I blogged this article before. Having just finished Bob Herbert’s brilliant new book Losing Our Way, I decided to post it again. This is to remind you that thoughtful people outside the field of education see clearly what is happening. Understand that some very rich and uninformed people are trying to grab control of our public schools and that they use the false narrative of “failure” to justify their intervention into the world of schooling, about which they know less than nothing. Less than nothing would be a good description of the knowledge base of Bill Gates, Eli Broad, the Walton family, John Arnold, and David Welch (Vergara man). Less than nothing is when people are misinformed, have wrong-headed ideas, and do damage to children and teachers but call it “reform.”
I will write a full review of Bob Herbert’s book. Let me just say as a brief summary that it is the best book on the current state of America that I have read in many years. It is sobering, thoughtful, and gripping.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I agree with the importance and value of Herbert’s book, which I wrote about <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/10/17/1337303/-Responding-to-Bob-Herbert-s-Losing-Our-Way?showAll=yes"here when I finished reading it.
I’m glad that Bob has seen the light. That wasn’t the case a few years back.
Great summary of big business’ attempts to take over and profit from public education. The human story of this debacle still needs to be told. What has happened to the students of these failed charters and cyber schools? What has happened to the neighborhoods that have lost their neighborhood schools? What has happened to the teachers that have been and continue to be collateral damage in the war on public education? They studied in colleges of education, in some cases took out loans to meet certification requirements, survived the 50% that generally leave, only to lose a career because billionaires want to make money. Even though some may have deserved to lose a position due to incompetence, how many effective, caring teachers were caught in the web of the plot to destroy their careers? How many wonderful, bright young people are we losing and will continue to lose since teaching is no longer a viable career? We need to hear more about the people that have been harmed by monetizing public education in this country. This story should be told by a documentary filmmaker.
My life has been for ever changed that is for sure and my story is complicated. I have an MS in SpEd, been a special education teacher for 14 years, I have an administrative certificate, have an 11 year old son with autism. I have experience with working in unionized school districts before NCLB, independent school district, home coalitions, and charter schools. I have sent my children to public school, home school , charter school and replacement school ( health insr, sponsored ABA based therapy/ schools). I and my child have been descriminated against this past school year. I have lacked legal resources to address FAPE, IDEA or other civil rights violations and with time constraints I am dead in the water. I feel my next move will probably be into the advocate type field to try and help others where I fell short..
My children are back in public and currently my career is on hold. I never wanted to be a fighter as I feel I have always been friendly accommodating and ready to play on the team. However I feel I am finally being backed into to it. My spouse an ISD physics teacher is down and depressed most days and await the frequent bashing of less qualified administration most days. He puts in an average of 12-14 hours a day and at least another 8-10 hours on weekends. His student do alright in a near title one campus. Still he is so unappreciated and just beaten. Time to look for another job but he never has the time. You want a story contact me.
So I Am, We all in Diane’s community hope that the picture improves for your family. If your husband truly likes teaching physics to public school students, he’d be wise to tough out the turkey admin’s. He could find a job in corporate America where he’d work 70 hours a week for bosses who don’t know what they’re doing, without the gratification of making a difference in kids’ lives. Teachers teach more than content–they model problem-solving approaches, resilience, citizenship roles within a community.
Most of these big-business tycoons and icons became exceedingly rich because of the unjust wages they pay their employees (the 5% upper management hoarding 95% of the profits, while the remaining 95% of the workforce fights for the 5% crumbs). Such greed is condemned in James 5:1-10, where in the New Testament the word “woe” is used, as extreme warning to this who pay “fraudulent wages”, while they keep “unjust gain”.
Imagine the story where a CEO is complaining about a failing school, where 30% of the children are from families that work for his company; families so poor both parents have to find supplemental work because this CEO does not pay a fair living wage.
This “failure” started with the substandard wages of the CEO’s company, not the public school.
So, if these execs really want to improve public education (not just take it over and enslave in the market of their domains), then they would empower the families of these schools by paying them better. That will do more to improve education than any of their take-over scenarios, but that is probably too selfless a thing to ask of them. For, they don’t care about people, but about profits and bottom lines
Shareholders tend to get upset if upper management is hoarding 95% of profits.
Well, if they’re not hoarding their profits (or buying back their stock with it), then how many companies are currently paying a 5% dividend?
Depending on the company, and keeping in mind that interest rates are historically low, cash can be almost like a hot potato, and many investors may prefer that the company reinvest profits rather than distribute them.
Actually, they’re not investing their profits, but are sitting on them.
Simultaneously, they are borrowing money, thanks to near 0% interest rates/Federal Reserve Bank subsidies to the Overclass, to buy back their own shares, goosing share prices and increasing the payouts to management, via their achieving stock price targets.
Borrowing money to buy inflated stocks: what could possibly go wrong?
I thought the assertion was that upper management was hoarding 95% of profits for themselves.
Yes, certainly lots of public companies have been sitting on cash, increasingly so in recent years, and in some cases involving spectacular amounts of cash. Shareholders haven’t seemed to mind too much so far.
A substantial portion of stocks are owned by institutional investors who have historically, been passive. Fortunately that is changing. For example, Calpers recently sold off all of its hedge funds.
Most of the big banks, run by the unindicted banksters, still have about 1/3 of the stimulus cash that Obama gave them. Instead of using it to pay back falsely touted, sold, and packaged mortgages, they have this gift from you and me sitting in governent instruments.
They did not stimulate the economy as they were supposed to do, but used the money to buy failing smaller banks, let them fail then to write off against the big profits the biggies still are making. Think Jamie Dimon and JP Morgan, Ken Lewis and BoA, Wells Fargo, Chase, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs with both Paulson and Geithner (who ran the NY Fed too), all slimy turds…three card monte again with taxpayer money, for now they are all indemnified by the FDIC…so that they can take even more risk playing with our money.
Vote for Elizabeth Warren who is the only person speaking out about all this. And then there is poor Brooksley Born who spilled the beans in 2008 and faded into obscurity when she should have been made AG. Now we see the devious, banker friendly, Obama AG, leaving to return to Wall Street.
La Ronde.
“Less than nothing is when people are misinformed, have wrong-headed ideas, and do damage to children and teachers but call it “reform.”
< 0 would be a negative quantity, and the impact has in fact, been negative.
“The Billionaire’s Brilliant Idea”
Make the teachers smaller
That will do the trick
Problem is they’re taller
Than the average kid
Kids can’t see their writing
kids can’t hear their voice
It really is a height thing
We really have no choice
But firing all the tall ones
Rewarding all the short
With VAM that measures small ones
Reform of first resort