Every once in a while, I post an article that I missed when it first appeared because it offers fresh insight. This article by Bruce A. Dixon appeared in Black Agenda Report. Dixon says that Race to the Top has been the leading, sharp edge of privatization. It is directly responsible for closing thousands of public schools in urban districts and turning over the keys and children to private management.
Dixon writes:
“The national wave of school closings not national news because our nation’s elite, from Wall Street and the hedge fund guys to the chambers of commerce and the business establishment, from corporate media and all the elite politicians of both parties from the president down to local mayors and state legislators are working diligently to privatize public education as quickly as possible. They’re not stupid. They’ve done the polling and the focus groups. They know with dead certainty that the p-word is massively unpopular, and that parents, teachers, students and communities aren’t clamoring to hand schools over to greedy profiteers.
“On every level, the advocates of educational privatization strive to avoid using the p-word. They deliberately mislabel charter schools, just as unaccountable as every other private business in the land as “public charter schools,” because after all, they use public money. So do Boeing, Lockheed, General Dynamics, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs, but nobody calls these “public aerospace companies,” “public military contractors,” or “public banks.” For the same reason, corporate media refuse to cover the extent of the school closing epidemic, or local opposition to it, for fear of feeding the development of a popular movement against privatization, and Race To The Top, the Obama administration’s signature public education initiative, and the sharp edge of the privatizers, literally driving the wave of school closings, teacher firings, and the adoption of “run-the-school-like-a-business” methods everywhere.
“The privatizers know the clock is ticking. They know that no white Republican or Democrat could have successfully closed thousands of schools, mainly in the inner city and low-income neighborhoods without a tidal wave of noisy opposition. No white Republican or Democrat could have fired or replaced tens of thousands of experienced, mostly black qualified, experienced classroom teachers with younger, whiter, cheaper “graduates” of 5 week “teacher training” programs like Teach For America.”
Gentrification follows in the wake of school closings. As Kristen Buras writes in her book about New Orleans, privatization clears the way for land transfers.
Meanwhile, Congress sits idly by, watching Arne Duncan close and privatize thousands of public schools, which pushes out veteran black teachers, busts unions, and creates jobs for TFA. And Congress looks the other way as Duncan ignores the legal prohibition on controlling, influencing, or directing curriculum and instruction by imposing Common Core and Common Core testing on most of the nation’s children. Duncan is doing what Obama wants him to do. But why? Does anyone really believe that mass school closings and privatization improve education. Or is it not a declaration of utter educational failure on the part of this administration, which does not have a single idea about how to improve schools that need help?
Accurate and incredible letter by Dixon. Ohio voters will elect a new state Board of Education this fall. I hope the voters will be informed (Plunderbund has recommendations).
“A $ingle Idea”
The have a $ingle idea
About the public $chool$
And that’$ what we should fear
Not that they are fools
The lastly line says it all, perhaps too politely. I am sickened by claims that these destructive activities are being carried out under the cover of improving educational outcomes and taking action on the civil rights issue of our times.
Thank you for surfacing and circulating this article. More outrage is needed and there can be no doubt, even if regrettable, that the blame lies clearly on Obama and Duncan for accelerating the rate of destruction charted in earlier administrations.
Laura H. Chapman: your first sentence is a keeper.
The entire charter/privatization movement is based on beliefs contradicted by reality. One of the most fundamental tenets: that the frenetic unregulated pursuit of $tudent $ucce$$ for the few will somehow, someway, in some unexplained yet magical fashion, create a bountiful harvest for the many.
With all due respect to the owner of this blog and her recent REIGN OF ERROR, I refer folks to her penultimate book, THE DEATH AND LIFE OF THE GREAT AMERICAN SCHOOL SYSTEM (2011 paperback edition, p. 3):
[start quote]
School reformers sometimes resemble the characters in Dr. Seuss’s Solla Sollew, who are always searching for that mythical land “where they never have trouble, at least very few.” Or like Dumbo, they are convinced that they could fly if only they had a magic feather. In my writings, I have consistently warned that, in education, there are no shortcuts, no utopias, and no silver bullets. For certain, there are no magic feathers than enable elephants to fly.
[end quote]
So one of the Achilles Heels of the “new civll right movement of our time” was well articulated by W. Edwards Deming, the famous management expert, who constantly posed the question “By what method?” [See THE ESSENTIAL DEMING, 2013, Joyce Orsini, ed.]
Simple yet direct: show us how you intend to get from here to there—and don’t forget to be transparent and open on the journey so we can see how you’re doing it.
They won’t because they can’t. Exemptions, hiding funding sources, shameless manipulation of numbers and stats, adoption of worst practices from public schools, unethical and immoral treatment of school staff and students and parents, ad nauseam—too often the charter/privatization crowd lead the way in showing how not to do things the right way.
Thank you for your comments.
😎
Democrats must be thrilled Republicans will probably take the Senate. Backpack vouchers for all!
They can give outraged speeches about those bad, bad Republicans while quietly backing the whole agenda.
Indeed, Chiara. As to the original post, who else but a DINO, and a black man, could have hoodwinked so many people of color? This is not a racist statement; it is a true statement. The fact that our President is a black democrat spoke volumes to all of us, and we have been, indeed, hoodwinked. We never saw it coming, until so much damage was done that we began to decipher the rhetoric, and expose the true agenda. This is a civil rights issue — Obama and Duncan have trampled over neighborhoods of color, and set us back decades. Shame on us for not seeing it sooner. We really do need some class action lawsuits to stop the madness. How is it we elect these fools, and they enact legislation that suits them, to our detriment?
I could not believe the Supreme court opined that corporations are people. What happened to pay to play laws? What happened to election reform? Why have we allowed OUR ELECTED OFFICIALS to completely eviscerate the separation between church and state? Why have we allowed the Gulan schools to exist here, and house its founder in the Poconos, NJ? Why is the US outsourcing education to the UK via Pearson and allow our schools to be held hostage by Gatea, et al?
A day of reckoning is coming. “They” said we were crazy conspiracy theorists—and it all turns out to be….TRUE.
I genuinely believe it won’t get better as long as we have unlimited money in campaigns. It’s a huge industry at this point, and everyone is in the club except ordinary voters. Everyone is making money off this: pundits, politicians, think tanks, media companies; everyone except “us”.
I don’t think it’s ideology or political party or even individuals like President Obama. I think it’s corruption, not the federal statute definition which has to be direct quid quo pro to be actionable, but corruption in the sense that wealthy people bought our government.
I think people know it, too, which is why they are so incredibly dispirited and have stopped looking for government to work on their behalf. They know it’s rigged.
Chiara, YOU are right.
It isn’t just President Obama. They’re privatizing everything in Mexico and the UK, too, and those are just the two places I’ve read about.
It’s a disaster for ordinary people if they privatize public education.
This ends badly for us. All of us.
Tuesday, Oct. 14, there is a rally at the Ohio Department of Education, at the corner of Broad and Front Sts., at 11:15. It’s organized by Ohio Friends of Public Education and Progress Ohio.
It is gratifying to learn that the Black community is waking up to the damage done by privatizing public education. The poorest and most vulnerable kids are still being left behind.
If you teach in Black and Latino neighborhoods, take whatever opportunities you have, to give copies of information like Bruce Dixon’s letter and to similar alternative news sources like Black Star News; http://www.blackstarnews.com, to your student’s parents, and help inform them about what corporate America is really carrying out in their communities.
Yes it’s disheartening that Obama is pushing this privatization movement in which thousands of jobs for teachers are destroyed not to mention neighborhood schools. Had I known then what I know now, would I have voted for him?
I had an inside seat to the charter school movement approaching Obama during the 2008 campaign. I asked someone in the movement how they were going to get Obama on their side since he was a Democrat. She said a group was going up to see him. (Remember the group that went up to see Cuomo when he was running?) This was July, 2008. I grappled with voting for him – I really didn’t want to; I was considering voting for McCain, but wouldn’t do it because of Palin. I do remember Hilary campaigning to shut down NCLB and I remember he marching with Randi. I wonder if they have gotten to Hilary, as well. It’s interesting that Bill Clinton has just come out with the statement about charters’ original mission.
Diane, a trenchant provocative analysis.
As you describe (and as we knowa0, the effects of the “Race To The Top have been disastrous for all public schools and especially to schools in urban inner cities: the public school closings and firings of minority teachers, along side the stupendous rise of privatized education has been shocking.,
My question is one of prognosis: Are the changes in the public school – private school terrain that you articulate firmly rooted public soil regardless of state and federal electoral changes? Do these changes now reflect the long terms -bover the next ten to twenty years – relationship between the public and private sector ? Is there any reason to believe that the private school empire is going to wither and that the public schools will rebuild over time, even if the Common Core/Standardized testing war recedes ? If not, what are the implications for the public schools, especially viz a viz your OP?
I would appreciate reading your reflections, as well as that of other posters to my questions.
john a,
I will take a stab at your provacative questions. In cities like Newark overtaken by charter schools, the public school system will never fully recover. The poorer neighborhoods of the city are being targeted by the One Newark plan. Renew schools are becoming warehouses for charter school rejects, English language learners, special education students and garden variety behavior issues. The more savvy parents are seeking out the best available options. Humpty Dumpty will not be put back together again.
provocative
Sorry!
NJT, provocative is the way to go. How else to scrape away the delusions?
Thanks for the ‘stab’, NJ teacher. I am distressed and saddened by what I foresee as the endless ‘end game’ of the ‘deformation’ project. . The coming generations of school kids, parents, teachers and communities will be presented with two parallel, alternative universes of school systems: one public and one private; each with norms and ethos: pseudo educational choice under zombie capitalism. Regardless, it is clear that we must continue our struggle and salvage what we can of the public schools. Without struggle, we will be left with totally shredded public schools. Concurrently, we must do whatever is necessary to undercut and push back the privatization movement and tear down the charter schools brick by brick.
Again, I welcome any ‘stabs’ at prognosis or tactics. We must be working ‘in the moment’ and looking ahead in a clear-headed manner.
john a,
You have stated the case far more succinctly than I. I, personally, have no more energy for fighting anything. My career has been devastated. I do my best for the children and hope to get out in one piece.
NJ Teacher, your plight deeply saddens me, but it does not surprise me.
Those who fight against the ‘deformers’ – lord I hate that neologism- are being ground into the dust . It is totally understood that at some point the exigencies of maintaining emotional health and provide for our kin over rides our capacity to continue to actively participate in the forefront of the resistance.
The core issue can be summarized thusly: as activist, experienced teachers are silenced, forced out or retired, who will take their place? Truth be told, we are not seeing a rebellion by rank and file teachers. We know that the AFT and NEA have either been blatantly bought -off or co-opted. Are there any viable large scale organization that can or will step into the fray on behalf of public school teachers and public schools? A reality driven perspective points to only one source of resistance and rebellion: parent and community groups who see their kids in public schools whose staff is being decimated and school buildings that are rapidly falling into disrepair.
Yes, there is growing resistance sprinkled across the city. We have read about the actions that are being taken. This provides us with some optimism. Will the resistance and rebellion coalesce into a viable counter weight to the billionaires and their lackeys, conservative foundation obfuscators and liars, privatizer and charter school sharks? Time will tell. In the mean time what will happen to the public schools?
We all must do the best we can within our own limitations
NJ Teacher, you will continue to fight in your own way. That seems certain.
Another study that says charter schools don’t do any better than public schools:
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20141013/BLOGS02/141019962/chicagos-charter-schools-experiment-flops-report-finds
It doesn’t matter. The Obama Administration bet the whole wad on charter schools, and there’s far too many influential and powerful people who backed this 100% to go back now.
The worst part isn’t even the charter schools. It’s the disinvestment in public schools. That’s what has done real damage and that’s what we’ll pay dearly for down the road.
You can’t denigrate or (best case) abandon the schools most children attend and “improve education”. It won’t work. It never made sense. Only blind true believers could have pursued it. if you’re harming 90% of schools, you’re not improving education.
Chiara, Your post makes total sense and as usual, ‘fills out’ the discussion. I would tweak what you wrote a bit: The disinvestment in public schools goes hand in hand with the investment in private schools; it is these concurrent actions for which we “will pay dearly”.
They’re doing the exact same thing in the UK. The language and claims are exactly the same:
http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21623766-academies-programme-has-transformed-englands-educational-landscape-new-school-rules?frsc=dg%7Ca&fsrc=scn/tw_app_ipad
They’re privatizing public schools. Only someone who is bought or blind could deny it.
Politicians should be forced to defend this, because you know what? NONE of them ran on it.
In Philadelphia more than 750 million dollars is taken from the public school budget annually to support charter schools in the city. ( No doubt this number is similar for other cities with economic demographics that match Phily’s) How could this money have been used to improve the public schools? Smaller class sizes, social and emotional support for students who desperately need this more than just harder tests, enrichment programs like sports, theater, music, visual arts and etc. all of which build social competency and engage students in ways that are deeply meaningful and relevant to their own lives.
Instead our tax dollars are used to build a flotilla of test prep factories, in the form of charters, that, if they are successful, build this success by narrowing instruction, and skimming the best students from the surrounding public schools.
Well couldn’t of said it any better. The utter destruction of public education and minorities in the teacfhing profession
How sad that the destruction of public schools is the only solution that these politicians can put forward. I am the protect of public school education in the inner city, poorest of neighborhoods in the Bronx, NY, and while I was never subjected to all the bells and whistles of today, I became a Public School teacher myself because of all those great teachers I had in the past. Today, I have been torn down and no longer see myself staying long in a profession that does not allow me to teach but only to the test. America when are we going to wake up and see that those who went on to become something in life, was because of the great teachers that were dedicated to the profession and their students. Why can we go back to what worked in the past and stop tearing down the very fabric of this country which is education.