous spirit and apparent civic-mindedness of business has been accompanied by unprecedented tax breaks and an ethos of budget-cutting for everything once regarded in the public domain, including public education.
So, let’s not make unsupported claims that imply the arts make better scientists. How is the making accomplished? (studies? exposure? osmosis? which arts? when? where? for whom? by whom?) I offer this invitation to think again about appealing slogans having spent a professional life supporting arts education in public schools.
If you want something like a gold standard for education, look at the value that many national and international elites still place on a balanced program of studies in the arts, sciences, and humanities. I am a long time supporter of this concept. There is ample opportunity within that general structure for students to discover their special affinities for learning and discerning what life offers and may require beyond going to college and getting a job.
“Life,” as John Gardner once said, “is learning to draw without an eraser.”
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Laura,
As someone who was educated as a scientist and also likes to dabble in paint, I have little doubt that the statement ‘the arts make better scientists” is true.
But you are completely correct that that misses the point that the arts are important in their own right and certainly not just because they make better scientists.
It’s clear you don’t like slogans, but how about this one?
“The con arts make better refromercenaries”
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Thank you for pointing out the dynamic between corporations and museums, I’ll never read that kind of information anywhere but here.
After teaching art for 36 years from K through college, I’ve come to the conclusion that visual art makes a student aware of their strengths in creating, it teaches them a personal sort of focus and in the best sense, teaches them that their ideas are worthy. And that is all before we get into preparing them for art careers or to help them become better scientists.
I liked your book, I enjoy reading your comments here.
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Before taking a education equity class at my university, I didn’t even think of the unfairness of private schools. I figured you should be able to send your child to any school you wanted. Through this class, I’ve realized how an equal education for everyone is the most fair way to go. We need to focus the resources and time investments that these parents were willing to give a private school into our public schools. This can only make our public schools stronger and educate ALL children to the fullest.
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