In a recent article, civil rights icon James Meredith expressed his frustration with Trump and DeVos claiming that education is “the civil rights issue of our time” and that school choice is the remedy.
He writes:
Today, President Donald Trump and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos are attempting to improve our schools with “school choice,” vouchers, charter schools, cyber-charters, privatization, putting uncertified “temp teachers” with six weeks training into our highest-needs schools, and shackling public schools to the mass standardized machine-testing of children.
This represents a doubling-down on a quarter-century of failed bipartisan efforts at education reform, few of which have a track record of success, even when measured by the dubious metric of standardized test scores. The achievement claims of Potemkin-style “miracle schools” rarely stand up to serious scrutiny. Education is an exquisitely difficult and complex system, and there are few magic bullets, quick-fixes or shortcuts….
The main problems in American public education are poverty, decades of neglect and segregation of our high-poverty schools, and a system that is today driven not by parents and teachers but by politicians, bureaucrats, ideologues and profiteers with little if any knowledge of how children learn.
The education system has been hijacked by money, much of which is being squandered. We are wasting tens of billions of dollars annually on failed experiments, bloated bureaucracies, unproven and unnecessary technology products, and ineffective teacher professional development. A dystopian culture of constant, pointless, mass standardized machine-testing of children is crippling the schools and students it is supposed to help. The continuation of these trends threatens to hollow out and destroy our urban schools, and pull the rest of the system down with them.
Meredith goes on to explain what children today need, and what would constitute genuine reform in education.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
From the article:
“But there’s one thing I think he [MLK] and I would agree on today: we would tell those who work to destroy our public schools, no matter how well-intentioned they might think themselves to be, to stop invoking “civil rights.” It is a grave insult to the great American martyrs who died in service to that cause.”
LikeLike
It isn’t just that they promote charters and vouchers. They deliberately omit public schools.
This is a piece promoting charters as public schools. This is the single sentence at the end where public schools are mentioned- as an afterthought, as always:
“If you’re a progressive, I realize that this compromise may make you squeamish. Progressives often prefer to spend more on traditional schools — which are still crucial — and to trust them”
This is literally the best that ed reform is willing to offer public schools- a grudging admission that they are “still crucial”
Why would a public school parent or supporter back this “movement”? They don’t value existing public schools. It shows, too! Public schools lose and lose and lose under ed reform. They never offer us anything that we consider valuable.
.
LikeLike
Who in ed reform is an advocate for existing public schools? Can you identify one high profile leader who has that role?
Why aren’t there any? They all advocate on behalf of charters and most of them advocate on behalf of vouchers. How did we end up with a huge group of people working on “public education” who exclude 90% of public school students?
LikeLike
“Who in ed reform is an advocate for existing public schools?”
Isn’t that a bit like asking who in the Chicago Bears is an advocate for the Green Bay Packers? Aren’t they sort of natural enemies?
LikeLike
Yes, but the Packers are probably packing a la DeVos’ suggestion so as to not be hurt by the Bears.
LikeLike
Well, trump is illiterate. We have a potus whose interests are CASINOS and Beauty Pageants. He has NO CLUE and is simply a COWARD with NO SELF-Control and has a POOR self-concept. Thus, HIS UNCONSITUTIONAL actions and deeds.
So what we have is that dump who is just a reflection of the selfisheness, horridness and meanness of this country.
A sidebar:
Zuckerberg, a snooty, arrogant, spoiled brat billionaire sued the people of Kaua’i because he doesn’t like the Kuleana and Rights of Way laws to protect the locals, that is SELFISHNESS and UNLAWFULNESS to the MAX. Zuckerberg is also building HIS WALL. Hope the people on Kaua’i boot him out like the locals on Moloka’i did to McAfee. As an aside, Zuckerberg dropped his lawsuit and making nice. All he is doing is regrouping to find another way to DISS the NOT RICH, local people who live on Kaua’i.
LikeLike
Don’t look now, Yvonne, but Zuckerberg seems to be positioning himself to run for elected office. Why, just the other day, he actually shared a meal with some “real” people in Ohio, and visited the Ford River Rouge plant in Michigan. It’s being made to appear that he’s almost a real human being, though people who’ve followed his career know better.
It seems at the moment that we are being prepped for the future candidacies of Chelsea Clinton and Mark Zuckerberg as responses to Trump. If that happens, I’d rather just swallow rat poison right now.
LikeLike
“If that happens, I’d rather just swallow rat poison right now.”
Now, don’t go doing that Michael, we’d miss all the great commentary you would come up with in skewering those two.
But boy, that duo becoming politicians really make my head spin. Tell me the Dims aren’t that stupid. Wait, yes they are.
LikeLike
These idiots don’t do anything that doesn’t help to pad their or their friends pockets. These rich people are making money from these charter and private schools, many on the backs of poor students of color who don’t get any better of an education than if they stayed in public school. This is not about making life better for children. Not at all! Sad…
LikeLike
Many thanks to civil rights icon, James Meredith. His comments are wise and insightful. The goal of “reform” is to remove public education from the hands of local communities and put it in the hands of corporations whose main goal is profit. His frustration with the refusal of policymakers to see the failure and bias of reform is also our frustration.
Meredith understands that school improvement comes from hard work by professionals, not magic bullets from amateurs and businesses looking to sell more unnecessary products to schools. I hope Meredith’s article is widely shared by supporters of public education. He wants a return to common sense by putting the interests of young people ahead of lining the pockets of corporations. Market place ideology that creates “winners and losers” has no legitimate place in education.
LikeLike
Please get this out to media outlets and try to get a time on Rachel Maddow to talk about these egregious “fixes”.
LikeLike
If you hold affinity for James Meredith’s insights and wisdom, then listen now to Michael Lomax, President and CEO of United Negro College Fund (UNCF), and be shocked, dismayed, etc.!…
http://atlanta.cbslocal.com/2017/04/07/rashad-talks-education-with-the-president-of-the-uncf/
Lomax was also a leading Beverly Hall cheerleader, and his cheerleading showed he was void of any understanding of just how Hall was driving Atlanta Public Schools into a crisis. Lomax also made himself a sidekick to Michelle Rhee during her time serving as Chancellor of Washington, DC, public schools.
LikeLike
Ed,
Lomax received millions from the Gates Foundation.
LikeLike
James Meredith is a great man. Talking to Trump or to de Vos is like talking to the wall.
Gates and his foundation is also impossible to dialogue with…know it alls who
know nothing about education.
LikeLike