Reed Hastings, billionaire owner of Netflix, says that democracy is the problem at the root of American education.
Elected school boards are the cause of too much turmoil.
Appointed boards are far better and allow innovative charter schools to grow.
At the annual meeting of the National Alliance for “Public” Charter Schools, Hastings pointed to elected school boards as dysfunctional and lauded the appointed boards that manage charter schools..
Arne Duncan has been campaigning to expand mayoral control of public schools for the same reason. He could point to Cleveland and Chicago as exemplars, but somehow he doesn’t.
Democracy, they agree, gets in the way of top-down authoritarian control. Elected boards try to block corporate takeovers of public schools. Elected boards usually expect transparency and accountability.
Why should the people who send their children to school and who pay the taxes have any say in the governance of public schools?
Make no mistake, friends. The mask is off. This is a battle for the democratic control and democratic purposes of schools.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Yes, democracy would be a problem for an autocratic billionaire that is used to getting what he wants without protest. Echo chamber ass kissers and lickers abound around the autocratic.
It doesn’t take much to project what Hastings said to the U.S. Constitution itself, a document that was written to protect the people from autocrats like Hastings, Trump, DeVos, G(r)ates, Broad, Walton, Koch, etc.
Hastings has made it clear what that line in the sand is. We are in a fight for our very republic and that is why I think eventually if we don’t have a revolution we will have a balkanized Civil War where the supporters of the autocrats will come after the rest of us that have been labeled as evil liberals or the rest of us will have to take out the supporters of the autocrats and the autocrats to survive and save the Consitution and the Republic it created.
It is clear to me that it is them or us, and from the numbers I’ve seen, that is about 35-million vs 284-million (if we count children too).
After all, Jewish children went to the Nazi extermination camps too so will the children of anyone labeled a liberal.
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Quoting Winston Churchill, the man who saved democracy, let’s remind overselves of his wisdom:
“Democracy is the worst form of government … except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”
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Hi Day – can you please print them out and put them in the “to be paid” folder? thanks
________________________________
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Mañana.
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Reed Hastings is a private citizen using his own money to privatize public schools. I disagree with him but I have no influence over him or his agenda.
The Reed Hastings of the world don’t upset me nearly as much as the “public servants” who have made it their full time jobs to bash and weaken our schools.
I simply don’t want to pay for this. I resent that the US Department of Education feels it’s okay to NOT meet with public school advocates when they’re “transforming” public education. I think that’s ludicrous and they should all sit down and ponder whether this is what people are paying them for. I don’t think it is.
Ed reform is packed with billionaires. If you want to eradicate public schools don’t climb on my payroll. Get on Reed Hastings. Let him pay your salary. I’m sick of paying people in government who don’t lift a finger for 90% of the students in the US. I don’t really care if they prefer charter and private schools. That wasn’t the job they took.
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I think you have missed a point. The public servants that won’t meet with teachers and other public school supporters are appointed and not elected public servants. They were put there by Trump or the people he appointed to those positions. They serve Trump and the other autocrats – not the people.
The people’s government has been invaded by the 0.1 percent. That’s why Trump calls his people beachhead teams.
The definition for beachhead: a defended position on a beach taken from the enemy by landing forces, from which an attack can be launched.
Trump is leading a hostile corporate takeover of the United States (an invasion) and anyone in government appointed by Trump or one of his appointees is part of this hostile takeover – that invasion of our Constitutional Republic. Once appointed, they are not public servants anymore. The are the enemies of the public and the Constitutional Republic.
What is happening is why Thomas Jefferson left behind advice on how to nourish the tree of liberty and keep it alive.
Trump and the autocrats want to cut down that tree.
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AGAIN, thank you, Lloyd. I am embarrassed by this country of imbecile billionaires, who think they are exempt from consequences so long as they have money. These money folks are truly sick people and they have no clue about how sick they are.
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And Trump is the perfect example of an imbecilic billionaire who doesn’t think any rules apply to him. He is the post child for the autocrats.
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Diane Democracy creates “too much turmoil,” and millionaires know best. A fat bank account MUST equate to intelligence and wisdom, regardless. It’s nothing less than setting the conditions for a colossal abuse of power.
THAT’s exactly what’s going on the with health care bill and answers the question: “Why write policy in the dark?” Too confusing. Too much turmoil, and WE know best anyway. (Translated: We have the power and so we will do what we want, end of story). And besides, Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan might have to actually listen to somebody who doesn’t agree with him. Oh poor them. (My question is whether Trump with sign-off on it; or if they really want the bill in the first place, or are just doing an acceptable dance for their base.)
About that base: There’s a national psychosis going on–around 38 percent? We should ask the psychologists: “How do you break up a psychosis?”
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Next: elected legislators in general should be eliminated.
Sent from my iPhone
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Like!
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Elected Presidents should be eliminated also. Everyone should just be appointed by Hastings.
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Ha, if Hastings grabbed the right to decide who the next president would be, he’d suddenly be in the crosshairs of endless professional assassins sent by all the other billionaire autocrats that want that power.
The autocrats will have to restudy their Machiavelli.
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Good one, Deb Meier.
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Is there like a “point person” in the federal government someone who was interested in public schools would contact? Obviously Betsy DeVos is a non-starter- she barely mentions public schools other than to warn us our kids are all headed straight to prison.
Who is the advocate for public schools in the federal government? Is there one? They have designated departments for promotion of charters and “non public” schools. What about if we set up the “public school department” and then hired some people with interest in those? This “disfavored default” school designation isn’t working that well if you’re a public school supporter. Is one actual supporter too much to ask? They pack convention halls with charter cheerleaders and voucher cheerleaders. Seems like we could get one.
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Well, I know I’ve beat this point to death, but this just galvanizes my commitment to boycott Netflix….
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Yep!
But that’s easy for the guy who eschews TV anyway.
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The trick is to convince all your friends and family to boycott Netfix, The Gap, Walmart… It’s not easy.
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Gail Collins is one of the few national pundits who values public schools.
You guys will find this column funny:
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They don’t even see how ridiculous they are:
“Netflix turned down an EdSource request to speak to Hastings about his expectations of the candidates he helped get elected to the L.A. Unified board. But presumably he is hoping they will help advance his charter schools agenda.”
Of course “Netflix” turned down press questions. Because Netflix is not accountable to the public and either is Reed Hastings and either are charter school boards. Transparency and accountability, Reed. You don’t have it.
If my public school messes up I can pick up the local newspaper and there will be several people, with names, who have been contacted. The superintendent will be quoted and one or more school board members. When there’s an Ohio charter school scandal there are NO names attached to it. We sometimes get the title of the “authorizer” – Great Lakes Education Services or something. I never see a name. I don’t know who works for these schools, how much they are paid, nothing. Often I can’t even figure out who is actually running the school. It’s just as likely to be a CMO- another opaque entity.
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“When there’s an Ohio charter school scandal there are NO names attached to it.”
And that fact, Chiara, is one of the most pertinent in all these discussions. Kudos for bringing it up!
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Yes- the contractor school Industry gets to hide its players because the media wants it that way. Fordham’s funders are never listed in newspaper articles. And, when the National Alliance of Contractor Schools is quoted, there’s no identification of its funders.
Secondly, the media allow the industry to distort language, using their phrases to describe the topic e.g. public charter schools (a fraud) and personalized learning instead of depersonalized learning. Thirdly, in Ohio, it is extremely rare for a “journalist” to quote opponents to contractor schools. They choose to ignore Progress Ohio and Bill Phillis.
One reporter exception- Doug Livingston of the Akron Beacon Journal (owned by a Canadian company). He does exemplary work.
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Duane, you mean O-SIGH-O. My husband is from O-SiGH-O, and that’s his name for this state, which has gone dumb. Too much standards, testing, and charter school can make a state really dumb.
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O-SIGH-O, Ill-Annoy (retiredbutmissthekids term), Misery. . . I wonder if the readers here can give us similar pseudonyms for each state??
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States that have been invaded by the Koch brothers minions, the Walmart poverty spreading Walton family, and the likes of Betsy the Praying Bullet Devos through ALEC and other black money nonprofits and have been turned RED by their efforts are GOPher states.
GOPher this for the Koch brothers. GOPher that for the Waltons. GOPher anything Betsy the Bullet wants. GOPher your knees to pray for the far-right fundamentalist want-to-be a Christian ISIS/racist vote.
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Where is the steady progress Rhee-d Hastings claims that private boards bring to charter contractors? Doing away with democratic, community-based transparency and accountability should be worth it, after all. Where is the miracle to which he is pointing? Surely it’s not some infinitesimal gain on standardized tests created by cherrypicking results, is it, Rheed?
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This is a battle for the democratic control and democratic purposes of schools.
Yes. Reed Hastings is just saying out loud what many CEOs believe and act upon. The infiltration of corporate ideology into every aspect of governance and collective action is unmistaken. Hastings is given unearned praise for expertise in education. Like Gates, he is rich and therefore knows what is best.
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Considering the dysfunctionality we are experiencing in our district and what happened in LAUSD, I almost agree with this idea. Our recent election has installed “ed reformers” that cater to a hidden agenda and they are creating chaos and divisiveness in our district. They claim they are for students; but through their actions, they give passes to charter schools while judging our neighborhood schools by wasteful, ineffective test scores. They fired our Superintendent without cause and the interim Superintendent has terminated our Chief Business Officer that strengthened our fiscal integrity. Maybe a school board should include a few electeds, a parent from each grade span (elementary, middle, high school) elected by parents (so parents that can’t vote have a voice), our union leaders, and our Superintendent. Everyone gets a vote. Turnover of electeds every two years creates disruption for our students, especially if the electeds are severely lacking in leadership skills or political races are manipulated. So, parents, staff and admins that are familiar with existing programs and strategies are constantly training the new electeds and waiting for them to get up to speed. Or worse, they never do and run the district into the ground.
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Reporting on contractor schools ignores the true objective. When the teaching profession and pensions are privatized, it creates a new pool of money for Wall Street billionaires to manage. The richest 1% covet IRA fees. The current system of public pensions is a gate the barbarians want to breach.
Kids, communities and taxpayers are disposable chaff.
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The Dem politicians won’t talk about K-12 privatization. Too many of them see the advantages of serving the big money. N.M.’s Rep. Lujan is one of the significant problems, like Cuomo.
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If so-called education reform (or better said, the hostile takeover of public education) is to be defeated, external/exogenous factors will play a role. I’m certain that one of the requirements for the defeat of so-called education reform is a puncturing of the technology stock bubble, a la 2000.
Grabby know-nothings like Hastings (and Gates, Zuckerberg, Bezos, Laureen Powell Jobs, et. al.), who are so prominent in education largely owe their influence to the high stock prices of the companies they represent. It not only gives unimaginable wealth, but broader credibility they otherwise might not have. That’s especially the case with education, where, despite their chronic policy failures, they maintain unjustified influence.
Brilliant, wealthy and domineering as the FAANG (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google/Alphabet) monopolists are, their Market Godliness is entirely dependent on stock prices that are way out of whack by historical standards.
For example, by traditional measurements, a stock with a price/earnings ratio (the relation of a stock’s price to company earnings divided by every share in existence) of 20:1 under normal conditions would be likely considered overpriced.
Amazon’s P/E ration is 188:1, with Netflix having a P/E ratio of 97.82, as of a few minutes ago.
Either “It’s different this time” for real – something not borne out by financial history – or else at some point these stocks will “revert to the mean,” or closer to historical averages.
If and when these stock valuations plummet, with people feeling the pain in their 401 Ks and index funds – almost the entire rise in the S&P 500 stock index is based on the FAANGs – the proclaimed omniscience of these anti-democratic creeps will not be broadcast quite so uncritically.
That moment, if and when it comes, can create an opening for supporters of public schools that might not otherwise exist. They’ll have to seize it.
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I think if the market collapses leading to a global economic depression worse than both the 2007-08 one and the Great Depression, it will be difficult for anyone to achieve anything let alone struggle to keep civilization alive, food for the mouth and a roof over our heads.
And with the Kremlin’s Agent Orange in the White House and the GOP dominating both Houses of Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court, surviving that financial crash will be almost impossible.
We will eventually have to hope that the EU and/or China will survive and keep science-based civilization alive.
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The world didn’t end when tech stocks collapsed in 2000, and it won’t if/when they do again, but it might put a dent in the supposed infallibility of our digital monopolist overlords.
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Yes, the world will not end. But civilization as we know it might. History is known to repeat when we or our powerful overlords don’t learn what it teaches and civilizations have collapsed before. For instance, the Roman Empire and what happened?
Here is a list of six ancient civilizations that mysteriously collapsed and none of them are Rome.
http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/6-civilizations-that-mysteriously-collapsed
History Today also gives us “The Collapse of Complex Societies”
http://www.historytoday.com/christopher-chippindale/collapse-complex-societies
Do you advocate a world where there is no law-and-order, only chaos and anarchy, and only the brutish survive and rule over the rest of us that are allowed to live by their rules?
If you want to know what that’s like, I suggest reading Anchee Min’s “Red Azalea” for a peek at what happened in China during Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Many Chinese that lived through the insanity of that era in China are still alive and don’t want the same thing to happen again. In fact, China’s top leadership today were alive when it happened and they don’t want a repeat.
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This is such a dangerous thing for Hastings to say and I cringe when I hear it. There is nothing more grassroots and local than your school board – it is where many get their start in politics and activism. What do you know, Hastings ? Are you above others?
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