We are not alone.
We are not the only great nation doing truly absurd things to our education system to advance the interests of private enterprise, under the guise of “reform.”
Great Britain’s Minister of Education Michael Gove has invited Bain & Company of the U.S. to advise him on how to make cuts to the national education budget and encouraged them to apply for contracts in the newly reconstituted Department for Education.
Bain is the company created by our own Mitt Romney.
Now if Minister Gove brings in Boston Consulting (the company that birthed Bain & Company), Stand for Children, and Andy Smarick of Bellwether Partners, he can get a report recommending full privatization of the British education system and finish the job.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Several years ago, I took a graduate course from SUNY @ Brockport through their reading department. Several of us traveled to England to compare British Education with American Education. Many of the schools that we had visited were extremely concerned because after their Minister of Education spent one month in NY in our Department of Education, he returned to England with the notion of creating a Common Curriculum. Teachers and Head Masters had absolutely no input into the creation of the curriculum. They were very concerned because their test scores were now going to become public . Parents would be able to select schools based on their “success” rate and school budgets would be based on their success. Everyone seemed anxious, nervous and upset with these new procedures. We also visited the company that was creating the tests and the curriculum. Everything was top secret. We were not allowed to bring briefcases with us nor were we allowed to take anything that we were shown with us. Now it all sounds like Pearson —– and the goal for a money making monopoly and the creation of charter schools. I do recall asking Head Masters what would happen to students with special needs. That still remains a question in my heart and in my mind. What happens to children with special needs in charter schools?? Oops. I know. Nothing. It must be the same for those children who live in abject poverty— are we really addressing the true issues in the United States and England. Or is this all but yet another ” oil spill” ?
A caval donato non si guarda in bocca!
Marge
Educators can be leaders in this, but this particular sector, stakeholder can always keep throwing more money at the problem, and skewing the outcome towards a single perspective. The only counter to this is, The Private needs The Public to survive. Such an assertion requires evidence, and we’re the ones to provide it.
Education sector can find its own cohesion by encouraging and promoting use of Public Buildings. The president’s jobs plan includes rebuilding schools, so build and rebuild schools as optimized Public space. Invest in putting Kids, Students, Parents, Communities—local experts—first. We can tell it’s the right way to look at it because the people who use the system most, all those I just named are 1) both main users & main investors in system (taxes) 2) the experts on how and what works and 3) the ones whose daily lives and futures are affected by decisions being made.
We all stand to profit from a Student/Parent/Community-centric approach, Local Business knows dollar profits mean nothing when Talent goes undeveloped, withers, or moves away—and we all can understand that not all value and profit is in dollars and cents. Democracy thrives in knowledge—nurtured by scholars, and sense.
Teachers need to stay focused on good pedagogy, but add social networking and DIY technology not only in their teaching, but more practically, as communication with Parents and Community. A parent who is a programmer, mechanic, shop-owner, assembly-line worker, a lawyer or any local business that does something Kids find Engaging, a potential career path, hobby, or even passing fad—DIY tech, like your class blog or web page, projects you share in real time on the Internet, All these are ways to bring people into your classroom into your building and into a growing sense of sharing a common purpose. Just do it. We’ve talked for 20 years about “situated” learning it’s time we start thinking about learning situations and the situations where learning happens, and then create them and share them Publically.
Kids and Parents can learn to think of the School as a place that’s good to go evenings and weekends, to meet friends, be in clubs… again, there are too many places where total renovation is required first So be it those are real jobs that people could count on and real investments that benefit ourselves and future generations.
I believe we have to rely even more on our own agency. Don’t just cultivate a personal learning network, try to join and grow a Community of Practice. It’s a subtle difference in the role of give and take, a different take on ideas at the periphery of your main interests, but I think a meaningful one. Be the best teacher you can be but don’t do it alone. From the ground up, advocate for technology and uses of technology that bring more energetic, engaged and engaging people into your situation.
Then, corporate reformers and venture capitalists will be forced to compete with the kind of value we’ve pulled from Within Ourselves. It forces them to spend their money on the things the true leaders have demonstrated work, are working, and will get us there. History shows—Public spirit shall overcome.
I prefer to think that these people are just arrogant enough to believe they have all of the answers rather than they are just plain greedy plutocrats. You would expect better of our “elite” leaders who have been privileged to receive the best educations available. I guess they have bought their own press.
The Brit’s are the same idiot’s that follow this country lockstep into whatever insane wars and imperialist adventures we plunge the world into.
It’s little surprise that they’ll follow the same criminal actions against their own people and public school system.