Readers if this blog have long known that the Billionaires Boys Club has pledged its allegiance to the privatization of American public education. Among the Billionaires Boys Club, we include the Gates Foundation, the Broad Foubdation, the Walton Family Foundatioon, and hedge fund managers. They are allied with ALEC and other rightwing “think” tanks, all of which are in live with charters and vouchers.
Motoko Rich wrote in Saturday’s Néw York Times about the dedication of the vastly wealthy Walton Family Foundation. The Waltons do not like public education. They do not like unions. They like charters and vouchers. They spend $160 million every year to spread the gospel of privatization and to destroy the public schools that are the heart of most communities.
With their support, the US is recreating a dual school system: one that chooses its students and the other that accepts all. Further, they have got the media cheering for segregated schools, determined as the Waltons are to establish the success of all-black schools.
They use their vast wealth not to pay their workers a living wage but to destroy their communities, killing off mom and pop stores, and destroying their local public school, replacing it with a corporate chain school.
Altogether a great triumph for the cold and mean face of American capitalism, which cares not at all for family , community, tradition, or humane values.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
There should be so many befitting outcomes for the un-fabulous 5 Walton family members whose combined wealth equals something like 30% of all American families combined wealth.
More than 200 years ago, we fought for our indpendence form a monarchy. Today, we find ourselves with many mini-monarchies dotting the economic landscape of the United States, with Royal Waltons as one of them.
The French and their revolution had the right idea. Can we do the same, with the same intensity, but without the violence?
This will become an increasingly pivotal question, and should be . . . . .
A paradigm change in society is what’s needed. To place all peoples, and the environment as the first and only priorities of our world, can only come through what the moneyed elite are forcing us closer and closer to, which is violent social upheaval.
“Sometimes you have to pick the gun up to put the Gun down.”
― Malcolm X
$160 million a year?
On all of these fronts it is important to realize that we are dealing with a fundamentally irrational belief system — its true name is Moneytheism. Its True Believers will push and proselytize anything that furthers the externalization of control over all professions and the monetization of all social values. No amount of corruption, devastation, or evidence of failure will impact their missionary aggression.
YOU got it right, because the real objective of these 1/10 of 1% is not merely money…they already own the wealth once possessed only by nations. The real goal is down the road… the removal of that road… the one that leads to opportunity for all… a public education system that raises everyone.
The impoverishment of a population to the point where the stress overpowers rational thought, allows the plutocrats to do something sen more insidious… to end prior knowledge.
If they control what people know about history, then the human process of critical thinking which depends on analysis (comparison and contrast) is OVER! If a human being has no information, and is truly ignorant of the principles and facts that are the foundation of democracy as laid down by our ‘founding fathers’, then they cannot compare or contrast what is going on before their eyes (and ears) to anything that came before.
The control of a nation of stressed people by fascist liars, can be seen in 1939, in Nazi Germany. People who needed a wheelbarrow of money to buy a loaf of bread desired ‘relief,’ AND they bought the propaganda.
Today, with the miracle of that huge screen that window on the world that the plutocrats are using to explain only their POV, that technological miracle for disseminating propaganda, the future is easy to predict… especially with the 3 branches of government already under their control, and a public so ignorant that a man like Bundy gets to rant.
So, in a sense, Orwell’s 1984 IS their playbook.
When I was teaching kids how to think at East Side Middle School, in NYC where I wrote and taught the entire seventh grade Communication Arts curriculum, along with a humanities teammate who was taking our students through the American Revolution and the Constitutional Congress, I used Orwell’s “Animal Farm,” because it is so appropriate. After all, the animals revolution throws the farmer out, and in the barn they post the Contract.
By the last pages, the generations of animals who remember the revolution are gone. Chickens die fast, and sheep are…well… sheep. The parallels are perfect. A hero of the people, Boxer, is now a pariah, and the pigs are in the farmhouse walking on 2 legs and sleeping in beds.
No story a teacher can choose is more suited to demonstrate what happens when propaganda prevails in the face of the ignorance of past history… (when/where teachers ARE actually permitted to choose materials that offer a chance TO COMPARE AND CONTRAST, to THINK.)
What my 13 year old kids wrote in their weekly “Readers Letters” to me, is evidence that kids can do some serious thinking… and that, dear friends here at a place where teachers speak truth, is why a teacher such as I was HAS TO BE MADE TO LEAVE.
The ability to bamboozle the 21st century public depends on controlling what they know about the real Constitution, and what they learn about the real meaning of FREEDOMS, that were the context. The right to the pursuit of happiness did not include slavery or the right to declare lack of recognition for the government , Mr Bundy.
TO disseminate lies, one needs to control the media (j 5 corporations do this now) and one needs to end public education and thus PRIOR KNOWLEDGE which all of us who cut our teeth on Blooms Hieracrchy of thinking skills, knows is the essential ingredient needed to analyze… and thus hypothesize (if this goes on then) and predict… like this one: “if this education debacle goes on, our people will have no chance/opportunity to learn the skills needed for eating an income in the 21st century.”
Orwell knew that to bamboozle ’em, the schools had to be controlled by the oligarchs.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/BAMBOOZLE-THEM-where-tea-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-110524-511.html
Very much the case, Susan, but I tend to identify the distorters of knowledge of the constitution with progressives, possibly such as yourself.
What, for instance did you teach them about the 2nd Amendment. A professor at Amherst argues that the “right” to bear arms is totally controlled by the concept of the “militia.” The NRA takes an opposite position, that the “right” to bear arms is among those rights given to individuals by their Creator.
What say you?
Mr Underhill, I have a very firm grip on what has occurred, and there is no way I will get into a discussion of what YOU think I should have said about the 2nd amendment. I don’t have time for that, here. I assure you those are conversations I had with my brilliant humanities teammates. My supervisors trusted us to find meaning in historic fac All I did sir, was read with the kids, and ask them to consider and examine the choices that they made; I facilitated thinking and thus talking which leads to… you guessed it WRITING !
It is the THINKING part of that, Harlan, that THEY do not want to find its way into the CORE of what our children learn in school. CAN’T HAVE THINKING CITIZENS; Orwell knew that. CAN’T HAVE THEM THINKING, HARLAN, because then they might really grasp what ‘freedom’ meant to the founders — not what the GOP defines as such.
Facts are facts, sir. No wonder teachers such as I was, had to be made to disappear. I enabled /facilitated THINKING! It was never an objective to “plant radical ideas in young minds!” Why in the world would you say that to someone you do not even know.
But if I was teaching today, I would discuss the value of laws that bring guns into bars and schools. YOUR BETCHA… we would have a conversation about this in MY room… no test -prep there, but for the months THIS KIND OF ACTIVITY… and the professionals on the East Side of Manhattan, and throughout the boroughs would be thrilled that there kids had been accepted to my classroom, and were thinking and writing like crazy.
The curricula I used was a PERSONAL choice based on STATE OBJECTIVEs for OUTCOMES in language and communication arts. I worked with a brilliant MENSA humanities teacher, SEAN REID, who would argue chapter and verse about the founding documents and events that shaped our land . Our students could write…. this was, long before tweets had replaced structure and language, and lyrical sentences were gone.
They wrote incredibly literate letters to me about the challenges that these historical characters faced, and how it was similar to those our people face today as they look for truth and secure future. My students studied these incredibly intelligent , learned good men, for all their flaws, because they were special…. these men envisioned a future where nobility did not rule.
My students wrote to me about government today, and how the media treated facts.
Dear me.
Mr Underhill, You have addressed me in more that one place so I am responding;I am too busy to play word games with people who have too much time on their hands, and need to label and challenge people in order to get a rise.
I write here about a serious issue. I have written to Diane about this serious issue for over a decade, and I join her here, to continue the conversation, from the point of view of a teacher who was there, who saw it happen. You ask “Am I a progressive,” and by asking such a question you betray your intentions.
I do no think of myself as a progressive, but then I know who I am and you do not, and labels are just that. I have no idea of who or what a progressive is. Smart thinker? Forward looker? Fact checker? Hmmmm!
I think that YOU would have me argue with you, so you can show me, how very smart you are,… but the discussions here are serious and important. Post a selfie somewhere instead of inserting your self here.
Actually, the Republicans may not understand the constitution any better than the Democrats. But the tea party, ah, there’s the ones to look to.
Exactly. I imagine that my students, now in their thirties, are drawing some conclusions about the lies and disruptions that are being caused by our legislators and Supreme Court Justices. The pigs own the media and history is being rewritten, if a state passes a law alloying guns in bars, and suggesting that teachers need guns.
Sigh!
George Carlin said it about the corporations that own this country: “They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying, lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want; they want more for themselves and less for everybody else.”
The other day, the right-wing Heartland Institute highjacked words from this Carlin routine and tried to make it sound like he was talking about government instead of Big Business: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/26/1294819/-George-Carlin-Quote-Bastardized-on-Facebook-by-Heartland-Institute
Thanks Susan for these comments (which are a treasure of info and analysis) and I urge everyone to read your link to your article on OpEd, Bamboozled. You (and Susan Nunes) offer the true insights into how and why this denigration of pedogagy is happening. When there is no collective and historical memory, history is easily reinvented by those who write it…as with Rupert Murdoch and his cohorts,and the Cheneys, and all those who push creationism…etc..etc…etc.
An example last Sunday is the shallow NY Times article on the coming election in District 9 in Los Angeles. Recommend a read (but beware of nausea so keep your antacids handy) of this slanted stupid piece that speaks only to the glitz of Hollywood but barely mentions the one serious candidate for Congress, Ted Lieu, who has been carefully vetted and endorsed by local and state Democrats. Much more fun to spend pages on pseudo guru Marianne Williamson than to educate the ignorant public.
Our public has been methodically dumbed down for decades and media is like 3 card Monty to deflect the attention away from the rising poverty as all wealth is diverted to the top. So it is no new news to find that the richest family in the world is spending a pittance to them, though a fortune to us, to destroy public education which does not work to their advantage.
Watch the media….
Remember Reagen tearing the dollar bill, and all his simplistic explanations, while Stockman quietly shattered the economy with trickle down, and unions were beaten into oblivion, and there was the greatest declaration of personal bankruptcy in our history. And when Clinton was impeached for cigar sex and the resultant arguing on CSPAN about what “is is”, while DC legislators colluded to kill Glass Steagall and replace it with Gramm Leach Bliley, and the world’s economies plummeted. Remember only last year when the Congress was exposed for insider trading info to personally enrich the members of the legislature, and they were forced to ban it, then they quietly voted in the middle of the night to reinstate this action (which would put any of us in prison). Smoke and mirrors, Dancing with the Stars, while they pick our pockets and lead us into oblivion.
Just think when all books like Animal Farm and 1984 will be burned/banned, and all that is left are the works of Rand (and his papa) Paul, Paul Ryan, and the 700 Club. When all our phones and emails are tapped not only by our government, but by Murdoch and his faux news media with total impunity.
In Los Angeles this is already in the works as with the decision last week to not investigate farther into the Billion Dollar iPad scheme. I wait now for the Vergara decision and worry that it will be in line with all the ALEC dictums to place the future 100% in the hands of the oligarchs.
The Susans speak truth…thanks from Ellen who has been screaming at the world the plans of ALEC…and thanks to Mercedes who screams even louder and with the stats to back it all up…and thanks to Diane who let’s us have this venue to do our screaming.
Well, at least I drew you out enough to expose you as a mere “shut up you damn Rebublican fool” faculty room debater. Please do recognize the hypocrisy in refusing to do with ME what you asked of your students in debating topics.
Michelle Rhee refuses to debate Diane, because Michelle knows she’ll lose. You refuse to debate me because . . . ?
Hee, hee. You are putting words in my mouth. I never told you to shut up or called you a fool. I acknowledged your selfish use of this site to sow dissension disguised as ‘debate’ and create controversy where none exists. Is that a Republican thing? I never said that, but if the shoe fits…
I have barely begun, to follow the conversations here, and the ones that I do follow are brilliant. If you are experiencing ‘bad manners’ from others, it is because you do not respect the purpose of this site. Diane’s site offers a meeting place where all of us AUTHENTIC educators can meet to figure out what is happening to our democracy as the top -down scoundrels try to run our institution of public education into the ground.
Until now, I have also followed the authentic educators at the sites I have mentioned in earlier comments, so I could determine what was actually afoot across the nation. I did not come here to debate TRUTH, but to discover what is going on . There is a great need for one place where teachers in 52 states and thousands of systems can discover that what is happening to them is happening across the country! I enjoy legitimate conversations with people who are seeking solutions not applause.
Mr Underhill, teacher isolation makes it easy for those who are disrupting our institution.
Teachers barely know what is happening in their districts, let alone what is happening across America. That allows the profiteers to create a false narrative, one that points the finger away from the real conspirators — who know the patient will die when the professional leaves the practice!
You define who YOU are by what you say here at the premier meeting place for AUTHENTIC EDUCATORS… I do love the word authentic. Yes, schools must be run efficiently, but they are NOT businesses. It is not merely true because you say it!
Believe it if you will — but do not, in the name of debate, demonize the sincere, dedicated professionals who converse here in order to stop the puppet-masters who are trashing our democratic pathway to OPPORTUNITY.
.
YOU simply cannot grasp that I am an authentic teacher!
YOU may say what you will, (AND OF COURSE YOU DO) but I know that like the thousands of wonderful dedicated PROFESSIONALS I have met, I was dedicated to the children, and, (like my son, the doctor — hee, hee ) I expected that the time, energy and $$$ I put into my career and the unique talent, education and intelligence I demonstrated, would ensure that some administrator could not slander me into oblivion.
You are so wedded to your own belief system, and your assumptions are so twisted by your own world-view that there would be no point in arguing with you.
Your disrespect for my PROFESSION is monumental, and your disrespect for me, whom you do not know stems from that.
I would like to suggest a book for you to read (or hear on audio), not that I believe you would bother to follow a recommendation by such as I. John Dean (yes that John Dean) wrote “Conservatives Without Conscience,” many years ago. In it, he traces the conservative movement… the original conservative beginnings, when sincere men like Barry Goldwater were shaping it. I recommend it because not only is it beautifully researched and brilliantly written, it is very entertaining, as he describes how the conservative movement was taken over and transformed.
I particularly love the chapters where he offers the psychological studies about hypocrites… how such people do not realize that they are actually died in the wool hypocrites because they really believe that the views that they disseminate is observable reality for the rest of us. So wedded are they to their own perspective, they imagine it is truth, and thus crystal clear to everyone. Ted Cruz is so sincere one is almost ready to trust him, until one realizes the earth is really round.
You are a very intelligent man, and had I the time, I would be happy to debate with you. My family loves to argue, but then they also demand FACTS AND EVIDENCE, AND CAN DISCERN MERE OPINION FROM OBSERVABLE REALITY!
BUT, I am 72 years old, have 4 grandchildren, and a husband of 50 years (not necessarily in that order.) It is finally spring and we will be kayaking soon enough.
I am, a photographer, since I “retired” http://issuu.com/gurneysinn/docs/slsmagmed In other words, I have a life, and I have to make time to write here and at Oped.
I am not an ‘activist’!
I am a professional educator and I am a writer… that’s what I do. I write about what I know to be true. I rely on evidence, and I read widely. Unlike you, I do read all arguments — my cousin wrote for The New Republic, which I read for years.. but I have a firm grasp on observable reality… which was the name of my first blog, when I realized there was a drastic change in the administration of public education.
Since 1963, I have met thousands of people in my career, both students, faculty, parents, and even journalists, but they knew me as a professional and would never denigrate me, as you have done in the mere 2 weeks since I began to write here… Are you enjoying baiting me? There were a few ADOLESCENTS who attempted to DERAIL conversations in my classroom by baiting me. I was too busy meeting the objectives that the “taxpayers” expected from a professional such as I was. Eventually, they gave up and, in the end, discovered that I had value to offer
I suppose that regulars at this site are accustomed to you by now, but I came here expecting serious, fact based discussion. Oped spoiled me. The publisher there, Rob Kall, demands truth and links for all opinions and arguments, and is harsh on those who derail important conversations . Trolls find it hard to enter genuine discussions there.
You think that everyone is a political beast because you are! Don’t you have better things to do? It may be just my opinion, and I could be wrong, but from the things you have said to me, you do not offer me, or any of the serious, professionals here an alternative view of any value. Why would I want to debate with you? Life is too short to waste what time is left.
Thank you again, for answering so fully. I am prepared to accept completely that you were a great teacher. I also accept that this site is a superior place to find out what is going on. I also accept that you have a blessed life and that you want to enjoy it. I will not try to engage you further.
I will say that I am still trying to get an answer, any answer, to some of what I see as fundamental questions about contemporary education. Diane implies that there is a causal connection between income inequality and poverty, and that government has some sort of responsibility for spreading the income more equitably.
In addition, she assumes that were the income to be distributed more equitably that the children from poverty families would do better in school because their families had more money, and would themselves be better able to “address the needs” that are not being met by the parents in those families.
Her basic policy position is tax the rich to fund the kind of wrap around care children need and which is provided by lower and upper middle class families.
This sequence of supposedly interconnecting propositions are accepted on this site as gospel. I think there is reason to question the conclusions both on the basis of causal connection, and on the more fundamental grounds of constitutionality, fairness, and justice.
Your complete dismissal of Ted Cruz is the opposite of my own judgement of him. Thus you are perhaps right that life is too short for you to be wasting it in polemics with me, given who I am and the worth of your family life. Life is probably too short for me too, to be thinking that I might receive much enlightenment here, but over the months I indeed have, especially on the subject of the validity of standardized testing and on the invalidity of VAM. Many here have been substantively transformative of my views, and I thank them for that. Mercedes, Duane, Bob Shepherd, Joe Nathan, Joanna Best, Michael Goldberg, and many others have been quite instructive, and Diane especially on the privatization hunger that we see around and on the relation of the CCSS and its testing to it.
There are others who simply denigrate conservatives (I’m actually more libertarian) by knee jerk and from them I learn only about their limitations. I have heard those kinds of dismissive political remarks in faculty rooms for 50 years. No debate. No examination of fundamental principles. Even denial of the possibility of objective truth.
I really do want to try to understand why people take the positions they do. I think of it as a philosophical interest. Others may see that as trollishness. I do not.
Diane implies that there is a causal connection between income inequality and poverty, and that government has some sort of responsibility for spreading the income more equitably.
She implies nothing of the sort
In addition, she assumes that were the income to be distributed more equitably that the children from poverty families would do better in school because their families had more money, and would themselves be better able to “address the needs” that are not being met by the parents in those families.
She assumes nothing of the sort,
In your recent reply to me you speak of dismissive or knee jerk reaction” and the “denial of the possibility of objective truth.” Yet, incredibly, the things you say demonstrate these very behaviors.
I am glad that you find this site informative. There is more truth available here then you take-away through the filter of your incredible world-view.
I can see you enjoy a philosophical argument, but from the commentary you write, I am not persuaded that you are interested in doing anything more than arguing your own philosophy. Could you be blind that the arguments that go on here may be philosophical in nature, but the PEOPLE who are arguing are more than simply interested in philosophy…. they are very serious about what they know is happening, and they argue to find solutions.
You are learning bad manners from other here:
“Post a selfie somewhere instead of inserting your self here.”
Jon Awbrey & Susan Lee Schwartz: prescient words, but not from an old dead Greek guy but an old dead Roman guy:
“For greed all nature is too little.” [Lucius Annaeus Seneca]
Strangely [?], this won’t be on the Commoners Core standardized non-fiction test put out by Pearson.
I wonder why…
😎
Thomas Wolfe listed GREED as the number one sin. Who was it who said that the greedy capitalist not only wants it ALL for himself, but also NOTHING for EVERYBODY else? Was that Smith?.
Are you using the word “sin” metaphorically and generally, or are you acknowledging that there is such a thing as “sin” theologically based?
Thank you for this commentary. It is so interesting to see anything like this, as front page at The Times, and your take-away is valuable.
Back to the Future! 1880’s and 1890’s here we come. The Question is, “Will we be able to elect another President Theodore Roosevelt in our time and can we find such a person who can defeat BIG Money from both major parties. Times are very different. These people may have learned not to repeat the mistakes of the past. We may have to wait for many of them to die out and hope the intelligent members of the middle class can unit the majority of people so they see what is happening to their families, schools, communities, and children’s future hopes. I will be gone soon, so all I can do is pray for all of you and your children and grandchildren. I am not a very religious person who goes to church each week, so this may be a waste of time, but other than some type of huge revolt or civil disobedience like in the sixties; I see no other answer because we have little to no money to fight back and they own most of the media so what other recourse do common people have? You may answer that we can vote, but for whom? Gov. Jerry Brown will not run and if he did he would probable lose. A Brown and Warren ticket would be interesting but it will never happen. I just cannot understand why intelligent middle class public school parents are not more concerned about their children’s and grandchildren’s future?
We are re-living history. Welcome to the second gilded age. The discussion about education can no longer be framed in terms of Democrat or Republican. It does not even make sense to talk about free market solutions as the monopoly game has been rigged. Even my Tea Party friends agree they were duped. It’s about crony capitalism out of control. Education is not a business. It’s infrastructure.
Infrastructure. Like roads? Like fiber optic cables? Like railroads? Please expand. Or do you merely mean that education is so important that it should be funded as if it were infrastructure. I am troubled by the metaphor. There are many private schools. Are they part of the infrastructure too, like toll roads? Are charter schools part of the infrastructure too? What about voucher accepting schools? Are they part of the infrastructure?
I rather think that education IS a business, but a business operated until recently as a near monopoly by each state. It is a service business, and under government management, is not always giving good service.
It sound very attractive to some parents to offer them “choice” in the service providers.
So once again Harlan you look at Mary’s valuable comment about education as infrastructure, through your own rather tortured prism.
I had not thought about her comparison as such, but now find it very sound and apt. Without education Harlan, there would be no roads, no schools of any sort, no functioning economy of any sort. It is education that is the starting point. It is universal education that led us out of the Dark Ages.
Do you mean literally out of the Dark Ages? I imagine that the Dark Ages extend from about 500 A.D. to the 12th century in medieval Europe.
Please clarify.
EVERY metaphor breaks down when one carries it too far. You declare your “conviction” or “belief” or “emotional attitude toward” quite clearly, but my question is always do the words correspond to reality.
If Education=infrastructure, then infrastructure (roads?) starts in the home at birth. Metaphor expresses feelings but seldom ‘truth.’
Oh, I forgot. You’re a progressive, for whom truth doesn’t exist except as emotional truth.
And let us all give a big hand to the Waltons for killing mom and pop shops and saving America from the tyranny of Main Street in so many towns across the nation. Motoko Rich is another NY Times tool of privatization and I refuse to read her column. In fact, their neoliberal cheerleading so disgusts me that I rarely read that paper anymore.
These been out there for a while, but still funny…
http://www.theonion.com/articles/my-year-volunteering-as-a-teacher-helped-educate-a,28803/
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pKv6RcXa2UI
The public school privatization foundations are great.
Prior to their role in directing public policy that affects every public school student in the country we had a revolving door between government and business interests.
Now we have a revolving door between government, business interests and foundations funded by business interests.
Now they can insist we not only accept this complete capture of our elected lawmakers, but we’re expected to be grateful to them for buying our representatives.
You have to love the complete ridiculousness of Democrats traveling the country campaigning on a increase in the minimum wage for low wage employees, while happily adopting and promoting low wage employer directives for the education of the children of low wage employees.
They really DO believe childrens lives begin and end at the schoolhouse door, no matter how nutty and completely at odds with reality that belief is!
The article talks about 1,200 students in 4 schools with what appears to be pretty decent funding. What the article does not go into is student to teacher ratios and funding per student. Compare that! Then we can discuss results.
It is this very hostility to capitalism, the source of all of our prosperity and wealth, and which ultimately pays ALL the bills for education, that wearies those of us who would prefer to see education offered as a public government function but have no confidence in the wisdom of its providers and defenders as long as they talk like people who want to substitute a command economy for a market economy.
It is becoming increasingly clear to me that the intransigence of public school defenders may, in fact, require the privatization of the schools in order to get rid of the anti-capitalists currently in charge of them.
I urge all readers of this blog to reevaluate their relationship to capitalism before they fulminate against it. There is no real choice between capitalism and socialism if one wants to preserve freedom because socialism ALWAYS leads to tyranny, to interference with human rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Even the apparently more benign European models of socialism such as in France and Greece suggest that they lead to stagnation or bankruptcy.
Robert is right in calling for debate on the fundamental framework of economics within which our debates about education are taking place. The struggle for control of the schools is probably a proxy for control of the economy. My position is that the federal government should get completely out of the education field, and that the individual states should regulate it as lightly as possible. The fundamental symbol of “government” in education is NCLB, RTTT, and CCSS and it’s attendant data collection systems.
This blog is reporting some successes in the pushback against High Stakes Testing, and VAM’s of evaluations, BUT that pushback so far is a contradiction of the public schools’ desire (apparently) to have a government monopoly on education. Government has not had an especially good press lately as a manager of programs, especially the ACA and of energy within the country (one example, the Keystone pipeline).
It MAY just be the case that for individual freedoms to be preserved, and I set freedom ahead of equity as the top and controlling social value, the public schools systems will have to be slowly eroded into extinction by charters and vouchers. That would be a BAD thing, institutionally, but as long as the ‘occupiers’ of the schools are anti-capitalist, I see no other remedy.
What Jon Awbrey says above could, in fact, be better said of statism. It is statethesism which is the true enemy. We all ought to be able to start out from the common ground that every individual is entitled to keep the proceeds from the work of his body, i.e. money, which is stored up work. Until Awbrey accepts that premise those who think like him will find themselves at absolute odds with those who look to profit as the normal product of investment and work.
ALL the value of a product does NOT come only from the labor invested in it. SOME of the value comes from the capital invested. As long as that proper role of capital is denied, there can be no meeting of the minds.
Better trolls, please.
Tired of the Tea Party rants.
Don’t feed the trolls. Few serious economists worth their PhD and not on the plutocrats payroll believe the vast wealth disparity is sustainable as to the long term stability of the U.S. Most agree the economy is broken. Even Milton would probably admit that obvious truth. The question is how to fix it. Republicans say more of the same.
You are wrong there. Conservatives say cut taxes, increase energy production, eliminate regulation, and guaranteed a stable business climate to encourage recovery in the general economy. It is the Democrats who say “more of the same” and even more more. Why hasn’t the Keystone pipeline been approved? Democrats put servicing their billionaire contributors ahead of the welfare of the people.
At least try to address the issues. I am tired too, of person attacks with no effort to refute my arguments. The tea party in many areas has things right. If you are a serious citizen, debate.
Right, MathVale, And of course, more of the same means permitting corporate welfare and the ever widening inequitable distribution of wealth to continue, which BOTH parties have failed to address, since politicians on both sides of the aisle are owned by billionaires now. Thus, after the Great Recession of 2008/09, it has just gotten worse: the top 1% captured 95% of the income gains between 2009 – 2012.
So “A Key Lesson From Piketty: You Can’t Reverse Inequality or Provide Broad-Based Prosperity While Ignoring the Top 1 Percent” http://www.epi.org/blog/key-lesson-piketty-reverse-inequality
Milton Friedman again: “a government monopoly on education” Anyone who thinks that our government functions as a monopoly in education has not studied the history of public education in the US–distant past or more recent.
No matter how you slice it, many people in this country are seeing capitalism of 21st century more problems than solutions–regardless of political affiliations or ideological positions. It needs to be fixed in the long run. Who’s gonna take responsbility for that (or if it could even be in the agenda for 2016 Presidential election) is…, anybody’s guess.
Harlan…suggest you read Heilbronner’s books on the history of economics, and start with the Learning from the Worldly Philosophers.
You state that “I set freedom ahead of equity as the top and contolling social value” and ” every individual is entitled to keep the proceeds for the work of his body”. The early, as with cave men, societies looked only to personal subsistence. For many generations, with the growth of economics, people produced their own subsistence plus wealth for landowners. And it is only an few thousand years ago that paying interest was added into this mix. Read on how money developed, both coin and fiat money.
And it is only in recent times that Adam Smith enunciated that people work for their own good, their own subsistence, and that it is the job of government to help them. Not a direct quote, but shotened to the essence.
But now, it seems your belief system would do away with any security for others as in the form of Social Security, healthcare, pensions, and anything not earned by the sweat of your enormous brow. Most of the rest of us take a different view, a view more in keeping with both philosophic, biblical, and constitutional admonitions about helping the poor and those who are the weakest among us. We do not want even you to be placed on an ice floe in your old age and sent to drift to your own Valhalla.
If you are teaching your particular brand of greed to young minds, I hope there is a principal in your future who sends you off to teacher jail. Hate to think of all the damage someone as greedy and insular as you can do to our youth.
Your reading suggestion is apt. But as for the rest, it’s just name calling, a claim to have a higher ethical standard than I do. Anyone from any religion can claim that. I have no objection to anyone’s wish to work for others voluntarily. I do object to being forced by the government to work for others. Your commendable moral attitude is vitiated and neutralized by your willingness to condone the government’s use of its police power to take another’s work from them. Granted there must be some level of community taxation, but it should be used efficiently and without corruption and should not be of a level that is counter productive. Excessive taxation depresses business activity. Progressives think they can milk money from the public without killing the cow. So often progressives substitute emotion for thought. You seem to be ready to condemn Adam Smith’s analysis of how markets work. Why? Every mother and father works to maximize family income. When they can’t buy everything they want by their own efforts, they have come to EXPECT that someone else will give it to them. That is pernicious to culture and society. If every kid to whom we offer equal educational opportunity were in fact taking advantage of it, no one would object.
It’s like going to the carnival and expecting other people there to pay for your rides and popcorn. Do you go to the carnival expecting to be panhandled by every poor kid? Where do you draw the line for yourself? I think you draw it for your self interest. Yes, your individual self interest. You want a defined benefit pension don’t you? Why? To pay you for years of low wage labor? Wouldn’t it be more self-respecting and dignified to have your unions bargain for defined contribution pensions?
PS. Where in the Constitution are the passages that require support of the poor? In Christian texts the admonitions are obvious. So, are you arguing for a fusion of church and state? And which church is to be “the one.”
Once again, you must excuse Harlan. In his Tea Party Parallel Universe, General Welfare was a military commander in the French and Indian War.
You assume a certain denotation of General Welfare, whereas it may not truly mean what you think it means. It may mean more freedom than regulation.
How do you think public schools are going to fare with this revolving door between the charter school foundations and government swinging away?
I know we’ve all supposedly “moved on” from existing public schools and we’re “winding them down” but there are still a heck of a lot of kids in those schools! How do you think their schools will do with no advocates in government?
http://www.waltonfamilyfoundation.org/mediacenter/new-k-12-education-reform-director-announced
It’s all about dumbing down the majority of students in America. One curriculum, eliminate the arts, eliminate quality instruction and put out graduates that will be happy to work for minimum wage at Wal-Mart. Am I a conspiracy theorist? No. Can I see the obvious? Yes.
“The reach of these private foundations has extended into the public realm. Joanne Barkan reported in “Got Dough? How Billionaires Rule Our Schools” in Dissent Magazine that at least six higher-ups in the Department of Education came from the Gates and Broad camps. Duncan himself served on Broad’s education division’s board of directors.”
So is this okay with people? If we put them under a different part of the tax code and label them “nonprofits” is that some kind of guarantee they’re working in the public interest?
I don’t accept that. “Nonprofit” to me means nothing more than a tax status. It’s not a guarantee of anything, yet it’s used to end any debate.
“They’re nonprofits!” So what? Why do I care if they’re running public policy?
http://usc.news21.com/katie-story2/deep-pocket-philanthropists-shadow-secretaries-education
The U.S. does a great job creating wealth, but a lousy job fairly allocating it. I grow tired of the pampered trust-fund children like the Waltons, Bushes, and Romneys telling the true working Americans to just shut up and eat your cake. The middle class and teachers are the true wealth creators in this country from their daily grind of hard work and quiet determination. They are the real “job creators”. No rich person acquired their wealth on a deserted island.
Is it the government’s responsibility to “allocate” the wealth?
The middle class IS the source of true wealth growthbin a consumer economy, BUT this government has done everything to suppress good jobs. You need to add “the Obamas” to your list of elite rich kids.
But still, to go back to the main question: What percentage of the value created by the work belongs to the capitalist? Zero? What belongs to the worker? 100%
No, it’s not the government’s responsibility to allocate wealth, but it’s also not the government’s responsibility to provide unfettered largesse for the corporations. Many enormous corporations pay no taxes at all, yet complain that they are losing money and continually cut the salaries they give their employees. I pay far more in taxes per year than many of the ridiculously wealthy and enormous corporations.
Harlan…
All industrialized societies use a progressive (graduated) tax system to redistribute wealth, at least to a degree. With the oligarchic tax system in the US, the wealth goes only to the top. This has been the main cause of the death of the middle class.
When laws are vastly different for some groups, as with banksters not being charged for massive law breaking, while most of us are exposed to all sorts of taxation and jail time for not paying up, when the government can go into our bank accounts and take what they want, but they do not arrest and prosecute the bankers, there is no freedom.
When the legislature votes to have the FDIC cover all the losses of these same banksters risky gambling, the money comes out of our pockets, and there is no more freedom.
When protesters about TPP, about Keystone, etc. get arrested, but not the crooked players on Wall Street, there is no freedom.
If we were actually a free society based on free elections, there would not be Citizens United, and now the new McCutcheon addition, so the wealthy can control who gets elected. Neither would there be an organization like the NRA who can buy legislators and intimidate our citizenry, as with the land thief Givens Bundy in Texas who uses our public land to enrich himself, and he is now surrounded and protected by the rest of the gun slingers who break our laws with their rapid kill weapons…shown in all photos of them lately.
Harlan must not be paying attention to the fact that we are rapidly losing not only a Middle Class, but also many if not most of our freedoms.
I made an error in my statement about “raiding” income taxes on the billionaires. Meant to say raising income taxes. That’s what the billionaires are trying to prevent. It will happen sooner or later or there will be civil unrest at some point if the middle/lower classes keep getting the short end of the stick. I suggest everyone read Tom Piketty’s “Capital in the Twenty First Century”. This book is creating a firestorm among the elite causing the conservatives to go ballistic. Krugman discussed this book on Bill Moyers PBS show. I suggest all who are interested watch the show. What is happening in public education is merely a symptom of a much bigger problem in our society: The enormous concentration of wealth (and income) and the political power that flows from it.
So, basically, TFAs are working for Walmart. How fitting
This is no surprise> TFA’s are trained youngsters, not educated pedagogues who grasp the complex profession of how the brain acquires skills. It is like sending trained, young medics to replace surgeons and physicians specialists who grasp medicine.
TFA is a huge scam, and so cruel to the youngsters, who grew up admiring teachers, but imagining that ‘anyone can teach’—just like anyone can draw, OR — ‘if you dream it, you can do it,’– another media-meme that undermines the reality that it takes HARD WORK, and real KNOWLEDGE to succeed in any complex profession.
NO one ‘trains’ law clerks to replace attorneys, or trains enthusiastic fans of science to replace physicists, biologists or chemists. You have to be A ROCKET SCIENTIST to apply the science!!!!
But train a youngster, even a smart one to ‘teach’, and … well…. the Waltons figured out a way to replace the real professional… the grunt on the line for ten months with America’s children (who will be ignorant citizens, soon enough).
All the rest, charter schools, testing manis, core curricula is a direct result of the removal of the professional voice in the American Narrative. HOW ELSE COULD TFA EVEN EXIST?
And Walmart, which is famous for sending their underpaid employees to apply for Food Stamps, once again figured out how to get the government to subsidize them, instead of paying decent wages themselves, since school districts have to pick up the tab for TFA salaries PLUS pay finders fees directly to TFA.
For people who claim to hate government so much, the Waltons sure get a hell of a lot of corporate welfare from it. Talk about milking the system.
Meanwhile, the six Walton heirs have more wealth than the bottom 41.5% of our country, which is more than the COMBINED wealth of 48.8 million American families:
“Inequality, Exhibit A: Walmart and the wealth of American families” http://www.epi.org/blog/inequality-exhibit-wal-mart-wealth-american/
It’s much less costly for the billionaires than raiding income taxes across the board on the super rich.
Professor Thomas Piketty, of the Paris School of Economics, who wrote, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” recently warned us of the growing oligarchy in this country. (Senator Bernie Sanders has been warning of this as well.) The Walton heirs are a prime example of oligarchs. As enormous wealth is inherited from one generation to the next, the country becomes governed by a handful of super-rich families, similar to what Europe long experienced under aristocratic rule.
This can be expedited by quashing democracy, such as by eliminating elected positions and replacing them with appointments, as on school boards, with many of the laws written by ALEC, including voter suppression legislation, and with the gutting of campaign finance laws, including the Supreme Court’s Citizen’s United and McCutcheon decisions.
:
Thanks, but an economist isn’t going to do it, because no one outside the NYTimes reads this stuff.
I’m hoping for a series of corruption and pay to play scandals, thereby making the 2016 election a national referendum on how our lawmakers no longer represent our interests.
We need about 15 Chris Christie scandals, all at the same time. That MIGHT do it, but it would have to come from “below”, ie: voter disgust and anger.
Of course it will take a lot. These are complex matters, and I think it will take a confluence of converging lines of evidence, from a wide variety of sources, to chip away at this and get through to the American people about the growing stranglehold the plutocracy has on our government and public education.
Unless something major happens on the eve of the fall election, I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for reports of mounting scandals though, especially when the popular media that could be reporting on them is owned and skewed by the billionaires.
That same media gives short shrift to world-wide matters as well, including info about the devastation wrought by privatized education in Chile. So, for example, while American teachers have long been scape-goated for the lack of school success of children in poverty, many people have no diea that the achievement gap between high and low income students is not an American problem; it is a global issue: “International tests show achievement gaps in all countries” http://www.epi.org/blog/international-tests-achievement-gaps-gains-american-students/
Our media also tends to inform people about economic matters via various American economists. I think many of them have skin in the game, since they did not predict or prevent the Great Recession, and it has yet to be fixed. A European economist has no skin in our game. (And Bernie Sanders is not an economist.)
I don’t think we can expect the average Joe to read this here. However, we can pass the information along by word of mouth, etc, since I think people will be alarmed to learn that we will soon be under aristocratic rule if nothing is done to prevent it. Even Krugman was alarmed to realize this, as he conveyed on Moyers last week:
http://billmoyers.com/episode/what-the-1-dont-want-you-to-know-2/
I often hear on NPR that NPR gets grants from the Walton Foundation. Are the Waltons influencing NPR on education policy? — Edd Doerr (arlinc.org)
YES..without a doubt.
Many of us have stopped paying attention to NPR since it is funded not only by the Waltons, but also by Eli Broad and other of the avowed corporatists in league to do away with public schools in favor of charters and the major investment opportunities they present.
Further, the 3+ million public school teachers and retired teachers have to make their (our) voices heard — in letters to editors (see the 4/27/14 NY Times dialogue on school choice), blog postings, letters to elected officials, etc. — Edd Doerr
I can agree the mom and pop stores are becoming a thing of the past. Waltons may be the force behind it, but citizens are lined up at Wal-mart for all the bargains. Why aren’t they complaining. I know because they save money. Big box stores are putting all small businesses out. They are cheaper and can offer more.
Additionally, public education is not working. While I don’t believe charter schools are the answer, something has to change. I am a teacher and have to focus so much of my time on scores. I just want to teach. Unfortunately, you are correct in stating that I have to teach common core standards and have no curriculum. Ridiculous! So what is the solution to this growing problem? I honestly do not know anymore.
Wow. Low wage employer Wal Mart is also directing public policy on teacher training, evaluation and “smart retention”? Why? Because of how they treat their own employees?
I can’t wait to see how Wal Mart management approach works when plunked down over my local public school:
TNTP @TNTP Apr 26
Worth noting that @WaltonFamilyFdn (a TNTP funder) also supports stronger teacher training, eval & smart retention. http://ow.ly/wcdAK
How many state and federal lawmakers does Wal Mart own at this point, do ya think?
Maybe we could get a list with a FOIA request or something.
The Clintons are not to be trusted. Bill hails from Walton country and Hillary sat on the Walmart board of directors for six years, when Bill was governor of Arkansas.
I don’t have any illusions about the Clintons. I’ve been a Democrat a long time 🙂
I would have PREFERRED if Bill Clinton hadn’t deregulated the finance sector and pushed thru crappy trade deals 🙂
I actually understand Clinton being on the Wal mart board. That makes sense to me. It’s got to be the biggest employer in Arkansas, and he was the governor.
My complaint is this: I don’t think billionaires should be buying public policy. If Clinton wants to promote that corporation as a corporation, she can do that.
The problem for me begins with them having a huge influence on public schools.
I’m not grateful. There, I said it. I am ungrateful. I don’t really see public schools as needing the direction and advice of a low wage employer. That’s not the “direction I think we should be going in” to put in business-speak 🙂
Chiara…as a lawyer you might have already done a careful search and due diligence on Hillary and her Rose Law Firm. She merits such a search..I will not support her for any elected office, particularly for president. Hillary and Bill did much harm to the country…no reason to think they are going to change. They are both major corporatists and became multi millionaires partly through their contacts with foreign governments in the Middle East. NAFTA and GATT killed the American worker. Welfare to Work put tens of thousands of families on Skid Row. And their support of killing Glass Steagall sent the world’s economies into a long term tailspin which has created more poverty than ever before.
Her choice to be a M of the B of Walmart shows her value system. Greed reigns high on her list.
The Koch Brothers are another oligarchy. They were behind the establishment of the Tea Party, so they are fiercely anti-regulation, as well as being involved in the movements to deny global warming and the need for environmental protection legislation, since that cuts into their profits, such as in the consumable paper products market. I don’t shop at Walmart and I also don’t buy anything made by Koch, which includes the following Georgia-Pacific products:
Toilet Paper:
Angel Soft
Quilted Northern
Soft N, Gentle
Paper Towels:
Brawny
Sparkle
Mardi Gras
Napkins:
Mardi Gras
Vanity Fair
Zee
Food Service:
Dixie paper plates, cups etc
Quik-Rap sandwich paper
Quilt-Rap insulating sandwich wrap
Food Shop sandwich wrap
Menu tissue
And yes, the Kochs are also involved in corporate education ‘reform’:
“Why Do the Koch Brothers Want to End Public Education?”
http://readersupportednews.org/video/4-video/7055-why-do-the-koch-brothers-want-to-end-public-education
The Koch Brothers Exposed:
Today, I attended a Community Meeting which State Senator Daniel Squadron organized to give his constituents an opportunity to voice their concerns about a variety of issues. Eric Schneiderman also spoke. Both men spoke about inequality. However, Squadron voted for Cuomo’s budget. In the breakout meeting on education, many people were very upset. Evidently, schools in District’s 1,2, and 3 are overcrowded; so much real estate has been built during Bloomberg’s tenure as mayor, while schools have not kept pace with the real estate. When Squadron entered the room to sit in the back, I suggested that Squadron sponsor a bill to build a school for every 1500 units of housing built in the city. A bill that would benefit the 96% of students in public schools rather than the 6% in charter schools would further his agenda of equality better than the bill he signed furthering the 6%. Everyone in the room applauded loudly and Daniel Squadron left the room without saying a word. I did not know that school overcrowding was such a major issue, and the Times has not written about it. It has, instead written glowingly about Walmart’s effect on education.
Wow! Good for you!! You go girl!!!