Reader Michael Fiorillo deciphers the corporate reformers’ game plan:
The Final Solution to the Teacher Question:
– Proclaim austerity for the public schools, while continuing to expand charters.
– Create incentives for non-educators to be in positions of power, from Assistant Principal on up.
– Maintain a climate of scapegoating and witch hunting for “bad teachers,” who are posited as the cause of poverty and student failure, doing everything possible to keep debate from addressing systemic inequities.
– Neutralize and eventually eliminate teacher unions (the first part largely accomplished in the case of the AFT). As part of that process, eliminate tenure, seniority and defined benefit pensions.
– Create and maintain a climate of constant disruption and destabilization, with cascading mandates that are impossible to keep up or comply with.
– Create teacher evaluations based on Common Core-related high stakes tests for which no curriculum has been developed. Arbitrarily impose cut scores on those exams that cast students, teachers and schools as failing, as was done by NYS Education Commissioner John King and Regent Meryl Tisch.
– Get teachers and administrators, whether through extortion (see RttT funding) threats or non-stop propaganda, to accept the premises of “data-driven” everything, even when that data is irrelevant, opaque, contradictory, or just plain wrong.
– Get everyone to internalize the premises and language of so-called education reform:
– Parents are not citizens with rights, but “customers” who are provided “choices”
that are in fact restricted to the decisions of those in charge, based on policies
developed by an educational industrial complex made up of foundations,
McKinsey-type consultants and captive academics.
– Students are “valuable assets” and “products,” whose value is to be enhanced
(see the definition of VAM) before being offered to employers.
– Teachers are fungible units of “human capital,” to be deployed as policy-makers
and management see fit. Since human capital depreciates over time, it
needs to be replaced by fresh capital, branded as “the Best and Brightest.”
– Schools are part of an investment “portfolio,” explicitly including the real estate
they inhabit, and are subject to the “demands” of the market and the preferences
of policy-makers and management.
– Create an intimidating, punitive environment, where the questions and qualms are either disregarded or responded to with threats.
– Get the university education programs on board under threat of continuing attack. Once they are on board, go after them anyway, and deregulate the teacher licensing process so that it’s easier to hire temps.
– Eliminate instruction that is deemed irrelevant to the most narrowly-cast labor market needs of employers, getting rid of art, music, dance, electives, etc., thereby reducing the focus of education to preparation for passive acceptance of low-wage employment.
– Embed software and electronic gadgets in every facet of the classroom and school, from reading to test-taking, with the intention of automating as much classroom input and output as possible.
– Use the automation of the classroom to enlarge class size – something explicitly promoted by Bill Gates – and transform teachers into overseers of student digital production that is connected to massive databases, so that every keystroke is data to be potentially monetized.
– Cash your bonus checks, exercise your stock options, and declare Excellence and Civil Rights achieved.
At least somebody gets it …
Wow. You nailed everything that happened. Well said!
Of course, when the assault on teachers began, there was no insight to be had, and those of us experienced, dedicated veteran educators who were harassed and traumatized into retirement did not know why we were attacked. It is 16 years later for me, and now it is clear, as it is to you.
I am happy to know there is clarity to the war on education that began with the removal of the professional voice of the classroom practitioner, but it does not reduce the effect of that trauma that a teacher like myself experienced: (my resume is here http://www.opednews.com/author/author40790.html)
sums it up very nicely. No more need be said. This is the message that each and every person that cares about public schools, education, and the American experiment in democracy should post and repeat each day until the people wake up and overthrow their corporate masters.
“corporate masters”????? And what comes after? Government masters? I thought we’d had enough of that already.
Harlan, you speak as though there were some sort of distinction here between corporations and our government. We live in the day of the fix–the “public-private partnership.”
You have to excuse Harlan … they didn’t have that bit about Government Of By For The People when he went to school.
As usual, Michael Fiorillo get right to the core of the reformer’s plutocratic agenda. Brilliant (and accurate) analysis!
If money doesn’t talk, what does? Fiorillo assumes that power talks. When money doesn’t talk, only the gun talks. Compulsion talks.
Which do you prefer? The democracy of money or the tyranny of the gun.
“Democracy of money” does not exist. Tyranny can be just as powerful with money as with a gun.
Why does it have to be only money or power talk? Why can’t altruism, community, passion for the work being done, and care for others talk?
I tend to see it as the “tyranny of money” and “the democracy of the gun”. The gun can have a tendency to be the equalizer to the tyranny of money. Unfortunately the tyranny of money can usually buy all the gun protection it needs. The tyranny of money also unfortunately buys the politicians to legalize the tyranny itself.
“Democracy of money?”
That’s an oxymoron on par with “business ethics.”
Your response convicts you, Michael. Here’s another tendentious oxymoron for you. “Sensible teacher.” So much for oxymoronic nonsense.
Gee, Harlan, I didn’t know you were looking to expose thought crimes.
That’s my aim, to expose thought crimes, but not to punish them. Your snark ignores the issues.
Yes, it sure is a GAME PLAN, and an evil one at that.
“evil”=? Could you define “evil” please?
evil: purposefully causing egregious harm to others for personal gain. Example: fixing laws, for example, to force one’s invalid, sloppy testing products on kids and teachers, thus narrowing and distorting curricula, pedagogy, pupil assessment, and teacher and school evaluation, and thus robbing kids of their educations and teachers of their autonomy
This needs to be sent to every school board in the US. It needs to be in every oped in every newspaper. It needs to be sent to Congress, governors, and sopreme court judges.
For, this is what has happened to public education.
Do you think disseminating Michael’s statement is going to change anything? Really change things? Under the current regime? Words can move others to action, but not these words. Meanwhile, lift our fists in the air and celebrate May Day.
That’s the problem with you capitalists, HU, it ain’t even May yet and you want to celebrate crushing the commie pinko socialist faggots.
yes
Disseminating Michael’s statement is freedom of speech, Harlan.
Remember that?
Concise, and well stated.
Reblogged this on Transparent Christina and commented:
THIS IS THE ISSUE: Teachers are fungible units of “human capital,” to be deployed as policy-makers and management see fit. Since human capital depreciates over time, it needs to be replaced by fresh capital, branded as “the Best and Brightest.”
Actually human capital doesn’t depreciate over time, it appreciates, BUT it also costs more, and the management decision is that if you can get minimal production out of cheaper labor you hire cheaper labor. That’s because education productivity can’t easily be increased to cover the added cost of the experienced teacher. Education by nature is a labor intensive business. So, if productivity per experienced teacher can’t be raised easily, then why not go with the inexperienced teacher? Makes perfect business sense, but very bad educational sense. That suggests that the economic model of education is flawed in some way, but I don’t yet see what that flaw is.
What is your definition of “productivity per experienced teacher?”
WHAT THE F@%K are you talking about?
Let’s get minimal production from the surgeon, or the attorney, and live to tell the tale.
Gimme a break on business models for education the humnan brains of our future citizens so they can think in a complex society,
“That suggests that the economic model of education is flawed in some way. . . ”
It suggests that perhaps the capitalist economic model is flawed as a descriptive/prescriptive model.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx “productivity per experienced teacher” doesn’t actually make good business sense either– it’s a misunderstanding of the product and its process. It’s kind of like trying to measure the efficiency of an engineering firm by how fast it can design bridges, without any consideration for the safety, quality, innovation etc of the bridges constructed to their design.
It seems to me that that there are a number of basic flaws in the economic model of education, beginning with a sophisticated grasp of what the product is, continuing to its various markets and its value to those markets– and how to measure all of that.
It would help us then if you would lay out your model which you seem to suggest can be done outside an understanding of economics.
Education is not a business. Period.
Would you call private schools a “business”?
Well, Susan, if education is NOT a business, then what is it?
“if education is NOT a business, then what is it??”
education is
a. the great handoff by means of which a culture transmits what matters to it to the next generation
b. the means by which the next generation gains sufficient mastery of the material and techniques handed off to be able to use them and transcends them
c. the means by which people gain the tools and techniques for self- and community creation.
Those points pick out the transfer of information, so I would suggest they apply to publishers and other media producers as well.
You are assuming, Harlan, falsely, that the productivity hasn’t been there all along. Measurement of teacher productivity by means of standardized tests is extremely flawed. The most vetted standardized test in history that was supposed to measure aptitude for college and then achievement–the SAT–proved not to be a measure of those AT ALL. It was completely invalid for those purposes. And the “next generation” tests now being produced by the Common Core Curriculum Commissariat and Ministry of Truth are much less well vetted but claim to be
cx: transcend, singular
The real goal of much of these “reforms” is to make education a LESS labor-intensive business–to reduce the size and costs of the teaching force. But the reforms are not going to improve productivity. That’s the point. Education has to be a human transaction; otherwise, it’s essential element is lost.
We’ve seen this in business after business. Let’s introduce technologies to reduce labor costs. The current ed deforms are more of the same.
But interestingly, that happens more quickly than the society can find other productive uses for those workers, and so one gets massive dislocations and long-term unemployment and underemployment, and those unemployed and underemployed folks aren’t purchasing. The model breaks down.
But I am tired of arguing that point. Here’s the message I want to get across:
THE TEACHERS’ UNIONS NEED TO WAKE THE $#&&$*#!!! UP and recognize that the nationalization of standards and evaluation and assessment are not ends in themselves but PART OF A BUSINESS PLAN FOR REDUCING THE LABOR COSTS OF EDUCATION via technology.
That is, for redefining education as a less labor-intensive industry via virtual schools, flipped classrooms, distance learning, teaching machines, computerized grading, and so on.
The goal is not to use as many resources as possible, but as few. By using the fewest resources necessary, we free resources up to do other things.
The teachers’ unions have been PLAYED. That’s really, really sad. Pathetic.
cx: its, not it’s, above, of course
Harlan, you don’t see what the flaw is?
Harlan, you need to ask your doctor if your medications are affecting your ability to think critically.
Are you on statins? . . . . . .
Yes, put the old bulls and cows to pasture. I see a future lawsuit brewing…discrimination against the elders. Best and brightest my a**.
print out and post on your school bulletin board in the teachers lounge, make copies and
hand out to your colleagues!
Your colleagues don’t pay each other’s salaries. The parents do. They will just see this screed as childish whining.
Teachers are taxpayers, too, HU. And parents WANT their children to be taught be quality teachers. When parents realize what is happening to their children’s (generally excellent) teachers, they begin to support teachers even further. I’ve seen it.
I hope you are right Anonymous. But many parents have had bad experiences with the schools, and try to opt out through charters, vouchers, and private schools, and homeschooling.
It’s not just parents and teachers who should be concerned. Everyone who pays taxes and lives in this nation has a stake in this. We all have a stake in how children are educated. We seem to forget this. It’s not only parents who should care. Not only teachers who should fight. Which students will one day run our nation? Will the segregated schools, that are becoming the norm around our nation, perpetuate a segregated nation? We are turning back the hands of time, back to a nation that tramples on the civil rights of its people. Where are the cries for justice from our civil rights leaders?
If private schools are “superior” in some way(s), then why doesn’t the Money Bucket Brigade fund the development of the same environment for ALL students — providing ALL students with small class sizes, opportunities to explore the arts, interaction with nature, literature, sciences, maths, robotics, field trips for exposure to other cultures, freedom to explore interests, make decisions, and avoid ridiculous testing?
Of course, how professional is the pay for teachers in private schools? Are they paid well, with benefits, or are taking a vow of poverty to “serve” the wealthy? Do they have retirement provisions?
Bottom line: equal opportunity for learning for all.
Good private schools pay adequately. The parents will pay for the small class size and teaching quality. One year letter of appointments in my 42 year experience. Defined contribution TIAA-CREF pension. Adequate health insurance with fairly high, but still subsidized, staff contribution. 87% of budget going into the classroom. And, of course, selective admissions. Public schools in my city get a state appropriation per pupil of slightly less than half of the private school tuition. There’s a PART of the difference. 51% of the funding goes into the classroom. That’s another part of the difference. Defined benefit pension costs are sucking away more of the money. No or low contribution to a Cadillac health plan. Extra expenses for high need kids. What’s the puzzle? Perhaps 25% of half of half the budget gets into the classroom, so class sizes are bigger. That’s the way with government run enterprises.
In the private school, the parents pay. Fundamental question: Does a kid have a “right” to a better education than his parents can pay for? If so, then the money bucket brigade should be funding the public schools sufficiently to cut all class sizes in the country in half. That would make a difference to start with.
But, I ask again, Does a kid with poor parents have a “right” to as good an education as a kid with rich parents. If so, how does he acquire that “right”? (It’s not in the federal constitution). Then, who has the duty to provide the money necessary? Translation: “Parents who can’t afford an elite education have a legitimate right to expect other people to pay for it for their kid.” See if you can make the case when it is framed that way.
HU, I am surpised that you think poor people should have the right to drive or ride on the same streets as those who can “pay” for them.
I understand the argument that free public education is a part of infrastructure. I’m really only asking whether giving a parent a voucher might not satisfy constitutional requirements in all the states that the state provide an equal opportunity education. Unfortunately a road is not a school. To call schools infrastructure is metaphor. And even for the roads we expect people to have a driver license, to have a mechanically adequate car, and to use them responsibly, something we don’t require in schools. In Michigan this year, the potholes were horrible. The debate in the legislature is how to get enough money to fix them. People can still drive on the roads even as people can still attend schools, but in neither case are you guaranteed a smooth ride.
The game plan is alive and well in Philadelphia. On Friday these two news items, surprisingly or not depending on your outlook, appeared together in the Phila papers.
1. District budget reveals 216 million dollar deficit for coming school year which, if not filled will result in 1000 more layoffs (800 of them teachers) and class sizes as high as 40 in a classroom (this after 4000 laid off this school year).
2. District hires at 90G per year a new Director of Recruitment. The new hire’s resume: Former Talent recruiter for TFA and KIPP administrator in Philadelphia.
And Obama, Duncan, and Nutter just look the other way.
That’s where the real damage is being done.
They’ve abandoned public schools but there are still a lot of kids in public schools.
Oh, well. They happened to have the misfortune of attending a public school right when public schools fell out of fashion, I guess.
Winners and losers, baby. They’re the losers.
That’s about the size of it, but this description of what is going on begs the question of what SHOULD be going on. That requires examination of the premises.
Do parents have a “right” to an education for their children? Or are they truly customers for education services.
The totally anti-capitalist attitude here is ultimately, I believe, self defeating and will be rejected by most citizens who derive their livelihoods from “profit.”
If not from business and profit, from whence comes ALL support for education?
This kind of talk may be OK for the faculty room, but in the larger society it will seem infantile and puerile.
Does it really “beg the question”? Or does the “SHOULD” lead you to ask/wonder?
I wasn’t looking for the fundamental philosophical question. I was simply trying to understand your argument.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Just using the Phila example above, I do not think it anti-capitalist to wonder how it’s possible that the schools in Comcast’s hdqtr city are an embarrassment to the nation, just as the co. is poised to become even more profitable by virtue of monopoly (if their merger gets past DOJ). It makes me wonder about the tax collection or lack thereof that’s going on in PA, & specifically Phila.
All excellent questions to ask. But, of course, you do not address the fundamental philosophical question, which is something like: “Is education in public schools among those God given rights mentioned in the Declaration of Independence”?
I think that’s a legitimate question to ask, since it is not specifically mentioned, only “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” I’m assuming that ownership of private property is among those other unnamed rights.
““Is education in public schools among those God given rights mentioned in the Declaration of Independence”?
HU, we’ve been through this a couple of times before. The answer is no, that those “supposed ‘god’ given” rights are not mentioned in the Constitution or the D of I. But it is mentioned in each state constitution and that has just as much effect for the individual as the national one.
Although one might argue that education comes under the umbrella of the “right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But one doesn’t even need that argument constitutionally speaking as one already has that right as stated in the states’ constitutions.
Yes we have been through this before, but it deserves restating again and again because so many here have never thought of the distinction. People talk as if the federal constitution guaranteed an equal education under article XIV.
When we drop down to the state level, then we can begin to talk specifics. In Michigan K12 is authorized to receive the state foundation grant for each pupil enrolled in its virtual school. I believe it was authorized for 10,000 places this school year (2013-14). Does that satisfy the state guarantee? Apparently in the eyes of the state legislature it does.
Why is that kind of privatization not ok?
Believe me, I know how it feels to have to restate something (Wilson perhaps) a gazillion times so that people can understand the thought/ideas that while logical and rational seem to be amenable to being overlooked.
I have no problem with privatization as long as the private entity school stands on its own and receives no public funds. If it receives public funds then it should follow the same rules that a public school must follow (I am not a big fan of “magnet” type public schools because I see them as discriminatory). What is good for the goose is good for the gander.
Private schools have shown that they can stand on their own. To expect my tax dollars to go to unregulated, not transparent-in all ways-private entity is not right (even though it happens all the time, especially in the military industrial complex). Private school = stand on own. (How’s about that for libertarian thinking?)
Virtual school is NOT okay, Harlan.
No one here says it is.
What is WRONG with you?
Rhetorical question . . . . . . . .
There actually are societies (most countries) that do not view education as commodity for sale, but as a public good. Mexico, which by any definition of wealth, is “poorer” than the US. But they offer a very inexpensive college education to all who qualify. It’s a question of values.
Despite the low cost of university in Mexico, it does not seem to attract many international students. There may be a reason for that.
HU: here you go…
http://m.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/04/the-adjunct-professor-crisis/361336/
Here’s a few questions for the group: What specific strategies are being used to address federal laws that permit this to happen? I’ve seen the NPE petition to congress, but what else? It’s an election year. Is there any organized movement to make this an election issue? Instead of NCLB being re-authorized from year to year, the plug should be pulled. I’ve seen several petitions but nothing seems organized. Federal, state, and local levels all need to be targeted. This blog provides a forum and an opportunity.
No wonder parents try to flee the public schools to get out from under the federal government mandates. They are behaving like customers, even if you don’t want them to be. There is a democracy more fundamental to life than electing school boards, and that is the democracy of the marketplace.
The failures and successes of education ALL come down to parent initiative. If you can’t fix parents, you can’t fix schooling.
Actually, MOST of us want out from under federal mandates, not just teachers. And we WANT that. Don’t assume that teachers want this federal intrusion, either. Before you say that it’s just Democrats or something, HU, I am not a Democrat, and a lot of teachers aren’t, either.
HUH? Most of us want out from Federal Mandates? Bundy sure did.
You should remain anonymous, and not waste the time of those of us who want America to be the land of opportunity and democracy it was.
Harlan you are being a pest today. I am having to scroll past too many green-blue faces today in order to follow the conversation.
I agree.
I keep trying to get someone, ANYONE, to engage in a defense of the concept that children have a “right” to an education beyond what their parents can provide them.
No takers so far. May I assume that you agree then, BM?
“here is a democracy more fundamental to life than electing school boards, and that is the democracy of the marketplace.”
There is no “democracy of the marketplace.” All marketplaces tend to monopolies unless otherwise constrained by society. “Tyranny of the marketplace” would be much better as a concept.
HU has been fine. What he writes gives us an opportunity to to sharpen our arguments against the edudeformers who rely on neoliberal economic theory to justify the raping, pillaging and bullying of the commons and common folk that neoliberal capitalists do.
Keep ’em coming HU!
Please don’t lump me together with Bundy, Susan. I meant federal EDUCATIONAL mandates, such all of this overtesting, not other types of federal mandates. Since this blog is about education, I
And I am anonymous because my state is threatening my license if I begin to comment against the Common Core and for opting out, even on my own time and my own computer. I have to protect my teaching job. I am not Bundy and I think he’s a crackpot.
Milton Friedman salutes you for this .” the democracy of the marketplace,” but always suppressed in this rhetoric is the abundance of corporate welfare purchased by lobbyists. Parents are NOT the only people who pay for schools or the only “customers” of schools. Parents are not machines that anyone can “fix.” Neither are students, or their teachers.
I think that most folks pick and choose their mandate. Supreme Court mandates enforced at the point of a gun by the executive branch are generally viewed as good here, as is federal law about educating some special populations.
As a student it does not really matter if the mandate comes from the federal capital, the state capital, or down the road in the school district headquarters. The mandated activity might be good for that particular student or it might be bad for that particular student. As has been pointed out here many many times, each student is an individual.
I agree with Duane.
Harlan, keep them coming. I need a hearty chuckle and a resharpening of my persuasive skills.
Susan Lee Schwartz,
I am a progressive and a humanist, and I do want the federal mandates removed, save for compulsory education, and services for special education and English language learners. To be more specific, I want RttT removed, and all of this over testing. Most of all, I want tying teachers’ scores to employability removed.
I believe in big government, but only when it truly serves the interests of the ordinary every day person. If not, then local control is best.
I am a Western European style socilaist democrat, but our federal government is anti-humanism.
So yes, removing the mandates would be a good thing.
Does that make more sense to you?
Harlan wants almost all government out of our lives, but he’s too simplistic and child-like to know that market place solutions get corrupted far more and far faster than government, and that they all tend to polarize society.
Harlan hates the notion of collectivism and government but he, at 78, hypocritically takes social security payments that technically I at my age am paying for . . . . . .
Harlan, why not make like Brooke Astor and donate your monthly SS check to someone who is homeless or orphaned?
I think Michael’s analysis is spot on. I am however dismayed by his opening “The Final Solution to the Teacher Question” I had family exterminated by the Nazi’s in their “Final Solution” Using that term makes it appear that the author is equating the education reform movement with the Holocaust. They are not even remotely close.
Is that to say Michael’s title is tendentious?
Howard Beale,
I initially posted this as a comment on Diane’s blog, using this title. I then offered it to NYC Educator for use on his blog. He was not happy with the title, either, and upon reconsideration I agreed with him. It was published on April 23rd on that blog under the title, “The Gates/Walton/Broad Fix for That Nagging Teacher Problem.”
As usual, NYC Educator’s humor and deft touch are more effective than my hammer, (not that the so-called reformer’s don’t deserve to be hammered).
In the broadest sense, the Nazi analogy was false – obviously, while teacher’s forced entry into the economic Precariat seems at a minimum to be acceptable collateral damage accompanying the so-called reform agenda, the Gates Foundation is not preparing to murder people – and, as your comment shows, it was probably distracting/ineffective, and trivializing to the victims and descendants of the Holocaust.
If/when using that title, I should have limited it to one specific, oft-told observation: that euphemism and the corruption of language are often used to mask dark motives, while used in conjunction with a Big Lie (in this instance, “Public Education Has Failed”).
To use perhaps the most egregious example, for the so-called reformer’s to refer to their smash-and-grab behavior as “The Civil Rights Movement of Our Time” is a disgraceful twisting of history and language, worthy of any Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda.
I stand by that observation.
Michael:
Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I understand the desire to use a hammer and I agree that Gates/Duncan et al deserve to be hammered. Many years ago I had bridge partner who was a professor at Hunter College and he was fond of reminding people, myself included, that “All evil is not created equal”.
We do our cause a disservice when we make comparisons that are clearly orders of magnitude off. We are better served if we leave those to the likes of Tom Perkins and Ken Langone.
Howard
So, do I take it then, that you are saying that education is NOT a civil right? That would be new on this blog.
Nice to see thoughtful reflections on use of the term “Final Solution.”
Michael Fiorillo: thank you for helping to model what a real discussion looks like.
Messy, time-consuming, two steps forward/one step back, at times sharp.
Exactly what the leading charterites/privatizers want to avoid with the FUDD chapters [fear/uncertainty/dread/doubt] of their playbook. Slogan, pr, hype, outrageous exaggerations and conspicuous omissions: they have no confidence in the power of their ideas surviving an open democratic discussion. Hence Michelle Rhee and David Coleman ran in terror from a public give-and-take with Diane Ravitch.
This thread is sharp in large part because you have hit the program pushed by the leaders of the “new civil rights movement of our time” under the ribs, in the liver. Devastating body shot. They can’t get up. Fiorillio by KO in the first round.
And just what did that KO punch consist of?
Calling something by its true name.
The self-styled “education reformers” have a BUSINESS PLAN. But in order to sell their eduproducts, in public they call it an EDUCATION MODEL.
You simply pointed out that the Potemkin Village Business Plan for $tudent $ucce$$ is antithetical to a “better education for all.” And by implication, that we need to speak and plan and act differently if our priority is education and not profit.
The evidence is already overwhelming that you are correct in your assessment.
And we didn’t have to wait ten years [thank you, Bill Gates!] to find that out.
That’s why they segregate themselves away in places like Camp Philos. Hearing the likes of what you have to say does so much damage to their “self-esteem” that they find it hard to maintain their “grit” and “determination.”
So I say, perhaps only on this occasion, give ‘em all the rigor you can.
Because they’ve sure got it coming.
Thank you again for your comments.
😎
the Potemkin Village Business Plan for $tudent $ucce$$ is antithetical to a “better education for all.”
very well said!
Howard, they are NOT the same, but there are overlaps.
As someone of the Jewish faith, I see little difference between a group of people who have been targeted by the government, and smeared and lied about through systemic and deliberate propaganda machines, ones that have costs hundreds of millions of dollars. This targeted population has been out down, demonized, and even criminalized.
No, they are not the same, but the format, means, and patterns are all too similar.
Let’s not exploit the memory of 6 million plus people who perished under the third Reich, but let;s not also forget history and how traits and aspects of it can repeat themselves . . . .
“It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry.” [Thomas Paine]
Hmmmm…
Michael Fiorillo: a little off topic, but given your comments, let me take a wild guess. No invite to Camp Philos? But surely ‘thought leaders’ are interested in, er, ‘thoughts’?
Ah, now I think I understand what Thomas Paine was getting at…
😎
We hear on this blog every day that every child has a right to an education, or society owes every kid a good education.
Let me translate that into practical terms: “Every parent expects someone else to do for his child what s/he himself cannot do.”
Is that a fair translation? Or not? Let’s subject the translation to scrutiny or inquiry, as KTA quotes Paine as saying. Is my translation of the concept of a “right to an education” an accurate one?
Your inference/extrapolation may, of course with the emphasis on may, be accurate but accurate to what degree is the question. And accurate in what logical mode of thinking?
I was not aware that there were different modes of logical thinking, Duane. Perhaps you could help establish some common ground of procedure and terminology. What are the different modes within which one might debate?
Harlan, without an education, that promise of a right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness is hollow.
We are talking, here, about a fundamental need that individuals and societies have to transmit what matters to them to the next generation. It’s a need almost as fundamental as the need to eat or sleep. If that transmission does not take place, then the child will not thrive, and a basic evolutionary imperative will not be met. Because of the fundamental nature of this need, people come together and create shared institutions like the public schools. And we’ve done that admirably, in the past. Our public school system has been one of the glories of the world.
Competition is not the only source of value, Harlan. Cooperation is also a source of value–of enormous value. And we are hardwired for it. This is very, very basic in us. The child falls into the world wanting connection and belonging, wanting to help and be part of the whole. Why? Because those who did so in the past–who cooperated–thrived.
I am getting sick of the application of a crude Social Darwinism to all matters. It’s junk science and junk economics. And Darwin himself would have said so.
Fine, as far as you go. But you don’t answer my main question. Does a kid, an individual kid, have a “right” to an education he can’t pay for?
I thought I did answer your question, Harlan. But let me spell it out.
In order for kids to have liberty and to be able to pursue happiness, they must be educated.
Therefore, if they have a right to the former, they have a right to the latter, for to deny the latter is to deny the former as certainly as murdering someone denies him or her of life and so is a violation of the right to life.
All people are born equal. To deny a child an education as good as anyone else’s because of the circumstances of his or her birth, due to no fault of his or her own, is to make a mockery of that foundational principle of our republic.
Those are the principles on which our public education system is based.
If people don’t accept those principles, then I suggest they go elsewhere to live among savages, if such are to be found, who share their sociopathy and their antipathy for the guiding spirit of our laws. And if it’s our leaders who reject those principles, then I consider them traitors as deserving of the disapprobation of decent men and women as any who would arm our enemies. I think they should be removed from office, tried as traitors, and exiled for their disloyalty to those foundational principles. And that’s what I think of our Secretary of the Department for the Privatization of Education, formerly the USDE. What he is doing is treasonous and should be treated as such.
My reference to “savages” is by no means to be taken as a reference to traditional peoples, for those, in all places and times, have recognized their duty to care for, to provide for, to make provision for the education of, their young.
Harlan, I have HAD IT with simple-minded, neoliberal Social Darwinism dressed in lousy economics. Yeah, that kid born to the crack-addicted single mother is just as free as is the one born to Bill Gates. That baby needs to show some gritfullness and get a job. Ludicrous and immoral.
Those who make the argument that it does violence to tax people to provide public education for all children do not recognize that a far, far greater violence is done to the child denied that education. And that’s where the neoliberal argument as it is typically made in the United States proves not to be about freedom at all but just a transparent rationalization for maintaining raw privilege and power.
So, recognizing that taxation is violence, though a much less severe violence, if moderate, than is DENYING EDUCATION TO A CHILD, we must ask ourselves, if we are to tax for education, how do we limit that violence? And my answer is, make it local. Require that all communities recognize the right to a free public education and fund that equitably, but to the extent possible, allow free local communities to make free, local decisions about that education. To the extent that power becomes distant, social sanction fails to keep it in check. It becomes venal and corrupt. We get the crony capitalism that is the the modus operandi of Education Deform.
Perhaps if the arch-reactionary Mr. Underhill lifted his head out of “The Fountainhead” long enough to read the “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights” he might stop with the boorish asking of the same questions over and over.
I keep asking because no one answers, just replies with stupidifying contempt. You well know that the Universal Declaration is a UN document. It’s a wish, not a rule. It is not the fundamental law of this land. It doesn’t even embody the true spirit of freedom in American culture.
Try again, only answer the question this time, if you can.
Standard practice to impugn middle of the road conservatives as “reactionary.”
J. H. Underhill
It’s true that the UN Declaration is not the law of the US. It’s also true that it contains a number of worthy aspirations and suggestions about security, hope and opportunity.
Article 26, section 3 reads, “Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children. “
Thank you, Joe. Then the Universal Declaration MIGHT be construed to support charters and vouchers as part of a parent’s prior right. Germany, of course, prohibits home schooling. I’m remain interested in what our own Constitution (federal) and constitutions (state) guarantee to the citizen and their children.
Harlan, if you’re actually interested in the answers to these questions, you should be reading (1) the U.S. constitution, (2) state constitutions, and (3) federal and state case law. If you work hard enough at it, you’ll arrive at your own educated conclusions. You’re not going to find the answers here, because none of the people you’re asking knows them.
I am working on a doctoral research project inspired by Diane’s book, Death and Life of the Great American School System (2011). If the public school system–as many of us knew it, at least–is dead or near death, it would stand to reason that public school teachers who remember the system as it was prior to No Child Left Behind (2002) have experienced loss and grief. If you remember what it was like to teach prior to No Child Left Behind, if you feel as if teaching completely changed when No Child Left Behind was implemented, or if you ever felt saddened by some of the changes that resulted from educational reform, then you may be interested in taking my survey.
Professional Loss and Grief in Teachers (a survey)
https://ndstate.co1.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_5nCLnPAFadWZX93
Wow, Michael’s post sure brought out the disruption troll routine. Guess he must have struck a nerve.
Great post, Michael
No, just too much time on my hands. Michael’s description is brutally accurate, but he doesn’t deal with his assumptions. I’m just trying to dissect enough to expose the assumption, which is that a kid has a right to expect other people to pay for his education when his parents can’t.
But what is the ‘real’ end game…to create vassals of us all?
You are already vassals. The real end game is to free you all from your chains. But then you’ll be on your own, fending for yourself outside the protected world of government bureaucracy. Some people love their prison cells.
Excellent post. Too bad some folks do not understand that public education is funded by all citizens for the greater good of the entire community; it is not a “service provided to parents.” Read 50 Myths & Lies that Threaten America’s Public Schools by Berliner and Glass; it if incredibly informative and confirms much of what this post is saying.
The end game is to loot public assets for private gain.
Public education is just one institution where the gangsters are busy trying to achieve that end.
That is probably true, Susan, but it’s also part ideological, anti-socialist, which by nature the public schools are.
All right, HU, you’ve admitted that public schools are by nature anti-socialist.
Congratulations! Or should I be giving condolences?
Thank you for catching my error. I meant, of course, “anti-capitalist.”
Once again, it is time to go camping. This is EXACTLY what they are up to and they will be fine tuning their strategy at Cuomo’s Camp Philos. Yes, that replica of an Adirondack plutocrat retreat, otherwise known as Whiteface Lodge, will be housing the wanna-be-masters-of-the Universe at Lake Placid. So send someone you love and trust up there with an RV, a tent, a yurt and a protest sign. Space is available at the local Comfort Inn or the KOA or the nearby B&B. Parents and Teachers know how to Picket In The Pines and you can find their encampment details on Facebook or Twitter. Camp and Confront the Corporate Catastrophe.
A good thought, but money buys politicians, even Democrats like Cuomo, or especially Democrats like Cuomo.
This I agree with. He and Obama are entirely owned by their crony capitalist puppet masters. They are not independent actors. They are marionettes.
“Once again, it is time to go camping.”
Well when I go camping it’s to hang out with Ol’ Ma Nature, learn what she has to teach me, clear my mind of human social interactions.
And it would have nothing to do with those “wannabe” campers at Whiteface Lodge.
We”ve agreed in one way or another that this is an accurate account of what is going on-so NOW what do we do???? HOW do we fix this? Where the heck are the protests?? WHY is this not being discussed in the news? There are MILLIONS of teachers-why doing we all SAY SOMETHING? (We could be a formative group.) I don’t think, at this point, it matters if we are democrats or republicans-which I identify myself as…..somehow, we have to fix this. SO….what do we do? =)
This has been the game plan in the tech world for over 15 years. Because of the increasing cost to education it is cheaper to fit each student with a laptop with individualized instruction. This was explained to me over 15 years ago by my brother a techie—-You eliminate teacher, building, administration and support staff costs. You allow corporate America to profit off education which helps stimulate the economy. I did not believe parents would allow this to happen but we are seeing it begin to come to fruition unless there is great opposition. This is not a plan for the common good.
The goal is not to use the most resources possible to something, but the least so you can spread your resources over all the important necessities and conveniences of life. Most of the time we face trade offs. I teach classes of 250 to 500 students because it allows my institution to keep tuition around $10,000 for instate students and $24,000 for out of state students.
It does not make sense for one teacher to teach 250-500 elementary students simultaneously. Especially for 7 hours per day.
University courses aren’t always back to back and of that size. Seems rather cold and boring to me. I didn’t enjoy impersonal large classes, esp when the professor didn’t even know you.
I don’t think anyone thinks large classes are the best way to teach anything, but they are relatively cheap. Double tuition and we could shrink the classes.
TE. Of course. The question is, are others, not teachers and professors, making 6 and 7 figure salaries? If so, why? When you look at hospitals, CEOs and administrators pull in huge salaries for manipulating numbers and playing the capitalist games. University presidents often draw huge salaries, not to mention coaches and their assistants. Still you say to increase tuition if you want smaller classes. How about realigning the salaries of the big shots?
Public schools are suffering because of cutbacks in taxes and increases in demands. The solutions are to advocate early retirement and getting rid of experienced teachers as well as increasing class sizes of developmental learners. This is ridiculous.
As the purely capitalistic view of “freedom” continues to be thrust in our faces while 1% pocket and refuse to reinfuse the economy with money to spend and more people leave the middle class due to the loss of jobs as industry downsizes, we are faced with more and more confusion and hopelessness.
My school is in the midst of terribly low morale due to the fact that it is difficult to get by and to find others to trust in such an antagonistic environment. There is a concerted effort to give poor evaluations to people over the age of 40. This helps save money so that there is more available for technilogy. But it completes negates the contractual obligations of the administration towards teachers. Keeping the teachers young and less expensive seems to be a goal. It creates havoc for the community and it upsets students to have constant upheaval and change. But it is cheaper.
But, you know, cheap only works on things that really don’t matter.
Certainly all the faculty at the Medical School, most at the Business School, Law School, Engineering School, and senior folks in the liberal arts college in many fields will be earning in low six figures. I am very sure that every full professor at NYU earns six figures, certainly a few earning up to half a million a year when the value of subsidized mortgages are included.
Eliminate the salary of our provost or chancellor would perhaps lower tuition by $10 a year. There are not enough highly paid administrators to make a large difference. The coaching staff is paid by the athletic corporation, largely but not exclusively out of monies generated by the athletic corporation. Again, spread across 30,000 students, not a large impact.
One difference between K-12 costs and post secondary costs is that post secondary faculty do not generally have any step salary increases, so younger faculty often cost more than older faculty (we have one full professor, for example, that earns less than any of our assistant professors).
Many of the faculty members in Ohio are only adjunct professors earning $30k or less.
Salary varies from institution to institution, across different academic departments and within departments. In my own department there are folks earning significantly less than $100,000 and significantly more than $200,000.
It will continue to flatline. Tenure will be further eroded. If thiscGates garbage continues, there will be no teacher ed. There will be more adjuncts. Education will continue to falter. Career teachers will cease to exist.
Tenure became much more problematic with the elimination of mandatory retirement. It is not unusual at all to have faculty in their 70s and early 80s as tenured professors. This tends keeps departments rooted in the past and truly makes Max Planck’s statement “Science advances one funeral at a time” true. Increasingly that is also how tenure lines are opened up.
When are the parents going to start demanding public schools when they can have charters, vouchers, and private schools?
70 percent of all classes taught in U.S. colleges and universities are now taught by adjunct faculty. Almost all of these are given class loads small enough that they cannot be considered full-time employees so that their employers can avoid paying them benefits.
And in THAT situation, Gates is saying, college is too expensive and we need to cut faculty by using more technology.
Meanwhile, where does our money go? Well, we spend as much on what is preposterously called “defense” as does THE REST OF THE WORLD PUT TOGETHER. Your tax dollars at work.
I hear your frustration but remember teachers are seen as the enemy. As the losers who are the cause of the lack of success in education(which in itself is a PR myth) Teachers are speaking out but the response is your complaining, for once you’ll be accountable, look at all the money we spend on you and your retirement and you get tenure and summer vacations blah blah blah. No on really knows how much a teacher works to bond a class and to make lessons exciting and real to the students. I believe in the truth that kids don’t care what you know until they know that you care. The reformers are eliminating the bonding and supportive role of the teacher. The real power is with the parents. As they opt out of testing, defend their kids from the data and realize that school is becoming a miserable experience for their kids there is hope they will rebel and common core will collapse as more opt out and refuse to allow their kids to participate. It’ll take awhile and the propaganda machine and the media machine of the reformers is very strong. But we have Diane’s blog, we can speak out to our family and friends and let them know the truth, most have no idea. And in time I think commonsense will prevail, at least I hope so.
Ultimately, I think the public will deeply, deeply regret privatizing public schools once they’re gone. It won’t make me happy to be right about that, but I’m as sure they’ll regret it as I am of my own name.
They won’t ever get them back, either.
I literally cannot imagine throwing away something that we’ve invested in over the course of 200 years. That’s just beyond my capacity for understanding. It’s the most reckless act I think I’ve ever witnessed in my lifetime. I don’t understand people who just don’t seem to consider any downside to something so radical, and OF COURSE there will be a downside.
The one and only question will be how BIG a downside. I think “big”. Bigger than ill-considered wars, or insane deregulatory schemes that blow up in our faces, bigger than any of those things.
They must not see any value at all in public schools, and I can’t comprehend that. Of course there’s value. Just to throw that away? Unimaginable to me, but we’re watching it happen.
We tea partiers think that the current administration and Democrats are just throwing away 200 years of America, and that the leaders in that discard are public school hate America teachers.
We intend to take the country back from you for freedom. It will not longer be the socialist vision of education (progressive education), but if it happens you have only yourselves to blame.
Attributing it solely to the greed of the privatizers seems to me largely a failure of insight into one’s own soul, essentially a union soul, which never was known to be eleemosynary.
It is the current regime which has done most to eviscerate the middle class of any previous administration, although Bush, damn him, was acting very unRepublican in inserting the policy wedge into events by borrowing to fund giveaways. But then, President Obama raised him by a factor of ten.
Did you get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, HU? Who is the “you” that you and other Tea Partiers want to take freedom back from? Teachers? We’re hard working, teaching kids about their rights and responsibilities as citizens, and we’re labeled by you and a lot of people on both sides of the aisle as the enemy or worse. We are also the middle class and also attacked that way. We are NOT the enemy of you or anyone else. I just want to see some fairness. Unfettered capitalism simply drives the money and rights to a few. We don’t have to be socialist, either, but there’s a lot of area in between laissez-faire capitalism and socialism that you don’t seem to see.
No one disputes that good teachers are tremendously hard working and are trying their best to do a great job in underfunded schools and mal-administered schools.
But I wonder how many public school teachers could REALLY explain what the rights and responsibilities of citizens are. Perhaps they are teaching the kids falsehoods.
Should a kid with poor parents be taught to expect that he has a right to as good an education as a kid with rich parents?
You speak as if everyone knows what the rights and responsibilities of citizenship are, as if they were self-evident. If they are, like the givens in Geometry, let’s enumerate them.
So, Harlan, I have answered your questions. Now, you answer mine.
Do you believe that all taxation to provide equitable public education should be eliminated? That all kids should fend for themselves? That we should depend entirely on charity to make up the slack? Do you like the idea of returning to the socioeconomic conditions of, say, London in 1787 in which to be born a poor child was a sentence to hell?
I think taxation to provide a public education system open to all is essential for the happiness and prosperity of the society. Such a system of schools has always borne the main burden of education in this society and will continue to do so, most likely.
What I object to is the mis use of public money in numerous school systems and then sanctimonious defense of sloppy management and authoritarian teaching with appeals to compassion and fulminations against business and capitalism. Teachers do the work of angels, but don’t have their humility. They even deny that the schools are businesses, which means that they want to have as much money as they think they need without respect for the people who actually pay the bills.
I despair that local school boards and superintendents will introduce efficient spending on their own. The unions fund the campaigns and the boards repay the unions with imprudent contracts. That’s all Scott Walker was fighting against, but the unions vilified him and still do. NC is trying to achieve the same thing although with more agony and pain and folly.
No one would object to tenure, oh, excuse me, “due process,” except that teachers are always in their rhetoric biting the hand that feeds them and posturing about revolution as if they were Bolsheviks in Russia, rather than free citizens in a prosperous and democratic society. Teachers talk as if they were priests of an established religion and didn’t have to live by the economic rules of the rest of us.
Before I debate your major premise, that education is a necessity for happiness, I guess I’d like to agree on how much education is an education and also on what happiness is. I’m not being evasive. I’m just trying to see what the words denote for YOU.
Boy, ed reformers better be pretty damn confident of the replacement for public schools they have in the works, because you simply don’t tear something down when you have no earthly idea how well your new theoretical system will work.
“Building the plane in the air” probably sounds great at a roundtable, but ultimately they’ll be responsible for destroying the existing system, and the new one will be judged just as harshly as they’ve judged existing public schools.
I think you overestimate changes that might occur. Even if all schools become choice schools, they will still be schools that will largely resemble existing schools. We do have very long experience with private schools, and private schools educate far more students than charter schools, twice as many in the latest (admittedly dated) figures I have seen.
I’d like to see this translated into several languages and disseminated to every parent coordinator in title one schools across the nation. Parents of children who fought tooth and nail to get to the US did not do so so that their children could become human capital at the lower end of the work force! Excellent piece.
And the people’s game plan for creating a credible defense? The time is past for lamentation and the wringing of hands.
A great post, Michael.
I have been listening to these Ed Deformers for a long, long time. And what I hear as subtext in a lot of material from the lead deformers–from Gates in particular–is this:
Education has become far too expensive. And the way to make it cheaper is to use educational technology more and teachers less. And the way to do that is to use computer-adaptive learning programs and assessments. And for those you need a single bullet list of standards.
Then, you can have flipped classrooms, distance learning, 1000 students in a classroom working at tablets and a single aide milling around to assist them, and all that’s a LOT cheaper.
It’s SHOCKING to me that the teachers’ unions haven’t understood this–haven’t seen that this is, in fact, the long-term game plan, that they have allowed themselves to be used AS INSTRUMENTS OF THE INSTITUTION OF THAT PLAN.
A plan that just happens to involve a lot of top-down, centralized, totalitarian control, BTW.
And, of course, the Ed Deform model is based on false premises: that are schools are failures and that an extrinsic punishment and reward model (more testing) will fix that failure. Both completely wrong. This snake-oil cure itself causes illness, makes the very illness that it purports to cure far, far, far worse.
That’s how K12 is trying to make its money in Michigan. Get the base school grant, cut costs by delivering stuff on line, and do all the record keeping.
But whether we should call it “totalitarian” is perhaps debatable.
It would SEEM to offer a student more absolute flexibility. But I don’t know whether K12 is requiring on line testing of CCSS standards.
Anyone in Michigan know?
If it involves a central committee making the absolute, inflexible, mandatory decisions for everyone else–critical decisions–that’s totalitarianism.
According to Virtual Schools in the U.S., 2013, from the National Education Policy Center, in 2010-11, there were 250,000 K-12 students, nationwide, enrolled in full-time virtual school at a cost of $6,5000 per student per year, or $1,625,000,000. So, the industry is now worth a billion and a half a year.
The same report says that a couple million students are enrolled in some virtual school classes (full or part time).
The Wendl foundation says that virtual schooling has had “an annual growth rate of 30% since the year 2002.”
My middle son was one of those taking a virtual class (tight by K-12) while enrolled at the local high school. The flexibility of scheduling allowed him to take classes at our local university and complete a state requirement for graduation. If he had not had access to university classes, I suspect we would have enrolled him in more virtual classes as he outgrew the high school curriculum.
I reviewed a bit of this stuff last year, and the little I saw wasn’t horrible–it wasn’t as awful as a lot of online educational junk I’ve seen. It reminded me of the better homeschool study guides–nothing to write home about, pretty low level, not inspiring, but not completely worthless.
The flexibility in scheduling was extremely valuable. The course was not much better or worse than what would have been available at the local high school. My children’s general experience has been that any class required for graduation is designed so that every student can pass no matter the effort level put into the class.
How did your son find the interaction with the online teacher?
He viewed the communication as relatively poor, though he says he attempted little. It was AP Government, and he had many resources in the home.
“- Proclaim austerity for the public schools, while continuing to expand charters.”
Given the run-up in national K-12 traditional public school spending over the last 10-15 years, it doesn’t appear as if this part of the reformers’ game plan is going very well.
For a more specific example, take the New York City Department of Education, Mr. Fiorillo’s employer, which between 2003 and 2013 was led by reform patron saint Michael Bloomberg. During that time frame, Bloomberg roughly doubled the DOE’s budget from $12 billion to $25 billion, a ~55% increase when adjusted for inflation, despite a net loss of 23,000 students from district and charter schools. 70% of that spending goes directly to staff salaries and benefits; 85% of that 70% goes to personnel who work directly with children: teachers, principals, aides, paraprofessionals, guidance counselors, and so on. The remaining 30% goes to pensions and retiree health care, capital plan debt service, books, school lunches, transportation, and facilities. The average NYC DOE teacher makes $73,000 annually, with excellent fringe benefits.
It is true that there has been a sizable increase in the amount of money the NYC DOE spends on charter schools. At the beginning of the Bloomberg mayoralty, there were only about 2,000 children enrolled in charter schools; now there are nearly 60,000, which cost the DOE $1 billion in 2013-2014. That is a lot of money, but it is only about 2/3 of what the DOE spends per traditional district school student, a huge difference even if charter schools are educating lower rates of special ed and ELL children.
If like me you are a parent of children attending traditional NYC DOE schools, you probably have heard a lot about budgets being slashed–from your principal, from your teachers, from your CEC, from advocacy groups and bloggers. It may be that your individual school’s budget has been cut, even without a loss in enrollment. But it is important to realize that the top line of the DOE’s budget hasn’t been cut at all, and despite what people may want you to believe, the increase hasn’t gone to charters, to Tweed lawyers, to pricey consultants, or to waste and fraud (for some reason the wasteful and fraudulent spending on yellow school buses and private contracted special education services, especially for pre-K, doesn’t seem to bother the “they’re slashing our budget!” crowd).
Yes, spending has increased over the past twelve years, yet the number of teachers has declined, class size has increased, while upstate the tax cap has imposed major restrictions on the schools.
Combine that with the new state budget, which institutionalizes DOE subsidies for charter schools, and yes, austerity for public schools is the order of the day.
USDE says high school graduation rates have reached historic high. Agree? Disagree?
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2014/04/graduation_rates_inch_upward_b.html
“Overall, the graduation rate data released today show steady improvement for minority students nationwide, as well as for white and Asian students. For instance, during the 2010-11 school year, American Indian/Alaskan Native Students had an average graduation rate of 65 percent. That rose to 67 percent in the 2011-12 school year. And black students had a graduation rate of 67 percent in 2010-11, which rose to 69 percent in 2011-12. Hispanic students, meanwhile, went from a 71 percent graduation rate in the 2010-11 school year, to a 73 percent rate in 2011-12.
By contrast, white students had a graduation rate of 84 percent in 2010-11, which increased to 86 percent in 2011-12. And Asian students also improved, from an 87 percent graduation rate in 2010-11, to 88 percent in 2011-12.
There were similar improvements for economically disadvantaged students, English learners, and students in special education programs. Those groups had graduation rates of 70 percent, 57 percent, and 59 percent, respectively, in the 2010-11 school year. Each of those groups posted increases in the 2011-12 school year, to 72, 59, and 61 percent, respectively.”
You questions are a non sequitur, Joe.
Exactly right on all counts. This is the end-game of the right-wingers, the corporatists, and politicians who think teacher unions are too powerful.
Similar to the “Lean Production” model so aptly described here. https://www.jacobinmag.com/supplements/ctu_booklet_final_web.pdf
41 year, retiring teacher describes teaching as a “glorious profession.” Enjoy:
http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentaries/257072321.html
Nice exposition of the by the numbers game plan. A piece of advice re “Final Solution”. It takes no further explanation for you to grasp the true terrible meaning of those words. Change the title asap. No doubt you meant well.