Paul Thomas notes the success of the Walton-funded “reform” machine at the University of Arkansas. They pump out study after study proclaiming the superior results of school choice. Are you surprised? This is the idee fixe of the Walton Foundation. They want government out of our lives. It worked for them. With low taxes, little regulation, they pay low wages and outsource manufacturing to China, where wages are even lower than in Arkansas. And now they are all billionaires.
They want to bring their philosophy of deregulation, ruthless competition, and small government to education, perhaps to prepare the workforce of the future, and they use their tax-free dollars to promote vouchers and charters. So what if they create segregation or make it worse? So what if teacher attrition is high? The Waltons will always have a stable of researchers to promote the sham success of their model.
The current campaign is on to argue that charter schools are more successful than public schools, even though it is not true.
Having a higher “return on investment” (ROI), they deserve more public funding and less public scrutiny.
They count on us to forget that the original promise of charter schools was that they would do a better job academically at a lower cost (because they would get rid of the central bureaucracy). Now we see that they don’t do a better job academically, and they want more money because their administrative costs are as high as the public schools they replace. And they expect us to ignore the charter school scandals of nepotism, embezzlement, conflicts of interest, and other crimes that seem to increase as public scrutiny decreases.
Will we fall for it?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Yes, charter schools were supposed to enrich public schools by showing alternative ways of teaching and learning and involving parents; they were not supposed to enrich commercial vendors of tests and technology, private entrepreneurs and their billionaire backers.
Well, that’s how they were sold to the public.
But, according to the founder of charter school chain “Rocketship”, public schools were in such bad shape that charter promoters realized that no matter how vastly superior charter schools were, public schools could not be improved even IF public schools were to adopt, for example, Rocketship’s awesome idea of sticking huge classes of low income kids in front of a screen to save on staffing costs:
“The theory behind public charter schools was originally to create pockets of innovation that could help fuel progress within the traditional public school sector. Well, the public school system is far too large for pockets to be enough. We need a movement of innovation and rethinking public schools from the ground up. We can’t prevent the serious consequences of the achievement gap in a silo. We need to take these problems on at scale.”
Of course, if ed reform politicians and lobbyists had sold “ed reform” to the public as completely upending and replacing the public school system they might not get elected, so they just neglected to mention the more radical plans.
It’s really the fault of public schools. If they all didn’t suck so bad ed reformers wouldn’t be forced to replace them with privately-run and privately-owned schools.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/preston-smith-/monopolies-dont-build-dem_1_b_5641484.html
Esquire nails Campbell Brown and her billionaire chorus line. But never would have predicted that the revered civil rights lawyer, David Boies, would join her Board.
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/The_Campbell_Brown_Moment
Yes, the Walton’s want government out of their lives, except when they need that same government to provide food stamps and health insurance to their grossly underpaid employees, who cannot otherwise survive on Walmart wages.
Yes, the Waltons and government are hardly strangers. Good friends, in fact.
The percent of Walmart Empire full time employees who qualify for various “gubmint” handouts is around 40%.
Yep, folks, you and I help make the Walmart Empire richer through our tax payments.
Sam Walton attended public schools, graduating from Hickman HIgh in 1936, in Columbia, Missouri.
Maybe the kids are angry with their father.
Maybe they understand the value of public education, and they’re trying to prevent competitors from growing up.
Maybe they’re unconscionably GREEDY.
Schools were better then and kids were smarter. Obviously. Look who attended one! 🙂
90% of the policy in this country is based on misty, delusional nostalgia for a time that never was and individual ego. I’m 52 and I went to a public school. I now work with the people who attended the fabled public schools of yesteryear. I’m not all that impressed with how smart we were then or are now, honestly. I remember this whole thing a little differently.
They’re not greedy, they’re as avaricious as anyone can get.
Sam Walton is on permanent spin cycle in his grave due to the actions of his children..
Walmart U.S. is in trouble and turmoil. Walmart grew based on low cost strategies. But this meant shipping the jobs of their customers to low wage countries. So now demand is gone in the U.S. Reap what ye sow. Not a sustainable business model. They may focus on Asia as signaled by the recent CEO shuffle, but as the Chinese just demonstrated, the government of China is not timid in protecting local industries from what they call “monopolistic behavior”.
And analysts now talk about the Lost Decade at Microsoft with the poor leadership and loss of a competitive edge in mobile devices, gaming, office applications, and cloud computing. Windows 8 is so bad Microsoft is trying to force users to leave Windows 7. The cash cows may still produce milk, but innovation is a lost art.
Many of the middle class businesses are suffering from income inequality and the destruction of working Americans – Darden, Sears, Target. It is now mostly high end or very low end. But, how many $3,000 refrigerators can one person buy and use? Another unsustainable model. We no longer create wealth, we simply move wealth from one group to another.
” But, how many $3,000 refrigerators can one person buy and use? Another unsustainable model.”
Kind of like the automobile industry of the 60s-80s when the management decided that bigger was better and that little crappy cars a la Chevy Corvair, Vega or Ford Pinto or AMC Gremlin were “good enuff” for the little guy/gal.
Yes. My dad just scrapped a $3000 2005 Sony HDTV because of a major design flaw in a 2″ x 2″ part (blue polarizing filter). Rather than stand by their product and take responsibility (accountability?) they hire a stable of lawyers. Same thing with a Ford minivan that blew a transmission and head gasket. Quality is now unaffordable. Companies dump cheap stuff on a shrinking middle class because they can.
But, hey, you’re supposed to purchase the “extended warranty” agreement. What a joke of taking responsibility for the product.
Oh, let’s just face it. Public schools are no longer fashionable.
That’s what I tell my youngest. “Sorry, you just came along too late. Your representatives in Columbus and DC have moved on- NOT interested in your ‘traditional” and ‘archaic” school.”
I’m trying to develop his “grit” with these hard lessons 🙂
It’s true of labor unions and Democrats, too. DC Democrats have zero interest in your olde-timey “collective bargaining rights” and “elections” and such. That’ll never get you-all an invite to the Aspen Institute.
IMO, the stupid part of this whole free market, ubercapitalist, privatization of government services propaganda machine is that the regular people who vote them do not understand that there isn’t enough money in or out of circulation to allow the dream of being a millionaire/billionaire to everyone. They vote for these antitax clowns as they ferret away money that used to provide jobs for hard working educated people. They somehow translate what these greedy corporations are doing into being “patriotic” and good for their own bank accounts. I am sick of it.
Yes. Corporations are run as dictatorships. The United States is a representative democracy. I wonder which can better bear the banner of “patriot”?
Certainly not the “nationalist” corporations. Oh wait is that fascism?
I remember when WalMart started, their slogan was “American Made”….that lasted only a few years. The old “bait and switch”…Walmart conmen…
Is this most people’s idea of the American Dream? Not mine. This is concerning an op-ed by a prominent corporate contributor (name deleted by me) to controlling election outcomes all over the U.S. These efforts are infiltrating even school board elections.
“His idea of the American dream is just not reality. Sure, there have been lots of people that start off with nothing and work their way up (although he inherited his business). Those “bootstrap” stories, though, are becoming more rare. In his op-ed he says “most Americans understand that taking a job and sticking with it, no matter how unpleasant or low-paying, is a vital step toward the American dream.” The problem with this is that most Americans in “unpleasant” or “low-paying” jobs actually have less of chance of making it than ever before. And that is largely due to the agenda that he has pushed on this country over the last forty years. An agenda that rewards big corporations that pay low wages, ship jobs overseas, and pollute our planet. An agenda that limits workers’ ability to collectively bargain for better wages and working conditions. An agenda that rewards the richest and wealthiest with big tax breaks because they are “job creators,” when the people who actually earn and spend money to make the economy turn are left with higher bills for healthcare, college tuition, food, energy, and housing. And he has done nothing to help pass legislation that would alleviate that pain. So, no, he doesn’t get to talk about the American dream for people in “unpleasant” and “low-paying” jobs because his basic idea of the American reality is flawed.”
There are plenty of gullible citizen in the United States, but they all don’t vote, and I think many of the regular voters are not as gullible as those who don’t vote.
For instance, only 35 percent of eligible voters vote on a regular basis and the majority of regular voters—-more than half—are literate and more educated than a quarter of regular voters.
What counts more in this country when it comes to defending the Constitution and the public schools?
A. the results of a poll that calls people at random to discover what they think about an issue
B. the majority of regular voters
I attended the Progress Ohio rally in Columbus today. One speaker was the author of the blog, “Charterschoolwatchdog.org”. She said claims of an FBI audit are inconsistent with the activities of the FBI and she predicts arrests in the near future.
After the rally, we made our way to the State Superintendent’s building. It took about 10 minutes for his office to determine he was unavailable to speak with us.
Making people wait, is one of those Machiavellian, Gordon Gecko, non-verbal cue techniques that people without character use. It seems unlikely that what he might say would have value so, I was glad for his absence.
One of the reasons for WalMart’s *success* is Bill Clinton, who now lives in New York City. He’s yours, not ours. No apologies for the U of A, either. They sold out to corporate interests years ago. How about holding them and the rest of higher education responsible for their cooperation in wrecking public education, instead of taking cheap shots at Arkansas?
“Cheap Shots at Arkansas” I visited Bentonville, home to Walmart, a year ago. It is one spooky town. It looks like a set that was created to put the best face possible on a state that languishes, 2nd to the bottom, in income. The people, I encountered, never brought up the subject of the Waltons/Walmart, the elephant in the town. Even the topic of the Walton art museum led to wariness, not defensive nor reverence. And, the airport had the highest security I’ve ever seen. I don’t know if it was training day or what. But, it really added to the creepiness.
We went to other places in Ark. that were beautiful and certainly worth a return trip.