Lloyd Lofthouse, a regular commentator on this blog, has written a succinct history of public education, bullet points that show the good and the bad, as well as the recent efforts by billionaires to destroy public education.

Categories Corporate Reformers, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Privatization, Race to the Top, U.S. education, Walton Foundation

48 Comments Post your own or leave a trackback: Trackback URL

jeanhaverhill says:

November 19, 2014 at 9:17 am

This is quite interesting; he points out the “Friedman” voucher story which is still pervasive today.
More Brookings posts in their emails today about how the “least gritty” of us, the “feckless parents”, just aren’t making the right choices … so that is why we have such inequality in the economy ….. an onion story would be great about now.

quoting Brookings emailed news : “Government programs can help reduce inequality, but to make real progress individuals and families must make better choices about their own education, work, and marriage.”

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- Duane Swacker says:
  
  November 19, 2014 at 10:20 am
  
  But I thought there were only the chosen few whom god and government deemed more equal than the rest of the poor indifferent and lazy peons so tough luck to those no matter how much “grit” one displays
  
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  - SomeDAM Poet (Devalue Added Model) says:
    
    November 19, 2014 at 10:41 am
    
    You’re supposed to display grit(s)?
    
    I thought you were supposed to eat ’em
    
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  - jeanhaverhill says:
    
    November 19, 2014 at 10:43 am
    
    Duane , that is a story often told in sociology at boston University : Harvard established by the Calvinist elite; Boston U. established by the Methodists (anyone can be saved if…)….. salvific rituals designed to change me from grit less/feckless parent to?????… whatever…. this is just an aside (would like to continue in the Onion, though)… but Brookings says I needed to make a better choice of marriage partners or some other CHOICE theories (in the multiple meanings)… But then there is “opportunity ” theory and this past week I heard a consultant who said “this preschooler needed an opportunity for a Nap”… how we hold on to these beliefs and moralistic judgments …. but rather than get on to the absurd I think I’ll go back to reading “The Tyranny of the Normal” before I donate it to the paperback sale at the library.
    
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- moosesnsquirrels says:
  
  November 19, 2014 at 10:39 am
  
  That’s an echo of a part of the nastier streak in the Progressvie Movement, the part that brought us eugenics. Often, as Duane points out (albeitwith tongue in cheek) the Calvinistic threads of American culture are juxtaposed against the social critique to then claim that “nothing can be done” and thereby maintain the status quo.
  
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- SomeDAM Poet (Devalue Added Model) says:
  
  November 19, 2014 at 10:53 am
  
  Government programs can help ~~reduce~~ increase inequality, but to make real progress ~~individuals and families~~billionaires and politicians must make better choices about their own ~~education~~propaganda, [collaborative] work, and marriage.”
  
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- Linda says:
  
  November 19, 2014 at 6:02 pm
  
  If Melinda Gates and Laura Arnold are good human beings, they made poor marriage choices.
  
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Matt Metzgar says:

November 19, 2014 at 9:23 am

An interesting side effect: the changes in public schools are also hurting private schools. In North Carolina, there are now more children being home-schooled than in private schools: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/08/13/5104596/home-schooling-accelerates-in.html#.VGymSt_wu1s

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jeanhaverhill says:

November 19, 2014 at 9:25 am

Matt the charter schools have also hurt parochial schools….. but I don’t think the parochial schools are selling off their buildings to the charters… something our governor and ed commissioner need to learn more about…..

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- Matt Metzgar says:
  
  November 19, 2014 at 9:33 am
  
  Sure, I agree. It seems the whole mix of Common Core, charters, testing mania, etc., will push more and more families to reject schools entirely and move towards home-schooling.
  
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  - jeanhaverhill says:
    
    November 19, 2014 at 10:44 am
    
    and, let’s not vaccinate so the scourge of small pox and polio can return…
    
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Donna says:

November 19, 2014 at 10:09 am

Home schooling is perfect, if one of the parents doesn’t work, and that parent is all about it. Again, isn’t this a socioeconomic issue? I know there are people who will bash the poor and say…they don’t work, they rely on government handouts – meanwhile, there are fatherless homes where the moms work 2 and 3 jobs just to keep a roof over their kids heads. How would that mom home school?

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- Matt Metzgar says:
  
  November 19, 2014 at 3:35 pm
  
  I’m not saying it is ideal (or affordable for many), but only that it is increasing as a result of the changes in public education.
  
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- Linda says:
  
  November 19, 2014 at 7:22 pm
  
  Sadly, “that mom” Donna references, may actually be claiming to “home” teach.
  When a parent says he/she will perform as his/her child’s teacher, there’s no outside, oversight. Students in a “home schooling” setting, may be barely, existing. On Dr. Phil McGraw’s program, he expresses surprise over and over again, when parents from various states, tell him there is no one checking up, on what they are doing, under the guise of home schooling.
  School attendance, can now be avoided with the stroke of a pen.
  In Columbus, Ohio, 4,500 children and youth experience homelessness. If children express strong enough resistance to school, their parents, who are barely surviving on minimum wage jobs, may grow weary and relent, to a home school charade. (Would the oligarch’s children want to attend school, if their classmates knew their homes, were shelters, campers or weekly stays, in low-rent apartments? If the other children could see their circumstances of poverty? If the other children knew they owned nothing, not a bed, not a pillow, not a table, not a chair….?)
  
  The callous ignore stories about children in poverty and of schools, as refuge, for the children of abusive and/or mentally ill parents.
  Why doesn’t the media report on the failures of home schooling, in addition to their reports of outlier home-schooled kids, who score well on SAT’s?
  It is my fervent hope that, given a day of reckoning, all of the lost children, the education deformers and politicians stepped over to make money,….. will haunt them, eternally.
  
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  - NJ Teacher says:
    
    November 19, 2014 at 9:05 pm
    
    Linda,
    
    I am waiting for the day of reckoning too when all that is amiss will be set right.
    
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  - Beth says:
    
    November 20, 2014 at 8:24 am
    
    Most parents who homeschool are doing it for the betterment of their children. Please don’t paint such a negative picture of homeschooling.
    
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  - Linda says:
    
    November 20, 2014 at 6:40 pm
    
    I’ll add to my portrait of home schooling. During school hours, most of us have seen well-intentioned mothers with kids in tow. They look lonely and desperate as they try to make a lesson, out of a cash register experience. They have sad, searching looks, as they wander the public libraries and parks. People are social beings. Children need friends. Mothers need friends. The length of the school day is too long, day in, day out, for kids and moms to exist, without being part of cohesive groups.
    Often homeschooling is pedaled by patriarchs, who seek a lesser role for women. It’s lauded, under false claims.
    None of us knows what we don’t know. Not teachers, not fathers, not mothers. Multitudes of experiences outside of home, increase the odds that students will have a broader informational base. If children only watch the problem-solving and coping skills of their parents, they are denied the opportunity to see how others interact and find ways to navigate life.
    Men like the Koch’s, plot to deny us publicly-supported parks, libraries… The plutocrats are trying to form a society where people are ground into poverty and have no groups from which to build a coalition to act against concentrated wealth. Home schooling certainly doesn’t work against that objective.
    
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  - Beth says:
    
    November 20, 2014 at 9:57 pm
    
    Dear Linda,
    Where do you see these types of people? Do you know for sure that they are homeschooling, or are you just making assumptions and generalizations? What is your background?
    I attended public and parochial school, and have taught in both public and parochial school. I now homeschool my own children. In all my years of teaching and homeschooling, have never come across what you are describing. Please explain more or fill me in. Otherwise, you are supporting lies and myths. And I don’t know why.
    
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  - Linda says:
    
    November 21, 2014 at 5:37 pm
    
    Beth,
    Some conclusions were based on my observations and my interpretation of discussions, with home-schooling mothers and fathers. The views were reinforced, by the observations and comments of friends and extended family. When I used those sources, they were clearly identified as such, or a person could reasonably infer the source.
    Specific examples like Andrea Yates, the polygamist wives, homeschooling out west and the court cases that can be found in internet searches of “home schooling and abuse”, I did not cite.
    I don’t have knowledge about the extent to which they reflect the greater whole. They are not myths and they are not lies but, how indicative they are, of the whole, we don’t know.
    I lamented the lack of investigative media interest in data. You and I can agree, that that information should be of critical importance to politicians, when making education decisions?
    Relative to the patriarchy comment, most of the homeschoolers in my Midwest community embrace homeschooling and find support for it, as a result of church influence. Would you dispute that traditionally patriarchal churches appear to generate more home schooling parents than churches that are traditionally less patriarchal? In your experience do patriarchal churches espouse equality for women?(Anecdotally, based on my discussions or hearsay, home schooling parents, from the secular side, who have spousal support, sheepishly add, a preference for not returning to 8-5 work experience, outside the home, which muddies the defense waters.)
    Relative to the final Koch comment, the New Yorker magazine did the seminal article on Koch influence, in 2010. Other informative articles have appeared since then. The well-established magazines, with reputations to protect, could have been sued for libel, if they lied. They were not sued.
    The evidence about the march of Americans into poverty is well-documented in statistics. Piketty’s recent unassailable book makes the case.
    There are references for the social nature of human beings. There’s a history of punishment based on denial of community e.g. shunning in religion, isolation in prison….
    Have I left any sources out?
    Respectfully,
    
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  - Linda says:
    
    November 21, 2014 at 6:33 pm
    
    When the teaching profession is gone, what career will home- schooling mothers recommend to their daughters?
    At my high school graduation, my mother, a degreed nurse said, “I will pay for your further education, unless you select nursing. The pay is too low and the work is too hard and dangerous.”
    
    The number of female MBA’s has remained constant for decades and female representation, in technology fields is low. Entrepreneurship, in recent years has been stifled by family financial insecurity. There’s a glut of lawyers. Three-fourths of the declining professoriate is part-time or temporary. Engineers are mainly employed in fields where goods are produced. The U.S. economy is dominated by services.
    
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  - Beth says:
    
    November 22, 2014 at 3:02 pm
    
    Linda, what you describe is so far off base of anything I have ever experienced, seen, or read about in relation to homeschooling, other than the sad cases of mental illness that also occur in public schools. I started replying to each point but frankly don’t even know where to begin. And I have no idea to what you are referring when you say, “When the teaching profession is gone, what career will homeschooling mothers recommend to their daughters?” Huh ???
    
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  - Linda says:
    
    November 22, 2014 at 3:54 pm
    
    Beth,
    The loss of teaching jobs and the loss of professional pay and benefits, directly relate to the charter school and home schooling movements (perhaps, you could ask someone you know, who may be able to see the connection).
    Without (1) teaching jobs, (2) sustainable wages and benefits, and with information technology skills (Common Core), as the dominant skill set, there will be a major labor disruption, that will disproportionately affect women.
    
    Dr. Ravitch recently posted about ALEC. The home school and charter school movements are the “network of parallel cultural institutions” that Erick Heubeck called for in his book, Integration of Theory and Practice. He used the work of Weyrich, a founder of ALEC, as a basis for his book. Wikipedia entries for both men provide more info.
    Respectfully.
    
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  - Beth says:
    
    November 22, 2014 at 4:18 pm
    
    Linda, is the main purpose of schools then, to support jobs for women? That is an argument that critics use against public school . . . That gives me the impression that the institution is set up to support a myriad of professions and jobs, taking the focus away from the main focus, which is the education of children. It is a poor argument for support of public schools, in my opinion. Regarding home schools and charter schools, they are vastly different. Charter schools are supported by public tax dollars but are highly selective, while homeschoolers, at least where I live, are not supported in the least by public money, yet we still pay taxes.
    
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  - Linda says:
    
    November 22, 2014 at 8:14 pm
    
    No Beth, the main point is that charters provide poor education at a high price, and they are rampant with fraud. Some data is provided at Knowyourcharter.com. and the fraud, has been exposed extensively in state newspapers. My 7:22 and 6:40 posts explain the problems with home schooling.
    The availability of education jobs for women, at professional pay, is one characteristic that separates the U.S. from male-dominated societies, like those run by the Taliban. You have the right to be unconcerned about the effect, of the loss of a profession, that employs the greatest number of U.S. women and one, in which, future generations of women may have hoped to work. Women with the dignity, afforded by not being financially dependent on their husbands and family, demonstrates the advancement of a society. The qualities and skills of women, can enrich all jobs. Taxpayers support education, not to provide jobs, but to improve our society. Women in professional fields, serve that goal.
    
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  - Beth says:
    
    November 23, 2014 at 7:17 am
    
    Linda, somehow this thread has gotten off my original post, which was in support of homeschooling, based on my personal experience, and to please not cast it in such a negative light without facts. I do see your point about lifting women up, however, I also think it is not a strong argument in support of public schools, which, in my opinion, should be keeping its focus on the education of children.
    
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  - Linda says:
    
    November 23, 2014 at 9:18 am
    
    Beth,
    There is no more important subject, for this blog, than the availability of decent jobs for Americans. The plutocrats, wielding political mallets, to deform education, cloak their motives with a call for “college and career-ready students”. They imply the promise of employment, with sustainable wages. Plutocrats have shown no willingness to share, with labor, the financial rewards of its contribution to productivity. And, there is no reason to believe they will.
    The wages and employment numbers, in education, will be driven down by the assault of hedge fund owners, who seek profits for themselves, not better lives for students.
    If, instead of a narrow focus, Americans concerned themselves with the employment and wage prospects for this, and future generations, the middle class would not be, on the ropes.
    The six Walton heirs, whose foundation, funds many of the education attack groups, have income equal to 50,00,000 Americans (Politifact)and that is, because they and their billionaire friends, control the U.S. economic system.
    The website, Our Walmart, plans job actions for Black Friday to increase worker pay. The organization is seeking $3.00 donations from the public, for their cause.
    
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  - Beth says:
    
    November 23, 2014 at 10:56 am
    
    Linda, I absolutely agree with what you are saying, but again it is in another direction from my original post. Are you suggesting that education models should remain as is, for the main purpose of continued employment for women? If so, then who are the institutions serving? Perhaps there should be another post entirely about this idea. Perhaps this would go hand in hand with Dr. Ravitch’s new paradigm to education suggestions. Perhaps there are those women who already see that change is necessary, and see that homeschooling is one way to deal with it affectively? Anyway, I have enjoyed this discussion, and appreciate your perspective on the matter.
    
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moosesnsquirrels says:

November 19, 2014 at 10:10 am

Rather disappointed with the timeline. The idea of public schooling is much older: The Massachusetts Bay Colony had compulsory schooling in 1642, and Boston Latin was founded in 1635.

John Adams was a strong proponent of publicly funded schools for the new republic (1787):

The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people and be willing to bear the expenses of it. There should not be a district of one square mile without a school in it, not founded by a charitable institution, but maintained at the public expense of the people themselves.

And no mention of the Progressives?! No mention of the Robber Barron reformers that supported the factory school idea and the use of Taylorism in the schools?! Frankly, much of the idea behind Common Core, NCLB, RttT, and the other reforms from our modern day Robber Barrons are just a continuation of what Ford,Rockefeller, and Carnegie foisted on the public a century ago.

No mention of Dewey?! Many of Dewey’s ideas were perverted into the sort of “schooling-as-social-engineering” that we have today, and which, I argue, is also a forerunner of Common Core and the odious reforms we are fighting now.

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- FLERP! says:
  
  November 19, 2014 at 10:39 am
  
  Start a wiki.
  
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  - jeanhaverhill says:
    
    November 19, 2014 at 10:46 am
    
    on the actual site Lloyd eagerly accepts and responds to comments; a Wiki is an excellent idea FLERP — there are some additional points I’m sure we would all like to add like the Rod Paige era (and the teacher unions terrorists) or the Bush appointee who said teachers colleges should be bombed…. I guess we all have our favorites.
    
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Jim Realini says:

November 19, 2014 at 10:45 am

Everyone who reads this blog MUST share this with ALL of your colleagues.
Start the conversation.
If you don’t learn from your history we will repeat the mistakes.

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- Duane Swacker says:
  
  November 19, 2014 at 12:46 pm
  
  Considering that I’ve been banned from using the reply all, all school and all staff functions of our email I can’t start those educational conversations-it was determined by the admin that my response to an email “interrupted and disrupted other teacher’s (sic) performance”. How that could have occurred is beyond my understanding. I’ve tried and the result is the shunning of my educational ideas. Oh well. I manage to get it done in smaller ways-ha ha!! (didn’t grow up in the Catholic K12 system without learning how to figure out how to “skirt” the authorities-useful skills now when dealing with amateur admins)
  
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  - NJ Teacher says:
    
    November 19, 2014 at 9:08 pm
    
    I can see why these administrators would be threatened. Many of them can barely articulate an argument. They are so used to listening to their own rhetoric.
    
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jeanhaverhill says:

November 19, 2014 at 10:52 am

wonderful, Jim; the conversation needs to go far and wide….

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Chiara says:

November 19, 2014 at 10:55 am

I wonder sometimes what it will look like in the rear view mirror when public schools are privatized.

Looks like they’re selling York Pennsylvania public schools to a for-profit operator.

What’s extraordinary about this, from perhaps a historical perspective, is that the brother of the sitting Vice President of the United States traveled to York, Pennsylvania to lobby those people on WHICH for-profit operator should run their schools.

Wow.

When public schools are gone will there be any accountability for all of the many, many powerful and influential people recklessly privatized with absolutely no plan, thought, or concern for the huge downside risk? What will that history look like?

http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2014/11/york-pa-and-death-of-public-education.html

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- Jim Realini says:
  
  November 19, 2014 at 4:16 pm
  
  This isn’t pretty, but think about it.
  Principals (actually they are really site administrators now) get their way.
  They start moving veteran teachers out in favor of Common Core Savy TFA’s.
  They overwork the leftovers because the TEST results reflect on them too.
  The site administrators quit under pressure because they don’t know what a classroom is supposed to be anymore..
  No one wants to teach. Low pay, terrible conditions, no pension. TFA goes bankrupt !
  Dumb & Dumber 3 comes out and nobody cares about school damit!
  The system is then broken and we’re back to where only the elite can afford a K12 education (using the veterans that were run off BTW).
  Dumb & Dumber 4 comes out but hardly anyone can see it because most can’t afford the new technology to watch it, the new Gates Glass cerebral implant.
  Dumb & Dumber 5 comes out, it’s just a bunch of selfies and pictures from abandoned websites.
  James Madison the fourteenth watches with his wife Doilly as the last moving truck departs for Shanghai with the sold at Soethby’s cracked, barely legible last original copy of the Declaration of Independence. The Whitehouse is then burned down so that Pogo Terrapin can resettle in foggy bottom.
  G’night I’m going home now and watch highly paid professional athletes with a college education no doubt give each other brain damage of their own free will.
  
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Chiara says:

November 19, 2014 at 11:16 am

Here’s the Vice President’s brother in York, PA:

“Frank Biden (yes that Biden) steps up 2 #York PA mic 2 explain why he supports @CSUSAhq effort 2 improve the schools. ”

https://twitter.com/JeanneAllen/media

Congrats on the huge win, reformers. Looks like charter schools USA will win the contract!

Is there some reason we need lawmakers and political leaders anymore? I think we can hire a competent accounting firm to pay contractors. If they’re “relinquishing” public schools to private contractors then they’re irrelevant anyway. I don’t want to pay them.

Let’s skip the middlemen and just negotiate with charter management companies directly. I think we’ll get better terms. We can’t do worse.

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- SomeDAM Poet (Devalue Added Model) says:
  
  November 19, 2014 at 11:37 am
  
  “Biden Time”
  
  I’m biden time
  Until I cash in
  It isn’t a crime
  And isn’t a sin
  
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  - Linda says:
    
    November 19, 2014 at 6:03 pm
    
    Most clever, resident poet.
    
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- Jim Realini says:
  
  November 19, 2014 at 4:17 pm
  
  The same VP who had a son decommissioned from the military for drug abuse?
  
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Chiara says:

November 19, 2014 at 11:34 am

This is a new and exciting ed reform policy:

http://education.ohio.gov/Media/Ed-Connection/Nov-12-2014/Community-school-students-can-participate-in-extra

Lobbyists in Ohio wrote a law last year that public school districts are required to allow charter school students to participate in district-funded extra-curriculars.

So that works out really nice for charter schools. They take the whole per pupil payment out of the public system and then send kids to the public schools for the extra programs. How public schools are supposed to pay for the programs with lower enrollment and fewer per pupil payments wasn’t considered, I guess, because who cares, really? As usual the entire focus was on the needs and wants of the charter sector.

I’m not clear why I’m paying people who seem determined to do actual harm to existing public schools.

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Lloyd Lofthouse says:

November 19, 2014 at 12:20 pm

Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé.

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NoBrick says:

November 19, 2014 at 5:27 pm

The notion that public schools are failing, is absurd! Public Education functions EXACTLY
as it was supposed to.

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John Ogozalek says:

November 19, 2014 at 6:38 pm

Thanks, Lloyd. As someone who rarely misses anything on Diane’s blog, I have come to rely on your wisdom to put the crazy world of school “reform” in perspective.

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drext727 says:

November 19, 2014 at 9:54 pm

Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.

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Jack says:

November 19, 2014 at 10:15 pm

On the subject of the Obama children’s education vs. the “No Excuses” charter model (and on display on the video below) …

… here’s thought experiment.

Imagine what would happen if Barack and Michelle paid a visit to their school, snuck in the back of the class (the point-of-view of the camera) and witnessed this indefensible horror:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDnxRVPiMSg

I imagine Barack and/or Michelle interrupting this atrocity, screaming,

————————-
“STOP!!! STOP!!! STOP THIS RIGHT NOW!!! What the BLEEP do you think you’re doing to my child, and to the rest of these children???!!!

(to the teacher)
“What’s your name?! Where’s the principal?! We need to talk to her right now!!!!”

(taking Sasha or Malia by the hand, talk to her)
“We’re getting you out of this freak show before you suffer any more damage!”

————————-

However, we all know that the teaching in this video does not and never will happen at…

Sidwell Friends (the Obama’s kids school),

or at Lakeside in Seattle (where Gates kids go)

or at the Montessori school (where NY State Ed. Commish John King sends his kids),

or at Chris Christie’s kids private school,

or at the Chicago Lab School (where Emanuel sends his kids and also where my own nephew and niece attend, by the way)…

as there is a difference between the education enjoyed by the children of the elite—including the Obama kids—and the education that “corporate reformers”, in their end game, are designing for “other people’s children—those of the middle and working classes.

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- SomeDAM Poet (Devalue Added Model) says:
  
  November 20, 2014 at 9:25 am
  
  “Chairman Gates”
  
  Let’s all bow down
  To Chairman Gates
  In cities and towns
  Of Fifty States
  
  We must obey
  And never doubt
  For Chairman’s way
  Is full of clout
  
  His Common Core
  Is carved in stone
  We must adore
  And never groan
  
  Were Chairman Mau
  Around to see
  He would be proud
  Of Gates and Rhee
  
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  - SomeDAM Poet (Devalue Added Model) says:
    
    November 20, 2014 at 9:26 am
    
    oops, misspelled “mao”
    
    Off with my head!
    
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