Jeb is back, writes Peter Greene, with the same old snake oil. Having lost the GOP presidential nomination, he has returned to his favorite song: Public education is failing, and we (the reformers) need to disrupt it, monetize it, privatize it, and sell lots of technology to it.
As Peter shows, there is nothing new in what he has on offer. The same overworked and faulty statistics about massive educational failure (we would now be a fourth world nation if any of this baloney were true). The same claims about the wonders of technology. The same empty claims for privatization and profiteering. Merit pay. No unions. Test scores as the be-all and end-all of education.
Peter writes:
Jeb loves him some vouchers. In his perfect future, the money will follow the child. I always think this is a bold choice for a nominal conservative politician, since it is literally taxation without representation– taxpayers who don’t have kids get to pay for schools, but they have no voice in what kind of schools they get. And if the money follows the kid, why can’t the kid just have a big party?
But I have to take my hat off to somebody who still believes in vouchers. It’s the kind of devotion you usually find only in members of the Flat Earth Society, an adherence to a long-debunked belief that doesn’t have a speck of evidence to support it.
Float Free as a Bird
But why have a school at all, says Bush. Why not just get your AP Calculus from this on-line provider, and get your English from some other provider. Watch for the Amazon.com of homeschooling. Let students move through coursework at their own personal speed. Assess student mastery of skills through the year, and never social promote. Yes, we’ll have Competency Based Education, but we’ll call it something else.
Jeb’s answer to everything: get rid of public education.
Jeb Bush is the Ivan Illich of the right.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
We see our local Catholic schools openly discriminate against LGBT teachers, or even parents of LGBT children. If a parent attends a child’s gay marriage ceremony, they risk losing their teaching position. If private schools want my public tax money, I want a say in how that money is spent, including a voice in school governance.
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How many well off students could pass an AP class on line? I think there is a reason they use real human beings for teachers.
If on line distant communication was superior, there would be no such thing as a face to face business meeting, business class travel, or private jets for business. Every meeting would be on line.
Bottom line, it doesn’t work.
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That’s the funny thing about people who have monetized their souls — they think everyone else should, too.
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My question is how much longer we’ll have to debunk people like Jeb!
Crazy world!
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“Jeb Bush is the Ivan Illich of the right.”
Giving a little too much credit to the Jebster with that one!
Although much of what Illich speaks has a long history going back to the Sophists, up through Rousseau and into the beginnings of the 20th century with Boutroux’s “Ethics in Education”.
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The public education system we have in the United States today is based on mandatory education that says children must go to school starting at age 5/6 and until at least the age of 16 when, with approval, the teen can drop out and not graduate from high school.
But mandatory never meant children had to go to public schools.
Offering a five or six year old a choice of what school they want to attend without parental input would be a bad idea but parents do have choices.
There’s home schooling (there are about 1.5 million children in the US that are taught at home), private schools, parochial schools and then the traditional public schools. I didn’t list corporate charters, on-line educatoin or vouchers because I don’t see them as a valid choice. How can something based on lies, decide, false promises and opquaness be a valid choice. That is the marks of fraud not education.
There is a reason public school are transparent and watched over closely by community based, democratically elected school boards, and that reason was to protect the children from the parasites of this world that only see others as numbers.
What I find interesting is how the corporate charters and on-line schools get to be opaque and hide the facts behind their failure and fraud while parents that home school their children have to prove that their child is learning by taking test or through other forms of evaluation. For children that are home schooled, in some states the law requires that they periodically demonstrate academic progress by taking a standardized test while other states may allow for a teacher letter or some other other form of evaluation.
Before a supporter of the autocratic, for profit, often worse and/or fraudulent corporate public education reform movement protests this comment, know your history and why the U.S. has a mandatory education policy. The laws that caused the traditional public school system to be built were the same laws that were designed to protect children from being sold into a form of slavery to work in coal mines, factories and even whorehouses.
Without mandatory education and community based, democratic, transparent, non-profit public education, where is the protection for the child from the predators and profiteers that exploited them before the child labor laws existed.
The corporate public education reform movement built on the tyranny of children and opaqueness for profit is obliviously an effort to return America to 1900 before mandatory K-12 education existed and 40% of Americans lived in poverty with only 7% graduating from high school and 3% from college.
If you know the history of child labor before the laws that required mandatory K-12 education in the U.S. then you would know that those laws came into existance to protected children from exploitation and offer them the opportunity to learn and improve their lives as adults.
Offering the opportunity of an education does not mean the child has to learn. In the end, no matter how great a teacher is, it is still up to the child with support from parents/guardians to learn what is taught in classrooms.
93% of children in 1900 did not have the opportunity to learn. They didn’t even have a choice. Mandatory education laws did not happen to make children another brick in the wall because they already were bricks in factories, coal mines, etc. Mandatory education was implemented to help set children free from the brick wall of industry so they would have choices later in life and the critical thinking problem solving skills to make educated decisions.
The tradition public school system was designed to protect children from the predators. Mandatory was not meant to force children to learn against their will. Mandatory was to keep the predators from enslaving those children and abusing them like Eva Moskowtiz, KIPP and other corporate charters are abusing children in their obvious gulags.
If you are not familiar with the US before the laws that made K-12 public education mandatory, educate yourself and start here:
http://www.history.com/topics/child-labor
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Thanks for the history of child exploitation. If fact, some of today’s charters and underfunded public schools qualify as poor examples of putting the interests of children first. More people should try to see the relationship, and then they would understand that many charters and certainly vouchers are a form of exploitation as well as a form of taxation without representation.
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I just can’t believe they continue to claim it’s not about privatization when every bit of it is about privatization.
He wants to get rid of public schools. That’s the end goal of his grand theories. Why doesn’t he just admit it?
Calling something “a provider” rather than a “contractor” doesn’t change the essential nature of the thing. They’re making this totally bogus distinction between goods and services that doesn’t exist outside of their marketing arm.
Does anyone know WHY these people are so fascinated by sticking kids in front of screens, BTW? Jeb Bush is 60-something years old. Did he have teachers? Why does he want to deny that to younger people? He doesn’t know it’s “better”. He’s just spit-balling.
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He’s also deeply invested…monetarily, that is.
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Actually the new pitch is about “operators.” Operators of “high quality” are can be found in various sectors of education, and there should be no authomatic preference for any one of the options and combinations, for-profit or non-profit, public or private, secular or religious, virtual (online) or place-based or some hybrid. Each should be free to recruit students and parents. The only constant is money follows the student, so tax-subsidy.
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Laura,
You say high-quality operators. What happened to high-quality seats?
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I’m just going to post this excellent journalism work out of Maine again.
It’s about how Jeb Bush’s organization captured state lawmakers in Maine and tried to jam thru their poorly-considered, garbage “plan” to stick lower and middle income students in front of screens for education on the cheap.
They were running the state ed system, based solely on politics and influence. It would have been an absolute bonanza for contractors. Luckily, there was ONE reporter watching and he exposed the whole thing.
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Chiara,
Colin Woodard article about Maine is a classic of investigative journalism
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The question I always ask people who spout the stuff that Jeb is…
In the history of humanity, can you name one country on Earth that has ever implemented all or any of the things you’re advocating and then improved the quality of that country’s education?
There’s two that have done so: Chile, which did imposed all this nationwide (against the will of its citizens, it was able to do so because of thirty year military dicatorship)…
… and to a more limited extent, Sweden.
Both experiments were disastrous, and it will take decades to undo the damage caused. The Swedish government even apologized for implementing the Jeb-type “reforms” they tried, pointing out how damaging they were.
On continental Europe (i.e. not England, sadly) those in charge of the educational systems actually can think critically, look at what a disaster Jeb’s ideas were for Chile, and for their neighbor Sweden… and then conclude, “Well, all that really SUCKED! We’re sure not gonna do any o’ that HERE.”
On the other hand, with the countries that have the best educational systems, do they implement ANY of the stuff for which you advocate?
The consensus is that Finland has the best educational system.
See the latest Michael Moore movie — Where Do We Invade Next? — which includes a 20-minute portrait of Finland’s educational system. You’ll see that, IN FINLAND, when it comes to education, THEY DO EVERYTHING EXACTLY OPPOSITE THAN WHAT JEB PUSHES.
At one point, Michael Moore meets with a group of teachers and students and asks a list of stuff like… “You mean you don’t close down your public schools and give them over to businessmen to turn into charter schools and run?” The Finns burst out laughing, “NOOO! Why would you DO THAT?!” (Somebody should get part of the movie onto YouTube ASAP.)
It’s almost like those corporate reformers here (and in England) ignore all the evidence from countries like Chile, Sweden, and Finland.
Hmm… let’s see … The stuff that that DOES NOT work and leads to disaster? Let’s do all that!
And tTe stuff that DOES work, and leads to a great educational system? Let’s not do any of that stuff, and instead do the exact opposite … you know that other stuff that leads to disaster.
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Jeb Bush was exposed and brutally eaten up by Donald Trump during the republican primary. Jeb money bags came into the primaries with over 100 million dollars in contributions from his ed u reformer buddies. But, something happened on the way to heaven…..Mr. Trump EXPOSED this goofy, no energy person called Jeb Bush. OMG, did the Donald do a number on this guy!! For all those people out there who are against Trump, please just admit this that Trump slammed Jeb and turned him into a babbling idiot truly exposed for his lack of “energy” as the Trumpster put it naming Jeb “low energy Bush”….So now Jeb Bush is back trying to quietly return to his superior ways of thinking he is a Bush and the Bush family knows how to run the country including destroying our beloved public schools for non other than the love of money. Yes people Jeb Bush is a nothing now…a nobody…he is no more influential in society as I am writing this comment. Not sure if I am going to vote for Trump but I and we all must thank the Trumpster for exposing Jeb the loser and getting him out of our lives…imagine if he would have gotten to be president???? So long Jeb, keep on pushing your backward school reform until the push comes back into your face and shuts you up the same way Donald Trump exposed you for the lazy, low energy fake ass politician that you are.
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Donald Trump has gotten rid of this low energy politician who thought he was king of Florida working as the governor there. Word has it – many people have noted that before Trump got to Jeb, Jeb Bush was a condescending, nasty know it all type who walked around like he has all the answers and every one else is a nobody. Then came the republican primary and Trump destroyed this politician and exposed him for what he is….a typical politician and this guys last name is Bush so he thought he was going to lead the way but little did he know that Trump was just too smart, too witty and richer than this wimp called Jeb Bush. Barack Obama became President only because of Jeb’s dad who was such a bad president that the people of this country voted for anyone just to get rid of Bush in the white house. So, we go stuck with Barack Obama who quite possible is the worst president in the history of the US. How you say? Obama has racked up more debt than ALL the other presidents in the history of the US. Obama refuses to deal with islamic terror and rather keeps saying its home grown terror, or its the peoples fault that we have these massive shootings….Just look at the population of our country now and you see an influx of immigrants running rampant from just about everywhere in the world. Muslims are allowed to enter the US because of Barack giving them cart Blanche, nobody speaks english any more and these immigrants want to impose their way of living such as sharia law and this only exists because obama is in office. See what happens if Trump gets in office…omg….the shit is hitting the fan and the end is near…So, the skeptics who are afraid of Trump as president I ask you to consider the alternative like ANOTHER clinton in office…..things will not change and the country will continue to cater to immigrants coming across the border disrespecting our country and people. If you come to this country one should obey the laws of the country as America treats woman with respect not like these other cultures who seek to destroy woman and every other kind of living person who does not confirm to their ill wishes and mentality
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Wow oh wow. Please go back and fact check your essay before handing it in again.
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An audit of Step Up for students showed $1.2M had to be returned to the state (114 students were found to be enrolled in public schools). They could not return $132K because it had already been spent.
Shouldn’t SUFS be using part of the $46M they get to sue the parents to get the money back?
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article79811832.html
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Trump would be better than Jeb or Hillary at this point.
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In what way would Trump be better than Hillary — please be specific?
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Republican voters clearly rejected Jeb Bush. However, he derives his educational clout from his connections with already elected politicians from both parties, and from his corporate sponsors through the misnamed Foundation for Excellence in Education. He has been a problem in Florida for a long time, and the Obama administration co-opted his educational philosophy to bring this special brand of public school disruption, destruction, and divestment to the national stage.
I see now that the Obama administration is justified in blaming all the world’s ills on the Bush’s (sarcasm).
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