It is clear by now that there is a very small number of very wealthy people who just don’t like public education. They don’t like teachers who work in public schools and want to strip them of any and every right, privilege, and status. They want to treat them like fast-food workers or salesmen who work on commission.
Given the chance, they would take the public’s money and give it to voucher schools, religious schools, entrepreneurs, to anyone who wants to start a school or an online business, regardless of their experience or qualifications. No one can take seriously their claim that they want to improve education or that they are “doing it for the kids” or they “put kids first” or they want to make kids “globally competitive.”
None of this is true.
Here Mike Deshotels explains who the haters are. They need do do some rethinking about the damage they are doing to our students, our teachers, and our nation.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Great article! After doing research into the venture capitalists and foundations that are so heavily influencing our education system, I had to ask my teacher friends what they knew. It shocked me to discover they had no clue that the edicts that are handed down from above might be guided by the owners of Walmart, not caring educators with 20+ years experience. The privatization of education is a scary thing.
Thank you, Diane, for continuing to shine the light on these corporations and foundations so that more people can see what influence they really have.
I like the point a comment on that link made about a libertarian mindset that also drives support for vouchers and reform (or anti-public school sentiment): if I don’t use it why should I pay for it? I figure the next bad step after vouchers is grandparents saying they want their tax portion in the education column to go towards their grandchild’s education or something. We need Al Gore’s “lock box” for public education dollars.
“Of course stupid! That’s the definition of a percentile ranking system. 50 % will always be below the median!”
If the people running the show don’t even understand the basic concepts of math and statistics, Houston, we have a problem.
Kind of like grading schools on a bell curve and then announcing, 16 percent of schools are getting a D or F and this needs to improve. It’s like, that’s how a bell curve works, you idiot refornatron, that 16 percent doesn’t move.
It’s not that they hate schools or teachers…it’s just that they REALLY LOVE MONEY! and they can’t stand to see OUR tax dollar go anywhere but in THEIR pockets.
No, they also REALLY hate us.
Wait! You’re both correct: They DO love money AND they REALLY hate us! BOTH are true.
And the reason they hate us so much—meaning we students, parents, teachers and principals—is because we’re standing in the way of them getting OUR money!
How dare those “Little People” think they could use their money for their child’s education and withhold it from US!!!”
That would get ME mad too…if I were a self-obsessed, delusional, sociopathic, ultra-greedy billionaire, that is…
I really don’t believe it has anything to do with hating either public schools or those who work in public education. It is an amazing opportunity for the private sector to make money from the public funds at this time in history.
Reblogged this on kotiko jafaridze.
Another thought on who are the Public School Haters.
Perhaps they are the “disaster capitalists”, and “school reform” is just another manufactured crisis meant to retrench the social program that is the public schools, (and of course allow for the looting of the public schools by privatizes.)
Consider the quote from economist John Williamson , “think of deliberately provoking a crisis so as to remove the political logjam to reform,”
I believe he wrote this around ’93.
Following soon, the corporate-funded think tanks begin encouraging national governments to manufacture “pseudo-crises,” such as the ’93 debt scare in Canada, that would lead to dramatic cut backs of social programs.
Just a thought.
PS: Here is a little letter from Milton Friedman on the “Promise of Vouchers”
Take away quote:”It is also an opportunity to radically reform the educational system.”
He was referring to hurricane Katrina.
http://tinyurl.com/6rcjhu
I agree with those who say that the destroyers of public education don’t necessarily hate public education, they just like money. But regardless of their own personal feelings on the matter, they are whipping up hatred of public schools and public school teachers as a means to their end. It’s like the politicians who aren’t exactly racist* themselves, but they use racism to stoke up others’ fears to get elected and get their agenda through. In some ways I think openly hating public schools/being racist is better than using hatred/racism to fuel your fire – at least the first is honest.
* meaning they don’t personally, consciously, harbor negative sentiments against blacks or other minorities – obviously using other people’s more open racism is itself a form of racism.
Hi Dienne,
“they are whipping up hatred of public schools and public school teachers as a means to their end.”
Completely agree!
And in whipping up that hatred, they are creating the fake crisis in education . Things are so bad in public education that we MUST act NOW…so… more tests, more firings, more closings, more churn…then we must have more charters, vouchers, etc.
I hope those of us who see this pattern in education “reform” can connect the dots to where the same strategy is being used to kill other public institutions, safety nets, etc.
I really do consider the “haters of public education” just part of a much larger picture.
Thank you for your comments on this blog, I enjoy reading what you have to say.
Yes, we need to keep the larger picture in sight. Public education is vital in its own right, but it’s just a piece of what’s being stolen from us.
And, likewise, thank you for your comments.
Dienne and Ang: on a day of excellent postings and many excellent comments on them, these are some of the best!
Yes, I agree, one doesn’t have to posit conscious hatred of public schools and racism to explain a great deal of what the leading charterites/privatizers do—in many cases, I think they really and truly feel it’s ‘nothing personal.’ They’re just doing what they do and teachers, parents, students and communities ‘happen’ to get in the way and must be neutralized and rendered helpless, ready to be plucked clean and put in the pot for further tenderizing before being consumed.
Think of how often they spout the word “accountability” and not the word “responsibility.” From a narrow bean-counter POV, we ‘little people’ [shades of Leona Helmsley!] are not good or bad, worthy or unworthy—we just don’t ‘count.’ We literally don’t figure in their calculations except as borishly intrusive and incomprehensibly rude and obstinate ‘defenders of the status quo.’ This from the mouths of those who [literally] comprise the educational status quo!
Thank you both for your many postings. I don’t promise to agree with all of them, but I look forward to reading every one of them.
See y’all someday at Pink Slip Bar, although I don’t suggest putting bourbon or anything like it through your nose except if you’re trying to make sense of merit pay and high-stakes standardized testing and deprofessionalizing teaching and the like.
But that, as the accountabully underlings of the leading charterites/privatizers would say, is a VAManiacal notion for another day.
See your 13th pecentile and raise you to the 90th.
🙂
I have a great idea! How many educators would join me in a pledge to hold a celebratory fund-raising party when Obama dismisses Arne Duncan and replaces him with a Secretary of Education who actually understands education?
Enough to make a difference?
I’m just enjoying imagining people breaking out the champagne at parties in communities all across the country, supporting public education for all.
I’ll be at that party!
Obama does not want to do that. HE is one of the masterminds and intenders of privatizing education.
While I’d be celebrating with you—and I’m a parent and small business owner, not a teacher—what makes people think that Obama would WANT such a thing? What is this based on except wishful (delusional?) thinking?
If Obama wanted to replace Duncan, he would have done so years ago, as soon as Arne started vilifying educators and helping Michelle Rhee with her cover-up and whitewash conspiracy.
For the first few months—no, first couple of years, of the Obama Administration—I rationalized away almost everything that was clearly bad, from the Wall Street Foxes he put in charge of the hen house, to Rick “Homophobe” Warren’s inauguration address, to RTTT and so much more.
I wanted so desperately to believe the best. I really did. And it took me so long to admit that I, like millions, had been snookered. I bought Obama’s BS “Hook, Line and Sinker”; I didn’t realize I was voting for someone to the right of Dwight Eisenhower.
But to continue to fantasize about what—the “Real Obama” just in some sort of dormant state, ready to emerge, like a “Cicada Obama” maybe?—is to be in a state of extreme denial.
Who do you think Arne Duncan reports to now?
I’m right there with you, 150%!!!!
I could not agree more.
I think Duncan reports to Bill and Melinda Gates and Eli Broad.
Obama now reports to his sugar mommy Penny Pritzker, who is donating half of the $35 millions dollars to buy Barack and Michelle their dream home on Honolulu beach front property upon his retirment form the presidency. Pritzker is fundraising the other half. Pritzker funded his elections to a large extent and put him on the map.
These people are lascivious and depraved. They are anything but democrats.
I bought the Obama mystique also, but my wife warned me (I did not listen!!!) to hone in on not just what Obama was saying in his speeches, but what he was NOT saying.
Oops . . . . .
Who are these public school haters? Let’s start with this list:
1. Barack and Michelle Obama
2. Arne Duncan
3. Bobby Jindal
4. Jeb and George Bush
5. Scott Walker
6. Andrew Cuomo
7. Chris Christie
8. Michael Bloomberg
9. Anthony Weiner
10. Christine Quinn
11. Meryl Tisch
12. John King
13. Michelle Rhee
14. Randi Weingarten
15. Michael Mulgrew
16. Richard Ianuzzi
17. Eli Broad
18. Bill and Melinda Gates
19. The Walton family
20. Joel Klein
21. Rupert Murdoch
22. The Tea Party
23. Most Republican elected officials in state and federal government
24. Most Democrat elected officials in state and fedearl government
25. NBC, CBS, and ABC
26. TFA
27. Democrats for Education Reform
28. Oprah Winfrey
29. Barbara Walters
Add as many more as you want until well seasoned . . . .
Where’s Steve Brill? And Jonathan Alter? Mitch Daniels? Rick Scott?
Shouldn’t Michelle Rhee be at the very top?
And how did Anthony Weiner get on this list? I thought he was a progressive?
Your suggestions are perfect for the list.
Weiner will no doubt turn out to be another neo-liberal, citing another version of merit pay for teachers who elect to teach in high needs schools. More pay to fix some very serious acute situations is but a band aid, another neo-liberal ploy.
I’d like to think that I’m wrong about Mr. Weiner.
But I won’t hold my breath. I care less about his dalliances with sexting, but his politics in the past always seemed good. . . . . who knows what he’ll do now to gain approval. He already talked about “pushing back against teachers unions”, and frankly, I’m weary of politicians blaming unions and teachers for the vices that society and government have caused, many of which have become deeply rooted, issues that unions and their members NEVER caused, such as poverty and a cultural push for making fun of intellectualism, curiosity, and scholarship.
That’s not to say at all that low income children can’t learn successfully. . . . . They can! I live that experience with delight every day.
As far as your suggestion about Rhee, my list did not have a ranking order.