One of the ironies of corporate-style reform is that the reformers like to pretend that they are leaders of the civil rights movement of our day.
Arne Duncan says that closing low-performing schools, firing staff, and turning around schools is the civil rights issue of our time.
Mitt Romney says that supporting vouchers and charters and for-profit online schools is the civil rights issue of our time. we have heard this from many others in recent years.
This phrase gets attached to every proposal to privatize public education, to crush teachers’ unions, and to break the education profession and open it to amateurs.
But wait. New voices are being heard. Parent activists in minority communities are organizing and speaking out. They don’t see the closing of their neighborhood schools as a triumph for the civil rights movement. They see the heavy hand of state and federal and city government singling out their communities for school closings and privatization. They don’t think that vindicates their civil rights. They plan to sue, claiming that these policies are violations of their civil rights.
They are starting to see the national picture. When they do, it will be very hard for hedge fund managers, billionaires, politicians, corporate executives, and socialites to portray themselves in the forefront of “the civil rights issue of our time.” The U.S. Department of Education may not be able to maintain the claim that closing down community schools in minority neighborhoods advances civil rights at the same time that black and Hispanic families are suing them for trampling on their civil rights.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Just finished watching “School: The Story of American Public Education” and seeing a younger Diane commentating alongside other educational stalwarts. What is amazing to me is how differently one sees a “problem,” how differently one sees a “solution,” or in this case, a “cause”–Education is the Civil Rights Issue of Our Generation.” The Right are convinced that they are doing the right thing. The Left are equally convinced in their worldview. Unfortunately, while the profit-influenced ideologies of adults are bloodying the battlefield, for the moment at least, it is not their blood that’s being shed. But, the effects will not only trickle downward; it will reach into the future.
If education was really the civil rights issue of our time it wouldn’t be used to reinforce inequality as it does now. In urban schools. elective after elective is being removed. In my district LAUSD, chaos reigns as thousands of teachers are being layed off because of “declining enrollment.”
Would enrollment be declining if all urban schools had a full slate of electives including nursing, drama, robotics, Academic Decathlon, drivers education and more? What if they took the money they spent on consultants and put it toward internships so our students would not be racially and socioeconomicallly isolated? I think not.
If the mayor and superintendent really believed that education was the civil rights issue of our time, they would make sure students in LAUSD get the same education as students in La Canada -Flintridge What would that entail: not laying off teachers, not demonizing them, ensuring that classrooms have what is needed instead of putting the money toward periodic assessments. It would mean tons of electives and no tolerance for bad behavior. And really why do I have to get all of my novel sets off of Donor’s Choose?
But most of all it would involve putting responsibility on parents and students. Where is the summer reading list, mayor? What, we don’t require that? And by the way, I have yet to see a bookstore in South LA but there is one right up the street from La Canada High School. Yet the district will still blame teachers for everything and deny that povery and lack of habits of the mind are to blame.
The reality is that privatization of inelastic demand services, such as electricity, prisons, and education, will never lead to a decrease in cost or an increase in quality. This is fairly easy to understand for many economists, but I’ll try to break it down here.
In every market, the supply and demand curves respond to the necessity of the service being sold. The necessity of the service determines the demand curves “elasticity.” As a service becomes more necessary, the demand curve is seen to be inflexibly vertical, or “inelastic.” If the customers can decide the quantity of service purchased as the price increases, the demand curve is seen to be increasingly horizontal, or “elastic.”
My examples were electricity, prisons, and education. Electricity is a necessity because we have people in our nation who live in extreme temperatures which requires electricity to make habitable. Prisons are a necessity because certain criminals need to be removed from society. Education is a necessity because it is increasingly difficult to make ends meet on minimum wage (and it is determined by law to be a right in many states).
When the demand curve for a service is inelastic, any change in price yields little or no change in demand. When for-profit companies are allowed to enter these markets, they have no need to keep prices low. The purpose of every for-profit company to maximize revenues while minimizing costs to create the maximum profit for its shareholders. It is the inelasticity of demand that these companies wish to capitalize from. They can charge as much as they want and the demand remains the same. To cut costs, they decrease their salaries expense by hiring less qualified teachers. Online schools increase the number of students per teacher and eliminate any hands-on learning.
The truth of the privatization push that no politician will tell you is that they have conflated competition in an elastic demand market with competition in an inelastic demand market. They have two completely different results, and those who wish to make a fortune off of education are very aware.
Keep up the good work, Mrs. Ravitch.
Michael
Loving husband of a 3rd grade teacher
The mere attempt at aligning the act of educating a populace with the acts of producing goods or providing services is a fool’s errand. In the latter two, you have far more control over your raw materials.
Those who are of the belief that education should be a frontier for profit-making do not wholly understand the education process. Unfortunately, they are the ones with the most money and the biggest mouths.
Now that’s a keeper❢
Check this out and get ready to puke. This is not a joke and you are not being punked. Remember when they tried to say this was not about profits. That was funny.
http://capitalroundtable.com/masterclass/For-Profit-Education-Private-Equity-Conference-2012.html
They do control the raw materials. They deny the children with behavioral problems and don’t require teacher certifications. They also couldn’t care less about the education process because they know they don’t have to really provide a decent education to rake in the cash. Thus the problem with privatizing an inelastic demand service. You get a more expensive, lower-quality service.
Spot on, Michael.
I should have been more specific as I was talking about how foolish it is to use the business model as an approach to educating the “public.” Private schools do not count in my comment.
The public needs to know that private schools stack the deck and thus skew the statistics. Public schools truly educate everyone, no matter what their background and ability level. This message needs to get out to everyone in the public.
Oh Linda…I can’t bring myself to more frustration.
Christie was just on the radio here in NJ saying he refuses to sign the tenure reform bill because it doesn’t get rid of LIFO. His idea of tenure includes losing it with the possibility of gaining it back if your administrator wants you to have it, but then losing it again if your administrator wants you to lose it, and so on, and so on. In other words, his idea of tenure is to not really have it but pretend you have it until you lose it again. I still don’t know how this idiot got elected.
I think I’ll click on the link tomorrow…my stomach can’t handle it tonight.
LG,
What is LIFO? Maybe Christie will be chosen as Romney’s VP or maybe not..how much time does he have left in his term? Do you think he can get re-elected?
LIFO = Last In First Out
It is term commonly used with neutral connotations in the industrial context, but more often pejoratively in academic contexts to describe the tenure principle.
The mere attempt at aligning the act of educating a populace with the acts of producing goods or providing services is a fool’s errand.
Knowledge of quality assurance practices is necessary for “a system of schools as perfect as could be devised, … [which keeps] pace with the most rapid progress of the most rapid element of our social or political constitution.”
These quality practices are recognized by America’s equivalent of Japan’s Deming prize, as described in: Criteria for Performance Excellence (business and nonprofit), Health Care Criteria for Performance Excellence, and Education Criteria for Performance Excellence.
Both the NEA and our state affiliate have endorsed these quality practices. If NEA members are de facto boycotting practices anticipated by our state constitution’s ed clause, that would be incredibly problematic.
Obama needs to get rid of Duncan. Knowing that this man whispers in Obama’s ear is more than a little frustrating.
The fact that Obama is listening is even more frustrating.
It keeps being heard through the grapevine. The grapevine’s roots need to be pulled!
LIFO is last in first out or seniority. Sadly, Christie is popular in NJ and his term ends in 2014. The yahoos and union haters love CC.
New Jersey’s next State-level election is in November 2013.
That’s true, the next election is in 2013, but I believe that the new or old governor doesn’t officially take office until Jan. 2014? Or do I have that wrong? In NJ, we usually vote for governors in odd numbered years but they officially take office in the even numbered year?
You are correct.
You can thank some of the media for Christie’s popularity, i.e. 101.5 and The Asbury Park Press. He has a huge following among the people who despise Corzine, too.
I do predict that he will continually run his mouth and turn off some of the more intelligent voters, but he does have a lot of support from the easily duped. His “town meetings” are very popular and well-attended, but they are often stacked with his supporters perhaps to create the illusion that he is popular with voters.
It’s hard to say what will happen in 2013. There are a few promising contenders from the opposing Democratic party who are in the early stages of setting up a NJ gubernatorial campaign. It will be interesting to watch this election unfold–that is, if he does not decide to run alongside Romney as a VP candidate and Romney wins. Be prepared for a lot of negative campaigning.
Dedication to truth is not just a right but a duty for those who would teach. Dedication to truth frequently brings teachers into conflict with the petty pelting officers of the powers that be. That makes academic freedom an essential part of teaching at every grade and level. A democratic society that would survive as such had better never forget that.
Here is an episode that comes to mind whenever I think about the struggle for academic freedom. It is not a definition of academic civil rights but a poignant reminder of those who did so much to define it in practice.
Who Defines “the Civil Rights Issue of Our Time”?
Federal judges and the UN OHCHR have weighed in. Often, parents are looking for schools where kids are safe, happy, and get good grades (whether or not judges and others are satisfied).
We are committed to vigorously upholding civil rights laws and to ensuring that every child has access to the world class education they deserve.
How odd. Ohio was doing that, but RttT has taken us in a somewhat different direction.
If the results aren’t there, everybody should be held accountable
Steven Brill suggests Ed sue to get their money back, e.g. from New York.
We are still reeling here as a local girl was railroaded out of her interim superintendancy by way of a stacked board vote and a complete disregard for the wants and needs of the kids and the public. Here’s a new edu blog I created that probably sounds a lot like the same nonsense going on in your city whether it’s Paducah or North Adirondacks. Please drop by. B-loedscene.blogspot.com
Communities of color are also being disproportionately impacted by the US DOE’s No Child Left Behind waivers, which allow primarily black and brown schools to be taken over and the children experimented on with failed corporate education deform ideas. New Jersey is ground zero for this.
I actually completely agree with you that elite whites claiming that education is the “civil rights issue of our time” is hubris. It’s not our place to decide that. I shudder equally when men tell me what are the fundamental issues facing women today.
That said, on all sides of the education debate, there are many more of us who share the common goal of trying to improve educational options and conditions for our most disadvantaged students. We may disagree on the means–and I know that you and I often do–but that disagreement is critical to finding our way to the right solution. I once read that Congress is most effective when a Democrat is in the White House and we have a Republican Congress (or vice versa). The idea is that the natural push/pull that debate in our democracy affords actually leads us to better solutions than if we had near universal agreement. There is much we can learn from each other if we listen earnestly, assume good intentions, and debate openly…
There is one big problem with thinking that a decent mix of Democrats and Republicans will lead to healthy debate. Purchased partisanship never leads to consensus on issues which benefit the populous. The few things they do agree on benefit their campaign financiers. It is why nothing has been done to fix the rampant fraud of investment banks while corporate personhood stands unchallenged and high-stakes testing and privatization gets support on both sides.
I assume the good intentions of the voters on both sides. I tend to disagree with the notion that politicians can remain unswayed by the millions pumped into their campaign coffers by billionaires and big business.
Isn’t it time to quit being astounded and dumbfounded all the time, to stop pleading with people who are not listening and never will, and just come to grips with the fact that the real agenda here is to replace universal free public education with a non-unionized private profit industry, salable, hedge-fundable, and credit-default swappable on Wall Street?
It is well past time to stop giving Corporate Feudalists the benefit of the doubt. Their agenda is nothing less than the tot destruction of democratic societies and their replacement by totalitarian corporate governance. Undermining our system of public education is just one of many fronts in that global attack
Well said, Jon.
“their replacement by totalitarian corporate governance.” Call the spade a spade-Fascism, yes the real meaning of that word, not as used by the pundits in the “Fawning Corporate Media*”
*Thanks Ray McGovern for that term!