Want to see the hand-writing on the wall?
Look at what is happening in the U.K.
The minister of education, Michael Gove, is moving rapidly to increase privatization of state schools.
There is lots of talk about choice, competition, testing, accountability.
Consider this account:
“This is a story about England’s schools, but it could just as well describe the razing of state provision throughout the world. In the name of freedom, public assets are being forcibly removed from popular control and handed to unelected oligarchs.
“All over England, schools are being obliged to become academies: supposedly autonomous bodies which are often “sponsored” (the government’s euphemism for controlled) by foundations established by exceedingly rich people. The break-up of the education system in this country, like the dismantling of the NHS, reflects no widespread public demand. It is imposed, through threats, bribes and fake consultations, from on high.”
And here is news of a secret memo about turning the free schools and academies (equivalent to our charters) into profit-making schools.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The corporate “reformers” are looking for profits in UK also. Michael Grove the Secretary of Education in UK has close ties to Rubert Murdock and Joel Klien:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/feb/26/schools-crusade-gove-murdoch
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The greed mongers can smell the money.
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George Monbiot usually specialises in environmental issues, so I was pleased to see him taking this up and giving a good general account. The same day in the same paper, Michael Rosen, educationalist and children’s author, came up with another of his excellent ‘Dear Mr Gove’ letters which puts a lively slant on it but effectively tells the same story:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2013/mar/04/primary-schools-enforced-academies?INTCMP=SRCH
Gove’s policies are confused and contradictory in many ways but I think you’d agree the general direction is very similar to the US experience. And very wrong.
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The teachers of the UK are luckier then we were, they can look to us to see what to, and not to do. My advice fight back from the get go don’t let any reformer get a strong hold anywhere in the UK. It took awhile for us in the US to realize what was happening, and it is so much harder to go back and fix things.
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This is just plain creepy.
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The leaked memo actually makes sense and I believe describes the modus operandi of the charterist movement here in the US: get many charters going, strain local resources devoted to overseeing the ever increasing numbers of charters, start agitating against the binge spending that overseeing these increasing numbers of charters will require, commission a study of the issue, deliver the study recommendations which will (in short) be “cut them loose and let them charge,” adopt the study’s revolutionary recommendation, complete destruction of public K-12.
And while the above is going on the charterist movement has operatives doing everything and anything possible to close as many public schools as possible so that when the study comes along there won’t be any place to educate kids other than the charters which will then be the only option left.
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That is their dream scenario. What a bunch of creepy, nutty, wackos!!
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But very rich!
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Michael Bloomberg owns a flat in a very tony part of London. Connect the dots. . .
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What is the diagnosis that has lead to the Global Education Reform Movement (GERM)?
https://dianeravitch.net/category/global-education-reform-movement/
Without the right diagnosis, we will not treat the problem and face more and more resistance.
As a doctor, I have some insight. If you begin with the wrong diagnosis, the treatment is inappropriate. This can cause side effects and delay the appropriate treatment.
Let’s talk actual germs as an example.
I think more people are understanding that we get super-bugs with antibiotic resistance when antibiotics are used inappropriately for probable viral illnesses. Extensive use at farms is adding to this problem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibiotic_resistance
When I was starting my medical training in 1980, there were alarming reports of insults to the immune system among homosexuals, hemophiliacs, Haitians and heroin users: the “4H club.” The high price of stigma was devastating in the economically oppressed country of Haiti.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/aids/countries/ht.html
Doctors could not treat the underlying problem until a virus was discovered and sequenced and anti-retroviral drugs developed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV/AIDS
Now (for the health insurance “haves,” that is) AIDS is a chronic illness. Indeed, there are claims that babies infected in utero can be cured.
Let’s let’s make the right diagnosis.
Corporate plutocrats are leading us to a GLOBAL RACE TO THE BOTTOM.
http://www.mlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2012/12/michigan_right-to-work_former.html
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Kris,
Well said! Thank you:)
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