Tom Ultican teaches physics in San Diego after a career in the private sector. He likes evidence. He reviews the failure of various privatization schemes. Vouchers have failed to “save” children, and voucher schools are often far worse than public schools. Charters are scandal-ridden, supported too often by profit-seekers.
He writes: American Schools Rock!
Don’t be fooled.
“By the middle of the 20th century, cities and villages throughout the USA had developed an impressive educational infrastructure. With the intent of giving every child in America the opportunity for 12 years of free education, this country was the world’s only country not using high stakes testing to deny the academic path to more than a third of its students. The physical infrastructure of our public schools was of high quality and schools were staffed with well-trained experienced educators.
“This system that is the foundation – to the greatest economy in the world, the most Nobel Prize winners and democratic government – has passed the exam of life. It is clearly the best education system in the world. To diminish and undermine it is foolhardy. Arrogant greed-blinded people are trying to steal our legacy.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The local pubic school doesn’t work for every child. Some children should be allowed to switch districts without ramifications.
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What do you mean without ramifications?
There are consequences for other students and taxpayers in the districts who receive students and consequences for students and taxpayers in districts who send students.
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The unlikely Alliance of Charter Schools told media that Ohioans should be “outraged”. The egregious outcome of ed. privatization/profit-taking in the state is documented at KnowYourCharter.com.
The commenter calling himself, Usually Right, doesn’t understand the opportunity to take taxpayer money, leads to campaign donations to politicians, whose incentive is neither to educate students nor, to protect tax dollars. Their goal is solely to retain political power, and for a substantial number, it is to financially benefit beyond their salaries.
Privatized K-12 corrupts the state governments and, for that, Gates and the Walton’s deserve eternal damnation.
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“The Parasite”
The parasite
Destroys its host
It sucks the life
Til host is ghost
When host is gone
It finds a new
The leech lives on
With different view
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Reporter, Vicky Ward, published a book about the “blow-it-all-up billionaires”, Robert and Rebekah Mercer. Robert Mercer is a funder of Breitbart and Trump.
Mercer is a hedge fund guy. (The financial sector drags down GDP by an estimated 2%.)
Mercer was quoted, by an associate, as saying, “Your value as a human being is equivalent to what you are paid (note- not what you earn or contribute)….Teachers are not worth much because they aren’t paid much.”
The ethical case to nationalize the assets of the politically active richest 0.1%, becomes more compelling, daily. The accomplishments and sacrifices of U.S. history, by people who work and build, vs. people who exploit, demands retribution against those who threaten its foundations and principles.
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America had a great public school system. But to the extent public schools have allowed themselves to be sacrificed to the testing gods (and I realize that varies from district to district, even school to school (and is often a function of affluence)), that greatness has been sacrificed. Even Peter Greene penned a post in which he questions whether he’s going to be able to inflict public school on his soon-to-be twin boys because of the emphasis on testing, especially the “littles”: http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2017/03/littles-more-than-score.html . Whether imposed by “good” Democrats or “evil” Republicans, schools and the people who run/work in them have a moral duty to oppose this sacrifice. Unfortunately, those who run the schools have often tended to be the very ones leading the sacrifice and those who work in the schools aren’t willing to be sacrificed.
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A crucial point worthy of being repeated: America HAD a great public school system. But to the extent public schools have allowed themselves to be sacrificed to the testing gods… that greatness has been sacrificed.
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I think “allowed themselves to be sacrificed to testing” is a little strong.
They were basically coerced into accepting it, with VAM and other weapons of mass destruction.
There are many places in the country where teachers can not speak a word against testing without fear of being fired and even having their teaching credential revoked so they will have a hard time getting another job.
There are teachers who have posted on this blog who have said as much.
The so-called reformers made sure that they had a very effective punishment mechanism in place to keep teachers from speaking out.
VAM is not just junk science, but is a very pernicious form of bullying, which makes the people who have pushed it bullies.
There are laws against bullying by students and yet people like Bill Gates and Arne Duncan ((and Obama, who owns the policy) never have to answer for their own bullying of teachers.
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I agree. The coersion cannot be denied, and short of walking off the job…adding fuel to the underlying hatred of teacher unions… teachers had and still have few options for resisting “The Reign of Error.”
The flawed federal policies are not entirely gone. They continue in state policies, some of these were installed as a condition for federal funding.
I think it is fair to say that we still have a great system of public education, not perfect, but worthy of saving, improving, and supporting.
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What you say may be true about teachers and I understand people need to earn a living.
But there is no defense for the superintendents, school boards and even principals who have gone along with the testing onslaught. In fact, many of those people have been at the trough, the first to feed on the frenzy. People responsible for schools are, well, just that, responsible for schools, specifically the children first and foremost. Those same superintendents, school boards and principals also need to have teachers’ backs when they stand up and defend the children under their care. Very few have.
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Add in, the culpability of state legislators, who join ALEC, who take campaign money from out-of-state oligarchs and, who enact gerrymandering legislation to hold their power.
When a state’s senate education committee chair, has a sister who is president of a Gates-funded ed. organization and, who creates an organization to further the ambitions of Gates-funded Pahara Institute
Fellows, assume the state’s democracy is D.O.A.
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The superintendents I have very little sympathy for.
many of them were actually cheerleading for the testing and some like Deasy seemed to have taken perverse pleasure in using it to keep teachers “in their place”.
I also have no sympathy for the national union heads who were obviously more interested in rubbing elbows with Duncan and Obama than helping teachers. Why the teachers keep these people around is an utter mystery.
I think the principals were in a more difficult position, though they were certainly in a better position than teachers for pushing back.
One of the worst aspects of high stakes testing and VAM is the way these things pervert and distort the educational system, pitting people who should be working with one another against one another.
This perversion is by design. People like Bill Gates knew that these things would have precisely the effect that they did because he implemented something like VAM at Microsoft with just such “every man for himself” results.
These policies were NOT “errors” but were intended to produce precisely the results that they did.
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Trump’s appointment of DeVos has done tremendous damage to public education. A disaster!
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The attack on public education is another example of class and gender warfare. The wealthy have no need for public education, and they don’t like paying for it. They want to remove school governance from people’s hands and put it in the hands of corporations, never a winning move. The wealthy resent the fact that teachers are among the few remaining unions still standing. They want to bust the unions to teach mostly “uppity women” teachers a lesson.
People are often seduced by the idea of “choice,” and it has many harmful consequences. Charters often do the choosing, not the people. A profitable game of social engineering has played out with “choice.” Targeted black and brown students often wind up in cheap charters with novice teachers while white students get into selective charters. As a result charters have increased segregation and produced meager results. Vouchers make no academic sense at all, and no state should pay for them. Overall, choice has resulted in diminished capacity schools and diluted services for all. No country has ever created a successful privatized system, and the ones that have jumped on the bandwagon have regretted the decision. These countries are working to erase the harmful impact of free market blight from their young people.
Our public education continues to do good work despite the recent government scorn and meddling. Public schools have served our people well, and free market privatization is a virus that needs to be eradicated. We need to return to serving our collective responsibility to our young people in a democratic society that aspires to create opportunity for all. Our country should never promote systems creating “winners and losers.”
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“Why do they hate us?”
The wealthy hate the common good
Because it isn’t theirs
They hate the schools in neighborhood
And art and science fairs
They hate to pay for public things
That they will never own
Like public parks and public swings
Where others’ kids have grown
In short, they hate the very thought
That someone else has gained
From common good that can’t be bought
A thought that is ingrained
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PERFECT! TRUE. Thanks, SomeDAM Poet.
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I love your posts!! What a wonderful Dam Poet you be!!
May I follow your work?
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Thank you both for the very kind words.
Overly kind!
This is really the only place I can be followed.
I don’t comment anywhere else.
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Poet,
We missed you when you left us last fall.
You are loved here.
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“Ingrained”. Gates is the son and grandson of lawyers and, he was a CEO. The professions of law and CEO, attract more sociopaths than other fields, according to mental health research.
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Cross posted the original pice by Ultican: at Oped News https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Billionaires-Push-School-in-Best_Web_OpEds-America_American-Culture_American-Schools_Legacy-170317-660.html#comment650450
See my comments there with embedded links
Comment Submitted Susan Lee Schwartz on Friday, March 17, 2017 at 4:04:12 PM
And while you are thinking abut the scam to end our schools read my essay HERE: “BAMBOOZLE THEM” https://www.opednews.com/articles/BAMBOOZLE-THEM-where-tea-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-110524-511.html
Fake News began the rant to demonize our schools, 2 decades ago when they saw simple ploy to cause failure…take out the professional practitioner. Target the teachers
Look at LAUSD– And remember this is the SECOND LARGEST school district of the 15, 880 districts; (would I kid you?)
For decades LAUSD promoted and graduated kids with 2nd grade skills.
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/07/between-dishonest-social-promotion-of.html
Money was flowing; and the media did its “thing”, what it does everywhere that money talks… distract the public with lies. http://www.perdaily.com/2014/06/lausds-treacherous-road-from-reed-to-vergara–its-never-been-about-students-just-money.html
Fabricate charges and sell in the media,”reform and testing.” Get the teacher’s unions to look the other way,while selling the public the lie that union protect those incompetent ‘tenured teachers.” http://www.perdaily.com/2011/01/lausd-et-al-a-national-scandal-of-enormous-proportions-by-susan-lee-schwartz-part-1.html
Imagine taking the most experienced doctors out of the hospital!
So, begin your trip through the 15,880 with LAUSD, and then take a look at what happened to the FIRST largest of almost sixteen thousand school districts…nYC… get a cup of coffee and watch “The Inconvenient Truth About Waiting For Superman.
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