Ellen Lubic of UCLA writes in response to an earlier post which asserted that the goal of corporate reform is gentrification, not education reform:
In support of what is being posited here, one only needs to review the landmark Supreme Court ruling in 2005 in the case of Kelo vs. City of New London. It is referred to as the “reverse Robin Hood case where land is taken from the poor and given to the rich.”
In this case a privately owned shopping center was taken by eminent domain and then sold by the city to a private corporation for redevelopment. This happened on the theory that the new development would bring more tax funding for the City.
Now this is extended by Chicago school closings, this appropriated property which indeed can be used for ostensible redevelopment…e.g. gentrification of the South Side.
Last night Charlie Rose interviewed Rahm Emanuel and the Mayor stressed his goals with his top priority being public education. He repeatedly spoke of how difficult it is to make change, but that his intention is to stick with it and keep his policy of school reform.
It is all very disheartening. Who can be trusted to work for The People…all The People?
Today, in Los Angeles, the LAUSD School Board is meeting to do budgeting, mainly of the huge new funding brought into the mix by the windfall of Prop. 30 which caused California taxes to be raised. Our Governor promised to focus distribution heavily in favor of inner city schools. The outcry from the suburbs is resounding. And now, Brown wants to spend the money mainly for implementing Common Core.
All over our county teachers and activists are beginning to emulate Chicago’s brave teachers, and committees and protest groups are being formed. It is a slow awakening in the second largest school district in the nation where Eli Broad has way too much voice and power…but I am hoping it will lead to a giant protest when our city realizes that we have the greatest amount of school closings in America, happening so quietly, fostered by Villaraigosa and Deasy, and leading to the highest number of charter schools .Putting facts before the public is difficult with so much controlled media and only one major newspaper, the LA Times, which Rupert Murdoch is intent on buying.
I know that Howard Blume reads this blog and I hope he will continue to focus on charter scams and Parent Revolution scams, all funded by the free market billionaires, Eli Broad, Rupert Murdoch, the Walton Family Foundation, etc. with the goal of making public education a free market opportunity.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Looks like Mr. Blume of the LA Times covers a variety of topics.
http://articles.latimes.com/keyword/howard-blume
Since Dec 2012 this has included but not limited to
a. a jury awarding $6.9 million to a youngster who was molested by a LA district teacher, b. Michelle Rhee’s activities including her assertion that charters can be “crappy”,
c. IPADS in schools,
d. the LA school board election,
e. What schools are doing to prevent cheating on standardized tests
f. Operators of a west Fernando Valley charter found guilty of misusing funds
g. Responses to the parent trigger law.
Not sure how this mix could be accurately described as a “focus on charter scams and Parent Revolution scams.”
Looks like he covers a variety of stories in a thoughtful way.
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Lately he has been much more objective, and there is no denying the great gifts Blume has as a journalist. Nevertheless, he himself conceded to me, that he is censored . If he goes too far he is swiftly hushed and forced to revise. On some level though, Blume believes some of what he writes. He may have good reason given what he has witnessed as a Times Reporter focused on LAUSD which had been in trouble for some decades before Deasy or even Broad became problems. The power that our teachers’ union and LAUSD have is the primary issue and it still is.
Blume probably is waking up to realities he would prefer to resist but his voice ascending as it has is an almost obvious effort to appear less biased than it is by The LA Times, which was once a very brutal critic of the district. Unfortunately, the scandals erupting every other day then did not inspire much resistance from teachers, taxpayers or parents. Now it seems people are becoming more involved. But for all the wrong reasons if you hear the reformers tell it.
Blume may fall into this category, and like it or not no one is ever really objective unless he or she is also indifferent. That is is not Blume, which is why I read whatever he says or writes with interest. If nothing else, I will learn something.
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Meryl Tisch’s , head Regent of NY State is personally worth billions. Her brother in law ismthe CEO of K-12, a large education corp.
She is the neoliberal gun moll who is delivering the heads of the entire state’s once public education system to corporate control. It’s been going on for decades worldwide. We are in one of the last bastions in the public sector to be shocked out of existence. Other names are “globalization”, “free market capitalism”, laissez faire , deregulation.
What was is now history , never to return. Barring some miracle of course-which won’t happen. They are salivating over the new industry they have created.
Tell me, where were we 20 years ago when entire industries here were outsourced overseas? Who here bought Bill Clinton’s NAFTA deal? That was supposed to better both Mexico and the U.S. In reality, it hurt both tremendously. Clinton also deregulated both Wall Street banking, AND media ownership. These were all neoliberal victories. The aftermath of 9/11, the privatization of war, the security state, the Patriot Act, all is under the same umbrella as the Ed reform movement.
This is how the Big Boys play now. It took them this long to destroy 100 years,of civil service law and,practice…but they have done it. Cuomo , the head fascist, gave it to them on a silver platter-or,should I say golden platter?
He destroyed collective bargaining completely by giving King the power to do this.
All of,those who are still “shocked” by what’s going on should read Naomi Klein’s “The Shock Doctrine.” The first chapter should be enough., The same machine that invaded Iraq, killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people, toppled,foreign governments, destroyed the economy for working people-this is who wrote this assessment deal.
Do,you really believe a marginal character like Mulgrew or Weingarten is fighting back?
Many of us will be out of this profession , max….5 years. Prepare for another life.
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Jd…the ups and downs of your comments leave me rather whiplashed.
Got a kick out of “neoliberal gun moll”…and am feel your despair as to the rest.
Yes, Clinton proved to be a major corporatist (as is Obama) with NAFTA, Welfare to Work, and with colluding with the deregulators (e.g. Summers, Greenspan, Rubin, Gramm, et al) to kill
Glass-Steagall in 1999, thereby throwing the world into economic turmoil by 2007, and also conspiring to then impose Gramm/Leach/Bliley on us.
Of course there were other factors helping destroy our economy, mainly mortgage and bankster crooks and their endless greed, most totally unpunished on the theory that it would bring down the stock market. And of course a Fed that was/is run by this very group.
I agree about recommending Shock Doctrine wherein Naomi Klein nails how this country has always been run for the benefit of the privileged class, and this latest deep recession is a recapitulation of the 1981 Savings and Loan debacle, but on far greater scale. Read Lester Thurow who also wrote about this. I am currently planning an economics course using these books as core.
But I am more hopeful about teachers and public education than you and cannot envision that in five years it will al be gone.
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Of course, Wall Street hedgies are DEEP Ed reformers as well, and of course the mainline neoliberal establishment. In my short post had little time to elaborate. I picked Clinton’s name out of a long list of examples. Obama is,completely on board with Ed reform, including charters and many other neoliberal, global principles- as well as giving financial criminals a complete free pass., Obama is definitely pro charter. Remember when he publicly humiliated an entire school of fired teachers in , was it Rhode Island?
I didn’t say public Ed. Will be dead in 5 years at all. I alluded to the death of a long term career in public education . The corporate ed reformers want “public education” to go on forever-as long as they profit and control it. They will be paid by public funds- that’s what the new capitalism is all about. However,, the new assessments, if they stand long term, will destroy teaching as a long term career. Union busting, automation, outsourcing of municipal jobs and benefits is part an parcel of the corporate state.
Yes, there will be public school teachers five years from now, but they will be mostly complete or relative newbies with considerably lower salaries and benefits. It will be a short term career.
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I agree…young teachers at low salaries will take the place of lifetime professionals.
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But not for long. Teachers are disposable which make campus culture impossible and impedes students and parents abuility to become an effective member of what should be a community. Despite claims to the contrary, school reformers prefer top down dictates to the democratic nature of campus cultureand the community hat fosters it. While great efforts seem to be offered to give oarents a voice, there is no such thing when it actually matters. Parent Trigger/Revolution as you know too well pretends to accomodate the will of the parents but what these organizations end up doing is intimidating, influencing and undermining teachers, principals and parents by dividing and conquering before comandeering the assets ( students) or steering schools into closure which ultimately serves profits not the people.
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Look at what Jeb Bush is pushing in Florida.His idea of education are kids sitting at computer terminals using content his cronies are selling to the city and state-with a few low paid “teachers” administering . That’s the business model -automation, distance learning, austerity, and high corporate profits for “the chosen winners” who supply content and get paid in tax dollars. However, this will STILL be known as public education, whether it’s a charter or not.
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Again I agree…
For too long I have, as an educational researcher, seen children sitting before impersonal boxes…computers and TVs. This dehumanizes them and does not teach them to interact cooperatively. I have written about this since the 1980s in government and NGO reports. There is a great short story by E. M. Forster written in the early 1930s called When the Machine Stops, that was totally prescient.
The role of the humanities is to civilize us, but that seems to be a distant memory. Corporate education seems to be caught up in video games that encourage warfare and winning at all costs. Where is Captain Kangaroo when we need him?
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Even the word humanties was sent packing. If you allude to it or an ugly liberal arts major these days you are likely laughed out of the conversation.
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Diane,
The second your new book is published, send Charlie a copy inscribed “Looking forward to our next discussion–Hope to see you soon.” And this time ask for the full hour!!
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School gal, will do!
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Just a note about school funding in CA. I teach at a school with 97% free/reduced lunch (we don’t even send home forms-so many of our kids qualify it would be a waste of time and money). However, we are in a suburban district. We feel we will not get the funds our disadvantaged kids need. Brown’s funding proposal is not fair to schools like ours.
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Pidge…I have just been reading about the heavy hits that some suburban areas have taken in the mortgage collapse and job losses of middle class educated people. 97% on free/reduced lunch is huge. Higher than any district I have come across. We don’t think about this segment of our community as being in such great need. It needs to be publicized more.
What a disaster!
I am sure that your administration must be in touch with Sacramento about this. Brown and Torlakson must take this into consideration in apportioning the funding, as well as LAUSD School Board if this is your district..
This situation would make a very valuable letter to the editor of the LA Times and a wake up call about the ‘hidden newly poor’ who used to be the middle class. Please consider joining with us when we have our first ad hoc.planning meeting if you are in LA.
For more info, you can reach me at
UCLApolicywonk@aol.com
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First, it is the Koch Brothers who are thinking about buying the Tribune Papers which includes the Chicago Tribune and the L.A. Times. Much of what they are doing not just with education but also transportation if to set up the gentrification of certain low income areas and to drive those presently there out to who knows where no matter how long they have lived there and they call this planning? It is planning but not for the general good. When they put the rail line through Boyle Heights in East L.A. 95% of the business’s that were there ended up not being there when it was over. We are fighting the same fight with MTA on the Crenshaw Corridor where if MTA continues with their plan it will wipe out the African-American business center. Recently, we pushed them to give us the Leimert Park stop and now we need to have MTA tunnel underground the last 11 blocks and to not destroy this vital cultural and business center of African-American life. There is only one reason they will not complete the project for the last 11 blocks as a subway and that is to gentrify with their people taking over after the present people are forced to leave over the 5-6 year project. Ellen is correct.
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I have recently been studying the neoliberal privatization of public education in Chile since this is the path we are now on in the USA. Initiated by the dictator Pinochet and encouraged by the same world players who are advocating these changes here, it is frightening and sobering to see how the policies of choice and privatization have destroyed the system there and how, instead of democratizing the system, the system has become a cesspit.
After 30+ years the students and the people are finally taking to the streets in protest and the government is fighting back with an iron fist. If we do continue on this path this is our future.
Sobering, indeed.
Here are jus a few articles that outline the Chilean neoliberal education machine. It is identical to what is being imposed upon us here, with school choice, vouchers, de-professionalization of the teaching profession, high-stakes testing, and profit-seeking in schooling.
http://www.academia.edu/1836169/Neoliberal_Education_and_Student_Movements_in_Chile_Inequalities_and_malaise
http://www.isa-sociology.org/universities-in-crisis/?p=914
http://www.bostonreview.net/world/lili-loofbourow-no-profit?
http://educationincrisis.net/learn-more/country-profiles/latin-america/item/489-chile/489-chile?start=2
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Chris,
You might also want to look into the AFT’s involvement in the 9/11/73 (“The First 9/11”) fascist coup in Chile.
The AFT was involved via its major status within the AFL-CIO/State Department/CIA- funded American Institute for Free Labor Develpment (AIFLD).
In the lead-up to the coup, there was an induced economic crisis – food was being withheld in the warehouses – and the CIA funded a truck driver’s strike that was overseen by AIFLD. The strike is referred to in Costa Gavras’ 1980’s film about the coup and it’s aftermath, “Missing.”
Unlike the current leader of the AFT, Al Shanker was a bona fide trade unionist, but he was also a Cold War fundamentalist, supporting the Vietnam War until the very end. As Norm Scott has half-jokingly pointed out, in the famous images of the last US helicopter taking off from the roof of the US embassy in Saigon in 1975, it’s Al Shanker hanging on to the landing skids of the helicopter for dear life.
Even Colin Powell, as Bush’s Secretary of State, expressed regret for our government’s involvement in Pinochet’s coup, something the AFT has yet to do, let alone atone for.
Today, the situation is reversed: Randi Weingarten makes pro forma, pwogwessive statements on issues the AFT has little or no influence over, while selling out her members, enabling the privatization of the public schools and the monetization of students.
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The point is that only public participation in the decision making processes again will drive off the billionaires from controlling the situation and put it back into the hands of the people so they will “Not Get Fooled Again.” With Aquino “Leaving Dodge” we are going to reinstall a public participation process in the selections of new high level administrators. The board of education always has the last say, but, the public should be the vetters of the final three before board selection. Districts and government need the public to buy in with them or it will not work as now. When the public feels like it has input and in fact does have influence they are inclined to participate. I just asked the LAUSDPD who have protected the board for a long time and I mean the same people told me what I was wondering and that is that participation by the public has gone down with the non caring and roadblocks by the previous boards. This present board led by Richard Vladavic, who has also been a superintendent of another district, is under a state of war by the billionaires. This is why they cut off the T.V. at the last of the three meetings last Tuesday just before the meeting without much notice to the chairman of the Committee of the Whole which was meeting for the first time in years. Board President Vladavic assigned Steve Zimmer, who won against the billionaires, as chairman of the Committee of the Whole to do in debth investigations into what he felt was important for the district. As a result Mr. Zimmer called in from all over California experts who for, in our estimation, 13 years we did not hear candy coated lies. No wonder they wanted no one to hear. When this committee began everyone from the district except the 5 good board members, who are all lifetime teachers, and the board secretary, who could not leave, left the room. I mean everyone except the police. Without knowing what was happening until Zimmer told us at the end of the meeting I videoed almost the entire meeting. I certainly got on video what he wanted people to really hear and that was the presentations by the experts who dramatically impressed us and that does not happen often. Now we have the billionaires in a squeeze play. The public will now be able to hear the presentations and see many of the power points after I woke up to I had better put the camera on the power points and not the presenter so we will have the power points without knowing this would be the only real record.
I, representing CORE-CA told the board the last time I spoke after I knew what was happening that this video would be public. It will be posted for all to see. If the district continues to prevent you, Mr. Zimmer, from recording your meetings I will come down here every time and do it for you for free. This is too important and we can easily go around them. In fact, I am glad they did it as now they are out in the open along with the Jaime Aquino cry baby lies in the L.A. Daily News.
Please help us at LAUSD with making sure a public transparent process is instituted for the selection of high district administrators who must be voted on by the board of education. We want this not only at LAUSD but nationwide. We believe this is the one thing they cannot stand and that is the light of day. They can only operate in the dark of night in cigar filled rooms with bodyguards everywhere to keep the riff-raff out.
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I want to add that things were oddly aimed at teachers when there was that great big real estate market boon exploding in LA several years ago, and the realators were very focused on the idea of teachers living in the hoods where they taught. Thry sold us on this in union newspapers, district memos, bank circulars…A lot of teachers already did and do live hoods, which they consider home as I do, but there was the ideal that owning a home, which a lot of teachers don’t have the money for in LA and other areas, would improve the urban chaos and lend itself to this gentrification process. Whites and Asians were urged to live in diversity too. . Many teachers of every color took loans, some from STRS and others using credit unions and bank programs designed just for them. I know a few teachers who now owe much more than their house is worth, and one reason they refrain from reacting to or even reporting their terrible circumstances is fear they will lose a job that barely covers their nut as it is.
This thing was very popular in Long Beach which is not too far from the LAUSD area school I worked at, boasts lovely historic homes and decent schools that are NOT LAUSD but distinquished LBUSD. I saw many teachers rennovate and love homes they had to leave because gentrification was a bust. They paid more to live a few blocks away where things were not so crazy yet. I bought my home there after the bottom fell out of the market. I was a renter for years in that place before the landlord was in foreclosure and appealed to me with a short sale and low down payment. I lost it two years later because the bottom fell out of my job right as I was closing the deal. The hood only got worse after this, and as good as Long Beach Schools were, they also succumbed to the treacherous leacherous machinations of greedy banks, lenders, realtors, politicians, entrepenaurs and you know who. I only bought my place because it was what one is expected to do and my mortgage was 2/3rds what rent had been. I was too damned busy to move. But that is what I wanted to do, and it was the right thing too.
Yeah, my credit is a mess, I am unemployed and most likely unemployable because I stood up instead of settling for a house. I got a bit of equity out of it though and I am fairly sure I will live much longer without it, my job or LA.
You see even when it was a good deal, that house was no bargain. Gentrified,
Long Beach is a lot of empty condos that are being turned out to section 8s and a Walmart, which is the only business besides the Starbucks and McDonalds that is a sure thing is Walmart where all shades of people gather around the first of every month to buy all kinds of blue lit specials at a low low cost that is costing every one of us an awful lot.
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