Gayle Green is a professor of English at Scripps College. She is writing a book about the corporate reform in higher education.
In this article, she describes how corporate reformers have taken guidance from Orwell’s “1984” in their deliberate distortion of language to mask reality.
She writes:
“In this post-truth age that’s done away with facts, George Orwell’s 1984 has soared to the top of the charts. But in the world of public education, it’s been 1984 for quite some time. And we didn’t even need the clumsy apparatus of a totalitarian dictatorship to bring it about. All we needed was some slick PR and smiley corporate faces and a media ready to spit back the buzzwords they’d been fed – failing public schools, no excuses, accountability, choice, access for every child, closing the achievement gap – repeating them so often that they passed for truth.”
In the current dystopian world of public education, the new Secretary of Education is the leading enemy of the nation’s public schools.
DeVos should be no surprise. She is the culmination of nearly two decades of creeping privatization.
“But DeVos should come as no surprise: she is the culmination of the way things have long been headed. No Child Left Behind, signed into law in January 2002, brought to us by George W. Bush and the moneyed interests he represented, arrived in clouds of rhetoric about “access” and “civil rights.” It announced itself as “an act to close the achievement gap with accountability, choice, flexibility, so that no child is left behind.” But this was never about reform or access or leveling the playing field: it was about opening up public education as a market, siphoning off tax dollars to charters and for-profit vendors, shifting public funds from a system that had public oversight and control to private interests. Education was a rich, untapped market with billions of federal dollars there for the taking. Schools, panicked at having their survival based on standardized test scores, invested heavily in testing technology. Multinational testing corporations, publishing companies, ed-tech ventures rushed in with their wares: software for administering tests, test preps, pre-tests, post-tests, tests scoring, lesson plans, teaching modules, assessment devices; entire new industries sprang into being….
“It’s been quite a feat, transforming teachers, who were once our friends and allies, to the enemy. A real sleight of hand, getting the public to trust those altruistic billionaires over those greedy, opportunistic teachers. Trust a billionaire to have the public’s interest at heart – that spin worked so well it landed us with Trump. But in the world of 1984, two plus two equals five: “Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by [the Party’s] philosophy.”
Put kids in front of computers, increase screen time, increase class size – and call it personalized. Depersonalized might be a better word – or perhaps personalised, for Pearsons, the multibillion-dollar transnational corporation that’s siphoned off untold billions of federal money. When teachers protested that students from disadvantaged backgrounds tend not to test well, having not had the benefit of tutors and test-prep programs, GWB said they were making “excuses,” showing “the soft bigotry of low expectations.” Yet it’s painfully clear that using test scores to determine the survival of schools only further disadvantages the disadvantaged, and, far from leveling the playing field, tilts it even more. “No excuses” became a mantra of corporate reformers, an excuse for shutting down public schools and moving in with charters, an excuse to ignore poverty and blame teachers for conditions that make teaching impossible – conditions assured by inequities that billionaire reformers have themselves brought about.”
Hundreds of schools have been closed. Thousands of teachers drummed out of their profession. Philadelphia’s Rescue Plan devastated the public schools. Arne Duncan’s Renaissance 2010 came and went with more public schools closed, more children sent to privately managed charter schools. “Choice, choice, choice,” the corporate reformers say, but neglect to mention that the schools make the choices, not the families. The one choice that is off the table is the neighborhood school.
“The confounding of language at its most basic level reduces us to a state of civic catatonia: we can’t think about these issues, let alone discuss them or act against them, when they’ve been so obfuscated, when words have been so twisted.”
The deliberate distortion of language has enabled a corporate coup, the selling out of public education to billionaires and entrepreneurs.
This is an article you can send to your friends who want a short summary of one of the biggest scam of our lifetimes.
This comment is an adjustment to my assumption that the war on America’s community-based, democratic, transparent, non-profit traditional public schools started with Ronald Reagan when he released the misleading “A Nation at Risk” Report in 1983.
I’m reading the ARC paperback of a nonfiction book “Enduring Vietnam” by James Wright, and on page 110, it’s clear that the war on our highly successful and steadily improving public schools (at last up until NCLB) was declared in the 1950s when capitalism went to war against communism in both cold and hot wars (Korea and then Vietnam).
On page 110 of the ARC I’m reading, it says, “Neil H. McElroy, chairman of the White House Conference on Education, described it this way in 1955: “In this highly technical era, education has become as much a part of our system of defense at the Army, the Navy, or the Air Force. We must have good schools, not only because of our ideals but for survival.”
At the time, the book said, “There was a passionate sense of defensive nationalism and a corresponding dedication to the cult of the nation, for which schools had become the primary temples.”
Then Russia shot Sputnik into orbit (on page 113 of “Enduring Vietnam”), and Congress responded to the threat of Sputnik with a major focus on the nation’s education system.
In 1958, Life Magazine published a series on the “Crises in Education,” focusing on underpaid teachers, even as they pointed out that “Some are not worth what they get …”
The rest of the paragraph about Life Magazine’s attack on the public schools gets worse from there, and the paragraph concludes with” standards of education are surprisingly low.”
Evangelical Christians also jumped into this assault on the public schools demanding that the Christian God had to be instilled in the children and the traditional public schools were failing at this.
The struggle today to save our public schools has been brewing a lot longer than I first thought.
I agree. And you have refreshed my memory. I was in my second year of teaching when Congress passed the National Defense Education Act (NDEA), signed into law by Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower on September 2, 1958. Sputnik launched the so-called Space Race with all hand on deck to beat the Russians–teach the new math, new science, foreign languages, art so we could have creative scientists, computer programming for kids, and the rest.
By 1962, Christian activists were mad as hell that the Supreme Court had ruled that school-sponsored prayer was unconstitutional, violated the First Amendment (Engel v. Vitale).
I will not go on, but there was plenty of fear mongering from the long tail of the McCarthy era and FBI surveillance during the anti-war demonstrations and civil rights era. Conservatives were on the march. They founded the ultra-right wing John Birch Society. Among the founders and the father of the Koch brothers.
A sequel to Green’s book, could be titled “Colonization of Higher Ed.”
By observation, university values and funding, are threatened by 7 strategies (at a minimum).
(1) “New institutional delivery methods”, which is the goal of Gates-funded Frontier Set. Two state higher ed. systems, two organizations representing universities (AASCU and APLU) and, 31 colleges have joined Gates’ operation. Elite universities, like Harvard, the capitol of ed. reform, haven’t affiliated their institutions with the Frontier Set.
(2) The current accreditation system under faculty aegis, is to be replaced with student outcome measurement, paving the way for the values that business demands. CHEA.org has a link to Marco Rubio’s legislation, summarized in Sunshine State News. The Center for American Progress, which received $2.2 mil. in ed. grants, from Gates, 2013-2015, published its plan in Forbes, “It’s time for a Quality Alternative to College Accreditation”.
(3) Filling university leadership positions with Aspen Pahara Institute Fellows e.g. college deanships and government departments of higher ed. (Gates funds Pahara. David Koch is on the Aspen board. Details about Pahara can be found at the Deutsch 29 blog of Mercedes Schneider and, in her book, “Who’s Who in the Implosion of Public Education”).
(4) The hiring of university presidents, who were formerly employed as education consultants (salaries from philanthropies like Gates’).
(5) Direct program-specific grants to colleges.
(6) Political contributions e.g. Gates’ attempt to defeat state judges who made decisions favorable to the common good of public schools.
(7) Influence, on politicians and media, in formation of tax policy. For example, there is a YouTube video of Gates’ explaining his preference for consumption taxes, which are regressive. With wealth concentrated, the pool of available money for the common good, dries up with regressive tax policy.
AMEN, Linda! I’ve been on search committees for university presidents and the move away from academics to political hacks has been horrid. Glad you wrote about this, Linda.
I am just worn out and upset. I guess I am OLD enough to know what it was like to be a teacher and have supportive principals and school boards who trusted us to do our best for our students. Even parents relationships were different.
And then came “A Nation at Risk” and all the rest of the lunacies. SAD.
I would rather hire a person who graduated from a STATE college/university. Those who ONLY have experienced a PRIVATE education have NO CLUE about the power of public education. Why? The ONLY talk to themselves.
Take a look at the bio’s at the Fordham Institute -quite a few public college degrees in that assortment of people (who work for a privatization advocacy group). A minority staff member has been added at Fordham! A bit of a wait but, the Fordham V.P., can likely be thanked, after he publicly chastised the organization for its homogeneity.
Wait a minute! Does that mean I can no longer read this blog? After all, Diane graduated from an elite private college. I went to public K-12 schools but I attended a private college of some repute. Does that make me elitist and therefore suspect? Do you really want to make all private school graduates “other.”?
Really?
The following point never surfaced in your thinking? A person, who benefitted from the education, his community wanted to provide for him, because he wasn’t a legacy to an elite college or, he couldn’t afford to attend one, instead of feeling, an obligation to pay it forward, chose to work for oligarchs to destroy the institution, denying the people who followed him, the same opportunity.
Private college graduates, like JFK (and, Diane Ravitch), who ask “what can I do for my country” are honorable. Private college graduates (and Harvard drop-outs, like Gates), who rob the nation of its common goods, particularly, its most important one, public education, are a blight on decency.
Your comments are on the mark.
The student outcome measurement, will be addressed by the SLO and, where possible VAM.
Add that about 40% of higher ed faculty are working partime with pay slightly above $20,000 on average.
The university has become no more than a holding company formore or less profitable “talent.”
Politicians are known for using positive language to gain support for horrible ideas. “Reform” is no different because we know it as privatization, and we know “charter schools” as corporate schools. Both parties are guilty of giving the public “a spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down.” The general goal is a bait and switch to subtract from us and give to the 1%. “What’s in a name?” Generally the opposite of what most people believe it to be!
I can remember very well the first moment when I heard Senator Obama stumping for President and calling out teachers as “bad.” Though I was excited to see the world changing, giving many like me a chance to vote for him — anger and anxiety began building at the pit of my stomach. The corporate vilification of teachers and the language of failure was so viciously adopted by those at the top of the power game as soon as President Obama took office; his Race To The Top mandates devastatingly pushed so many dedicated teachers out of the classroom. Until this nation elects leaders who are willing to buck corporate purposes and speak out repeatedly about our nation’s GOOD teachers, the country will continue to believe that the public education system is “broken,” our kids are “failures,” and our teachers are “bad.”
Had we been paying attention (and I will admit that, sadly, I was not), we should have recognized Candidate Obama’s vilification of teachers as an opening salvo in his neoliberal war against “Main Street”, rather than being, as he seemed to promise, an advocate for “Main Street” over “Wall Street”.
Similar to Green’s book, economist, Michael Hudson just published J is for Junk Economics. Hudson, of the University of Missouri and Bard, focused on intentional distortion of language and, the laziness of economists in promulgating it, Junk Economics was described as a “guide to reality in the age of deception”.
Dr. Hudson’s exposure of the falsehood of “free market”, which is invoked as a subterfuge, is particularly informative.
“It’s been quite a feat, transforming teachers, who were once our friends and allies, to the enemy. A real sleight of hand, getting the public to trust those altruistic billionaires over those greedy, opportunistic teachers. ”
I agree that they have tried to make this “true” but I don’t believe the public buys it.
If you look at polls people trust teachers much more than politicians.
It isn’t true where I live, either, and all our public school teachers are union members.
People DON’T distrust and dislike them.
I honestly believe this is an “elite” thing- it’s mostly coming from “elites”. The whole “bottom of the barrel” theme they use.
“Citizens” “united”, fostering acceptance of the idea that money equals speech. Money is speaking now. Money talks. It blabbers, really. Have you ever listened to money? On and on narcissistically about why it’s so great, so smart, why we need more standardized test stuff, more gadgets, more advertisements, to raise chickens, to shoot grizzlies, more monopolistic corporate welfare, how it didn’t touch that woman… always contradicting itself. Money whines about why free market “solutions” are so misunderestimated bigly. The thing is, though, money is everywhere. There’s some here, next to me right now, babbling on about change. Money is unavoidable. You can’t stop listening to it. You have to answer back and refute. That’s what Orwell and Gayle Green did.
Staff members at the Fordham Institute have quite a few public college degrees, among them! Does the bio. of Chad Aldis, Ohio’s most-quoted proponent of contractor schools, list two public university degrees?
(speaking of) Wright State University, has been in the Dayton Daily News, a lot lately, because of the incompetence of its Kasich-appointed Board of Trustees. Wright State’s President (he resigned last week) was very enamored with the university as a business. The school had oral contracts worth millions, with men, who claimed, to media, that they weren’t lobbyists (reporters provided info. that suggested the appearance of it). There are reports of trustees who had H1b visa workers, at their companies, but the employees were hired by and received paychecks from Wright State. There are high level employees, who continue to be on payroll, but not working (2 years), which is explained away, as related to federal investigations. One trustee filed an amended ethics statement saying he shouldn’t have been the official to sign off on the hiring of his son, at a salary of $125,000. And, the school is in the red for $25,000,000. I wonder if the school, as a cost saving effort, will cut its Director Level, of giving, to the regional Chamber of Commerce?
All those years before Wright State became a business, never an FBI investigation, always operating in the black, no sullied reputation, no students protesting at Board meetings over misspent money…
I’m with you, Linda. I think the problem is less about where one went to school than whether one has adopted capitalism/free market memes and the accumulation of things as the only way to order the universe. There is something very warped about believing that the accumulation of wealth somehow makes someone an expert on all things. There is something just as warped in believing that the accumulation of wealth should allow someone to decide how things should be done.
Published Gayle’s article at https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/In-the-public-schools-it-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Education_Public-Education_Public-Schools-170412-662.html#comment654295
Badges? Digital diplomas? Hitting like a tidal wave! Frightening! Remove the critical thinkers of the next gen and place them into corporate ed mills. The Corporation of the United States, indeed.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/this-one-year-alternative-college-promises-land-students-well-paying-job-debt-free-180962742/
I play Words with Friends. I am embarrassed to admit that I love digital badges. They are worthless but I am eager to win them.
That link was very interesting and worthy of further conversation.
Does Pearson really have the contract behind all the online learning at UCLA? http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09505439809526510?journalCode=csac20
Wow, Clarity. Keep posting. You have access to some interesting stuff that we all should be watching.