Jersey Jazzman is a teacher, blogger, and doctoral student in New Jersey. He has been writing brilliant statistical analyses of the differences between charter schools and public schools for years. He is no ideologue. He is a pragmatist.
In this post, he concludes what I long ago concluded: the so-called “reform movement” is a rightwing endeavor. I believe its real goals are to stamp out unions, deprofessionalize teaching (think TFA), and turn a profit on school funding.
JJ (aka Mark Weber) notes that Eva Moskowitz gets sizable funding from Wall Street and such notorious right wingers as the Mercer Family, which is also funding Steve Bannon. He notes the racist comments of the chairman of her board, as well as the Republican ties of other board members.
It is no secret that the notoriously rightwing Walton Family Foundation claims credit for opening one of e rey four charter schools in the nation. The Waltons hate unions.
One could go on and identify ALEC model legislation for charters. The connections are too glaring to overlook or excuse.
Betsy DeVos, Trump, ALEC, the Waltons, the Mercers…it is hard to find a rightwing politician or organization that is not pushing charters and vouchers.
That’s why the subtitle of my last book was “The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s public schools.”
The “hoax” was that the “reform movement” was actually a rightwing privatization movement.
As JJ writes:
“I really don’t know how much more clear this could be:
“- The education “reform” movement provides a pretext for underfunding public schools, which aligns with right-wing values.
“- The education “reform” movement is inherently anti-union, which aligns with right-wing values.
“- The education “reform” movement thrives when communities of color lose agency over their schools, which aligns with right-wing values.
“- The education “reform” movement is financed by wealthy people who openly profess conservative values.
“Can we please, then, stop this nonsense about charter schools and vouchers being a policy embraced by the left? Yes, there are some Democrats and other folks who are otherwise liberals who support “choice.” But their embrace of “reform” — whether out of ignorance or hypocrisy or, yes, even genuine belief — is inconsistent with the liberalism they espouse in other policy areas.
“Education “reform” is a right-wing movement. There is nothing remotely liberal about privatizing schools, demonizing unions, and making excuses for underfunding education. If you support charter schools and vouchers and call yourself a liberal, that is, of course, your right. But it’s really no different than being a pro-assault weapon liberal, or a pro-life* liberal: you’re holding a position on at least one issue (and likelyothers) that is philosophically aligned with the right.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Agreed, as long as we don’t conflate “right-wing” with “Republican”. There are plenty of Democrats in on this right-wing movement too, even so-called “liberal” ones.
It is very depressing how many of the progessives I know believe the “failing public school” on the basis of test score hype. They don’t realize that test scores track most closely with family income.
And how many years have gone by with teachers trying so hard to get this very message out—all while the public continues to resist truth, belligerently clinging to the “bad” teacher/”bad” school mantra. Even as a teacher actually working inside a low-income, 95% non-dominant-culture school I made little headway convincing middle class friends, peers and relatives that it wasn’t the teachers and it isn’t the schools.
I see. So Obama and his education secretary were part of this right-wing movement, too?
Obama and Duncan completely bought into Clinton & Bush’s neoliberal ed policies, then put them on steroids. Neoliberal is not liberal, it’s a modified form of liberalism favoring laissez-faire free-market capitalism. It’s the right-wing camel-nose poked into the Demoocrat tent, chasing liberals away to seek more progressive candidates. Many Democrats dance on this neoliberal/progressive schizoid pinhead, supposedly in the interests of consensus, but in actuality polarizing the parties– because Republicans already have plenty of proponents of unfettered free markets in their own tent.
You’re not that new around here – do try to pay attention. The simple answer is yes.
Make that absolutely yes . And it does not stop with ed reform .
If you observed his behavior regarding education, rather than just listening to his rhetoric, you wouldn’t need to ask that question.
“Yes, there are some Democrats and other folks who are otherwise liberals who support “choice.” But their embrace of “reform” — whether out of ignorance or hypocrisy or, yes, even genuine belief — is inconsistent with the liberalism they espouse in other policy areas.”
Except that most of them are not otherwise liberal. They support endless war, drone bombing, special ops, assassination and other military intervention in service of American hegemony and support of far-right Israeli policies. They oppose unions (maybe not out loud, but in policy), they oppose breaking up big banks and other large monopoly corporations, they oppose universal single-payer healthcare, they are generally pro-“free market”/pro-privatization. The only areas where they tend to be “liberal” are the so-called “social” issues like gay rights, and even then they won’t do much of anything until they’re dragged there kicking and screaming (it’s amazing how quickly they all found their LGBTQ bona fides as soon as they realized their big donors supported such rights, after spending years “defending” marriage as between one man, one woman).
“… their (democrats) embrace of reform… is inconsistent with the liberalism they espouse in other policy areas.”
Right, it’s inconsistent with their coddling of criminals on Wall Street, or voting for wars based on transparent lies, or setting the Middle East on fire, or enacting trade deals that screw over American workers, or… you get the idea.
That would then include Bill CLinton for signing NAFTA, Hillary Clinton for supporting Bush with Iraq War, Obama for supporting his Secretary of Education, Pelosi, Schumer for supporting Duncan’s plans…
Correct, LKinyon. Sanders if far more representative of old-timey liberals. Many Democrats (like me) vote for folks like WClinton, HClinton, & Obama-revealed-as-neoliberal (by his first term) because they’re running against someone w/no progressive tendencies whatsoever. At least we occasionally luck into liberal poliicy w/the Dem party.
I was so outraged by Obama and Duncan that I almost voted third party in 2012.my Friend Richard Rothstein pulled me back to earth by reminding me that education was not the only issue that matters. I held my nose and voted for Obama.
Fast forward to 2016. I know all the complaints about Hillary. But look at the damage that Gorsuch will do. His vote will crush unions. His vote will send public money to religious schools. Pruitt will wipe out environmental regulation. Sessions will retreat from civil rights enforcement.
Ideological purity comes at a high price.
I AGREE 100% with what Diane said. Just look at what’s happening with the courts, the SCOTUS!!!! They are being stacked with hard right wingers who will vote against unions, public schools and any sensible gun laws. Thus my vote for Hillary in the general election. Ideological purity does indeed come at a too high price.
L. Kinyon,
Yes, it would.
I can’t believe that anyone can look at Gorsuch and whoever else we have to deal with who replaces Ginsburg and thinks their vote against Hillary Clinton was the right one. Did you see Ginsburg cut Gorsuch down to size? The man has absolutely no principles and she managed to point that out with a few choice words. It is so depressing to me that some self-described progressives didn’t think it was a big deal to have Trump elected. So much potential damage we may never recover from.
And one Democrat who is even better than Bernie Sanders on the privatization and charter school movement is Tim Kaine. It is Tim Kaine, not the “progressives” in Congress, who have stood up for public education. Tim Kaine was on the ticket some self-described “progressives” did NOT vote for because they felt Trump was no worse so what did it matter if he won. Why would any ” real” progressive want a huge supporter of public schools in the White House? They were certain he planned to sell them out anyway, so why not vote against them? That’s the way to show your “progressive creds”. Vote AGAINST Tim Kaine because, you know, evil Hillary. And Trump is no worse (as we heard them repeat again and again).
Why is it that Bernie Sanders can praise Andrew Cuomo as a champion of his progressive education policies and people give Bernie a pass? But Hillary Clinton can nominate a true champion of public education as her VP and the same people claim she is simply someone who does the bidding of Wall Street and refuse to vote for her because Trump is no worse?
I don’t know how to combat that kind of thinking. This is politics. We make compromises just as Bernie does. Hillary Clinton used to be called a socialist left wing liberal for her work. She made some compromises as every politician does but in my opinion they were not even close to the compromises Obama made when he completely sold out public education.
And do you know who was attacked with the same kind of words that dienne77 just used?
“They support endless war, drone bombing, special ops, assassination and other military intervention in service of American hegemony and support of far-right Israeli policies.”
Lyndon Baines Johnson. LBJ. How many kids did you kill today?
If only LBJ lost to Goldwater. Who needs Medicare and Social Security anyway? Who needs civil rights? After all, when you have judged a politician as evil — as far too many self-described “progressives” do — LBJ is the most evil President ever .
And I suspect that certain people on here agree with that sentiment and would have been proud of their third party vote to defeat the evil LBJ so Goldwater could win. While smugly insisting that they were working to defeat LBJ to “save the lives of those bombing victims” because civil rights for African-Americans just weren’t nearly as important. Because if you can’t make sweeping judgments attacking a Democrat as an evil war-mongering politician happy to kill kids in foreign countries, then how can you really join the “true” progressive movement? Do I have that right? Everything else that politician does must be ignored because they are corrupt through and through, say the left, and must be defeated so a right winger can win but one’s “principles” were held.
There are progressive candidates beloved of the anti-Democrats who are pro-DFER and pro-charter. And there are moderate Democrats who support public education strongly. Life is complicated. Republicans can understand that and win. Democrats and progressives form a circular firing squad and defeat themselves.
Gorsuch is very principled. The same principles as Scalia. If it is not written in the Constitution, he is against it.
He is an Originalist. He would take us back to the late 18th century.
Many of the self identified Originalists don’t actually adhere to the original intent of the framers as they claim to do.
In fact, in many cases they have not even read the relevant writing of the Framers (eg, Federalist papers) that is needed to determine such intent ,– or if they have read it, either did not understand it or have chosen to ignore it.
Don’t know much about Gorsuch, but I would not call Scalia an Originalist, unless you mean he came up with his own “original” (creative, unique) interpretation of the Constitution. In that regard, Scalia was an Originalist of the highest order.
The (bogus) Equal protection argument that Scalia used to stop the recount in Florida and make Bush president was nowhere in the original Constitution. In fact, the argument Scalia and the others used was not even in the 14th amendment. He just made it up for the occasion.
Ironically, many of those who call themselves Originalists completely ignore the clear intent of the framers that the Constitution be a “living document” that continued to be relevant well into the future. This original intent is quite clear in the care that they used (in most cases) to word things so that they encompassed the principles but did not tie them down to specifics of the time.
Neil Gorsuch will avenge his mother’s unhappy experience in government. She was apparently a brilliant but extraordinarily conservative lawyer. According to her Wikipedia entry, she served in the Colorado legislature and was part of a group known as “the crazies.” Reagan named her to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, and she set about the job of dismantling it, downsizing it and deregulating polluters, like Scott Pruitt today. She got into a battle with Congress and was forced to resign after less than two years on the job.
Diane,
The Democratic party haters on here will insist that there is no difference between Gorsuch being a justice and Merrick Garland.
They would say that Justice Ginsburg is no different than Gorsuch. Ginsburg is a tool of that corrupt Democratic party that needs to be defeated even if Republicans get to appoint the next 8 justices. Because Dems would appoint justices who are no better. Only justices approved by the Wall Street billionaires who tell the Democrats which justices to appoint that will do their bidding. Like Ginsburg.
No difference. Not one iota. Just ask the Democratic Party bashers on here. Nothing you say will ever convince them that there is any difference between Ginsburg and Gorsuch — both corrupt tools of those 2 parties who have no difference at all. We know Ginsburg is pro-corporation/pro-wall Street because one of those corrupt Dems appointed her. In fact, an evil CLINTON appointed her! Just ask certain Clinton-haters on here what THAT means! Remember that there are no redeeming qualities to any Clintons — corrupt through and through. How much did Clinton get paid by corporate interests to appoint Ginsburg? I’m sure there are posters on here who have some estimates of how much Clinton was rewarded by appointing the justice — Ruth Bader Ginsburg — his corporate masters told him to appoint.
I have no doubt that if that nasty Democrat Elizabeth Warren was the candidate, those same Democrat-haters on here would work to defeat her since symbolizes all that is wrong with the corrupt Democratic party. After all, she IS a Democrat. And according to certain “all Democrats are evil” posters on here, that means Warren supports the corrupt and unprincipled Democrat Party that is no different than the Republicans. I’m sure they can convince many voters to stay home and bring us 4 more years of Trump while smugly telling themselves they have the highest principles working hard to defeat the corrupt Democrats.
I mean, what if Warren appointed more corrupt justices like the ones appointed by one of the most corrupt Democrats in history — Clinton. “No more Ginsburgs” will be the rallying cry of the haters who insist that there is absolutely no difference between the parties. None. Ginsburg, Gorsuch who cares? Those two represent exactly how the Democrats are just like Republicans and they will insist forever that there is absolutely no difference. None at all.
NYC PSP,
I know that Clinton would have chosen superb Supreme Court justices. Trump will choose evangelical favorites.
And Clinton would have chosen left leaning liberals. Is that a surprise to you?
The worst are the right-leaning liberals.
“The Democratic party haters on here will insist that there is no difference between Gorsuch being a justice and Merrick Garland.”
You see it here with every “They’re all on the take” or “The game was rigged long ago.” Obama is a “neo-liberal,” and therefore what does it matter whether Obama or Clinton or Trump is making the National Labor Relations Board appointments. Etc. There are plenty reasons to be depressed about the world, but there is a toxic distrust of institutions that well overshoots the mark.
FLERP,
Meanwhile, as people denounce both parties, our institutions are being systematically dismantled by looters now in governmement offices. No, they are not all “just as bad.”
I agree.
But I just shake my head and read the posts on here that cannot recognize a bit of difference between the two parties. And I can’t help but to reply even though I know my pleas for them to stop shouting “both sides are equally bad” fall on deaf ears.
I have little faith that we won’t see a repeat of the trashing of Elizabeth Warren or whoever gets the nomination. They won’t be good enough. Not perfect. And they will be representing that Democratic party that is no different than the Republicans. And people will not bother to vote. Because “hold your nose and vote for the party that is no different than the Republicans” as we heard during the 2016 campaign is noise that is very difficult for any Democrat to break through.
Anyone who can’t see the difference between Gorsuch and Ginsburg doesn’t care.
generalisations are unfair to all involved. I happen to care, AND know the difference between the two judges.
And if you would take the time to check, you will find there is a large are of agreement between these judges. Yes, they do disagree on issues, and both do that from the most sincere intentions. They have, and show, respect for eachother. Ah, but would all who disagree would do the same…
L Kinyon,
Diane said that anyone who doesn’t see a difference between Ginsburg and Gorsuch didn’t care, and your answer includes:
“you will find there is a large are of agreement between these judges….”
Did you really just say that about Ginsburg and Gorsuch?
Why the need to disagree? There is a huge difference in what Ginsburg and Gorsuch believe in and want this country to be. There is a huge difference in how they will vote and how that will impact this country.
It’s also not clear where you get that they have respect for each other? Apparently, Gorsuch decided to break with long honored tradition of the newest appointees and lecture the other justices during oral arguments. Ginsburg cut him down to size with one smart comment.
FLERP! says: “there is a toxic distrust of institutions that well overshoots the mark.”
It’s bad enough that the right has given up on the institutions of government (although apparently the institutions of the NRA and corporations are still to be admired).
But that toxic distrust of institutions from the left is encouraged by Russian and right wing propaganda. It’s sad to see the left embracing it as if it were gospel.
Both sides are bad. No difference. Everyone is corrupt. Slogans to depress people on the left from supporting any candidate with a D next to their name.
Right on Diane! Ideological purity gets you exactly nowhere in the voting booth.
dienne77,
You are absolutely correct. Well said.
Of course education reform is a right wing movement, all the way down to its atomic structure. Its a movement to privatize the commons. Period.
Our seeming (though I don’t really know why) confusion on this stems from the mere fact that a large bulk of what we label the “left wing” of our political culture is, in fact, neo-liberal and therefore essentially rightist. We all make a mistake when we assign positions on the political spectrum via opinions on transient “issues.” Placement on the political spectrum is actually about political philosophy, not one’s stance on guns or whatever.
One thing that has to be comprehended: The political culture of the United States is rightist. Its divisions for the most part are divisions within a broad right. The last real and viable left-wing impulse in the United States was the New Deal….from a political philosophy point of view. “Issue” based politics is not anything. We live in a right wing country….in fact a country that has for the most part supported most of the rightist regimes on the planet for at least a century. The “left” in the United States has arisen sporadically and has been in all cases defeated historically. Remnants of those various left wing moments comprise the fundamental elements of what we have today pieced together as an American Left…..which is to say the “progressive” left. Make no mistake however that the United States, and its history, is an ocean of essentially right wing philosophy, from the Federalists down to today’s Republicans. Unions, the real pulse of any viable and real philosophical left, are essentially dead.
With this in mind, it becomes quite clear that one of the last “hold-outs” is public education and is the absolute low-lying fruit for the forces of privatization. To any thinking human, this was legible and obvious for many years, and its pathology equally obvious. Those to whom this history and process have been confusing or in any way astonishing absented themselves at some point in their lives from any historical understanding of American political culture.
There are no real forces standing in the way of this process….just those of us clinging to the refuse of dead left wing moments in American history.
The free market profiteers come in both red and blue, even if the ideological basis is conservative. I have seen both Gates and the Waltons donate big dollars to conservative “think tanks.”
Of course I agree with you .
My one point of clarification .
“Unions, the real pulse of any viable and real philosophical left, are essentially dead.”
They stopped being a viable left alternative when they stopped being social movements and started competing for the crumbs. You could say that started in the 50s with the Red scare . I suspect it was well underway with the demise of the IWW in the earlier Red Scares. Of note Trumka proposed moving back to a more inclusive model in 2011. . It was rejected by the member Unions the leadership of whom were “content to go down with the ship in their first class cabin .”
Joel,
As per usual, you are correct.
I was speaking in the broadest sense possible. A real viable left, philosophically, is not a thing sans labor.
Yes, NYSTEACHER, with every passing day we see how sadly aberrant the New Deal was in the arc of US history.
What we see now is much closer to the “real” America, as experienced by most Americans, and their subjects, over history: miltarism, repression of labor, class war, explicit racism and sexism.
To that we can add the contemporary qualities of state-cultivated fear, willful ignorance and a parasitic Overclass.
I think both you and Dienne are speaking of politicians when you say ‘political culture”? Because I don’t think the policies you cite are ascribed to universally by the general public. They are the policies of the military-industrial complex. The military, industry, banking are conservative, even ‘rightist’; the very nature of these institutions is to conserve and increase their own power. Limits and corrections are only available through legislation, the power of the people. I believe the turn the country has taken in recent decades has mostly to do with deregulations which have turned these beasts loose: they now hold more power than the vote.
We could have had more Ruth Bader Ginsburgs.
Instead we will have more Neil Gorsuchs.
Because too many people repeated ad nauseam that there is no difference at all. Won’t change one thing about our country.
I happen to believe there is a BIG difference between them. But I realize that since one of the evil Clintons appointed Ginsburg it would pop a bubble in your worldview that the Clintons are entirely corrupt.
or perhaps you think Ginsburg is simply as corrupt as you insist the people who appointed her to do their bidding are.
Obama’s policies of test and punish, VAM, the Common Core made all the so called reformers on both sides of the aisle happy. During Obama’s two terms we saw the emergence of a strong, wealthy charter lobby that has become so strong Democrats are afraid to open their mouths to say anything positive about public education. I recall that Hillary was chided by the “charteristas” during the presidential campaign for making a positive statement about public education. The free market profiteers push for policies that will give them access to public education money, and that is their end game regardless of party affiliation.
Right, left, up, down it doesnt matter which dirction the finger is pointing, both sides of the iasle are to blame.
Gore Vidal had a comment that comes to mind. It was something like, “A handful of oligarchs have always run this country from behind the closed doors of smoke-filled rooms, and “liberal and conservative” was just a ruse made up to hide the paperwork.”
Depressing. But the grain of truth in Vidal’s statement is assuming boulder-like dimensions. I’ve thought about that a lot recently, with all the proposals backed by ‘conservatives’ which turn the spigot of tax $ to corporations up to fuller blast w/ no way to pay for the lost revenue.
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé.
There are many conservatives, who are interested in education reform. All of us, liberal and conservative, must live the in society populated by the graduates of our schools. Education is cost-effective, and a noble social goal. An educated society, is a guarantor of our free nation.
This is bad?
It is bad if you think that it is good educational policy to monetize it so that the only people getting education are a very few. The conservatives have demonstrated that their chief interest lies in suppressing the votes of the many so that society can be run for the benefit of the few. Education reform, as it is practiced today, robs from the poor and gives to the rich.
This is bad.
I do not support a policy such as you describe. I support a universal education for all citizens. (We can discuss spending tax dollars to educate illegals, later).
I am a conservative, but I support universal suffrage. I am unalterably opposed to any type of voter suppression.
I cannot find any education reform that robs from the “poor” and gives to the “rich”, as you describe. The educational “apartheid” system, that our nation practices today, keeps the wealthy in excellent public schools, and the poor in terrible schools, through the insane property tax system.
Charles,
I would believe you IF you were advocating for a different policy.
For example, it sounds as if what you really want is for public school systems to establish separate but equal schools for the kids who are easiest and cheapest to teach. And then provide that other “universal” education to the remaining ones. What you want is for PUBLIC school systems to oversee both schools.
That is a legitimate argument to make although there are obviously some drawbacks. But that point is that is a policy that does NOT “rob” the poor to give to the rich because it is ONE system. The schools that teach the cheapest kids don’t make profits they can use to overpay their CEOs or waste on marketing. Any savings would go back into the system to be used for the schools that teach the more expensive kids.
But you don’t seem to want that. You DO want to rob the poorest schools. You want to allow private actors to skim off the cheapest to teach while demanding the same per pupil money and insisting that much of their overhead is paid for by charging pupils in public schools more! That means you are demanding the poorest kids that charter don’t want cover a large portion of the charter’s costs while also — from that budget — covering the education of a group of students who have significantly more expensive educational needs.
The ONLY people that benefit are the charter operators. While the poorest students are robbed of resources.
@NYC Parent. You do not know what I want. Do not presume.
I do not want publicly-operated school systems to be separate but equal. I feel that publicly-operated schools in economically-depressed areas, with high crime, need additional resources, more than good quality schools in expensive neighborhoods.
I do want, for parents to have greater control over the education of their children. If this control can be achieved, by relocating the children to non-public schools, then fine.
Charles,
You want to underfund and disinvest in the schools attended by 85% of American children.
You want the public to pay for religious schools that indoctrinate children in religious beliefs and that teach science from the Bible.
I don’t want a penny of my taxes to pay for religious schools. Whenever the issue is put to a vote, the public agrees with me.
I am in total agreement with Jersey Jazzman, Diane, and all the knowledgeable comments herein. I would just add one thing, that both parties of American government have been taken over not by rightwing ideology but by the runaway power of corporate greed. Greed, not ideology. Reformyism is not an idea being debated. It’s a product being marketed. I would say the same about all conservative-neo”liberal” acts. Lincoln: “…Corporations have been enthroned, and an era of corruption in high places will follow…”
“both parties of American government have been taken over not by rightwing ideology but by the runaway power of corporate greed”
This is the kind of unhelpful statement that brought us Trump.
Have some prominent people in the Democratic party been co-opted? Yes. Should they be called out and loudly criticized? Yes! Should we fight against them? Yes! What if that person is the DFER candidate that Bernie Sanders endorsed over someone fighting the corporate takeover of public schools? Um, can we please change the subject while I tell the country how corrupt all Democrats all to help defeat all of them and give more power to the right wing?
There have been too many great progressive Democrats who are fighting the good fight and getting smeared by the “Dems have been taken over by corporate greed” and losing like Russ Feingold while the right wing cheers on the progressives doing their dirty work to convince the public that “Dem = no different than Republicans”.
Has Elizabeth Warren been taken over by the “runaway power of corporate greed?” Then why are you smearing her that way? Has Russ Feingold? They are DEMOCRATS. And you are working so hard to convince the rest of us that means they must be corrupt. Stop it. Being an “independent” like Bernie who has been very weak on gun control doesn’t give me license to claim that Sanders and the entire independent party he represents is owned by the runaway power of the NRA. How would you feel if I decided to do nothing but fight hard to convince voters that Bernie Sanders was owned entirely by the NRA like you are trying to convince voters that “the entire Democratic party” is corrupt? You would despise it. So stop being a hypocrite and allow Democrats a little nuance as well. You are doing the right wing’s dirty work for them. Stop being played for fools. Fight against corporate takeover by fighting specific politicians who happen to be Democrats instead of smearing the entire party and everyone in it. You just make it harder for progressives to win.
Quit smearing the entire Democratic Party — progressives AND conservatives. Point out the individual corruptions of Democrats and fight them and work to defeat them if necessary. But stop making it about party. And stop being hypocrites where a Bernie-endorsed Dem can be pro-DFER and get a pass while a pro-public school Dem gets smeared as a tool of billionaire interests because they are more pro-business in other areas but refuse to sell out public schools like the DFER “progressives”.
Nuance. Please. Stop. Smearing. All. Democrats. And. Doing. The. Right. Wing’s. Dirty. Work.
My response to JJ:
Is your argument so very different than asserting that 1) William Ruckelshaus conspired with Republicans in Congress to pass the Clean Water Act; 2) the Walton Family Foundation gives generously to dozens of water protection nonprofits; and 3) nasty remarks have been made by several individuals known to pour water in their tubs on a regular basis. Therefore we left wingers should chronically emulate our Woodstock predecessors’ wallowing in mud?
Here in Massachusetts, legislative leadership on behalf of education reform has been provided by folks like Senate President (and former labor lawyer) Thomas Birmingham, Senator Michael Barrett, Rep. Marty Walz, all good Democrats, with subsequent charter school expansions supported by both Republican and Democrat governors, including Deval Patrick.
Democratic Congressman Stephen Lynch of South Boston, former president of the Ironworkers Union is co-founder of the Boston Collegiate Charter school, and Boston’s Mayor Walsh who served as a Laborers Union president, and head of the Boston Building Trades until his election as Mayor, was a founding board member of the Neighborhood House Charter School.
JJ: “First, consider what the Success Academy formula for ‘success’ is: privately-controlled schools, fueled by public money with private donations mixed in as an additive. Combine this with the clear differences in student populations and the wage free-riding and you’ve got a big problem with resource inequities between SA and the NYC public district schools.”
You don’t make a persuasive case that terminating private donations to charter schools would benefit anyone. And you fail to recognize that the education reforms instituted by liberal Democrats here in Massachusetts, for example, had both increasing total education spending, and also lessening funding disparities between schools statewide as key elements, alongside development of charter schools, etc.
As former labor lawyer and Senate President Tom Birmingham, whom I mentioned above, wrote:
“The Education Reform Act is a complicated piece of legislation containing many innovative initiatives, including the creation of charter schools. But for all its complexity, the Education Reform Act can be reduced, in essence, to two propositions: We will make a massive infusion of progressively distributed dollars into our public schools, and in return, we demand high standards and accountability from all education stakeholders. This grand bargain is the cornerstone of education reform.
“Our fidelity to these two core principles helps explain our extraordinary achievements. Throughout the 1990s and in the first years of this century, support for public education was the top priority of state government and our budgets reflected this. From 1993 to 2002, state spending on public schools increased 8 percent per year, for a total of over $2 billion.”
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2013/06/14/education-reform-act-reaches-mass-has-more/GMHHU8FdXLwR46qtAM7TgL/story.html
JJ: “When the voters of Boston were given the chance to decide on whether they wanted to see charters expand, they overwhelmingly said no (especially in communities of color).”
The question on the ballot was not whether we wanted to see charters expand. It was a specific proposal for expansion that some considered potentially too rapid. Indeed the single most influential politician who opposed the ballot question, was Mayor Walsh, the charter school founding board member, who had is own, competing plan for charter school expansion… differences in timetables and funding mechanisms but still an expansion.
One should also keep in mind that the ballot question’s principal opponents found it necessary to oppose the measure by disseminating an array of vivid falsities (I would be glad to offer a series of examples if you doubt that), perhaps believing that a truthful account might not win adequate public support.
JJ: “There is nothing remotely liberal about privatizing schools, demonizing unions”
How do you reconcile your implicit argument there with liberal labor leaders like those I’ve cited above helping start charter schools?
Stephen,
There is nothing remotely liberal about diverting public money from public schools to privately managed schools. There is nothing remotely liberal about demonizing unions. There is nothing remotely liberal about deprofessionaling teaching and replacing professional teachers with amateurs.
The fact that some Democrats did these things reflects poorly on their judgement but does not turn privatization and union-bashing into politically progressive actions or policies.
I’ll give you a predictive answer to your question. The people you mentioned were not really the right kind of liberal. They are make belief, fakes.
A number of contributors on this list cannot admit that in some cases there is nothing wrong with charters.
What’s wrong with charters is that privatization harms the public sector. Steals resources from schools open to all. Fraud, theft, misuse of funds absent oversight.
Stephen Ronan says: ” perhaps believing that a truthful account might not win adequate public support.”
Here are some “truthful” accounts you keep insisting are not lies:
sometimes over 20% of the 5 and 6 year olds in our charters come in as violent children. And this ONLY happens in our charters that have almost no white children. And our teachers are so terrific that we know the only reason that huge number of non-white children keep acting violently is because they ARE violent when they come to us! Don’t ask us why we get so many violent non-white children but we do. Stephen Ronan attacks anyone who says this is a lie because he knows it is NOT a lie. if Ronan wasn’t so absolutely certain that lots of
African-American 5 year olds are just as violent as the charter CEOs say they are, he would actually say “it is IMPOSSIBLE that a charter school that gets the most motivated parents would have huge numbers of 5 year olds this violent.” But Ronan does not say that. He says it IS possible and no one should question it because it is a TRUTHFUL account. Ronan has his own definition of truth and his truth identifies many African-Ameican children as violent because if a white charter leader says they are violent, who he is he to question that “truthful” account?
Is THAT the truthful account that will win support, Stephen Ronan? Maybe the voters of Massachusetts didn’t believe in the truth you wanted them to believe. i’m sure next time you can run more ads telling them about the violent kindergarten children you insist keep attending charter schools and act out violently due to their natural violent tendencies that are part of their nature and have nothing to do with the teachers in the school. Make sure to run lots of ads telling them that “truth” that you attack me for thinking is a lie.
The fact that you call that racist dishonesty a “truthful account” demonstrates how much you have in common with the far right.
And don’t claim you never said it was absolutely true. You have said it over and over again with your attacks on me when I bring it up.
The first time I brought it up I thought you were an honest operator and I assumed you’d say “of course that charter CEO is a liar because saying that 20% of the 5 year olds who win the lottery and enroll were raised by their parents to be very violent children who act out dangerously is a reprehensible and RACIST thing to say.” But you didn’t say that. You said it is likely to be true! Because charter CEOs never lie.
After all, that’s the kind of “truthful account” you specialize in!
I think Jazzman painting corporate ed reform as a right wing movement was an attempt to wake up Democratic voters who gave the Clintons, Obama (and almost every Democratic House and Senate member) a pass on education, noting as Diane did in 2012 that education “is only one issue” and holding her nose while voting for Obama.
I get that the “purity” question is a major dilemma for voters, so for the sake of argument, let’s agree that Obama was the right choice over Romney in 2012 in the general election. But why didn’t someone run an education-based primary against Obama in 2012, if only to highlight the issue and seek concessions in a platform committee negotiation?
The reason Obama was so lame on education was that he was uninvolved, deferring to pro-privatization advisors who were handpicked by Wall Street (as we learned in 2016). His transition co-chair John Podesta was the link back to the Clinton administration, but also the link to billionaire donors and high powered Republicans with whom he traded favors.
Podesta bragged about taking education off the table in 2012 as a policy difference between Obama and Romney, which neutralized the issue. After the election, Podesta would immediately begin fundraising for ed reform PACs alongside Jeb Bush, creating a bipartisan privatization machine to charterize the country.
Maybe it’s clearer in the rear view mirror, but Jazzman’s point was that attacking public education, gunning for teacher unions and privatizing schools is not really a separate, isolated issue, it’s an underlying philosophy – exactly the same awful policies Scalia or Gorsuch would pursue.
Fast forward to 2016 when Bernie foresaw this happening all over again and decided (only after Warren declined) to run an issue-based primary campaign, highlighting issues like inequity and corrupt election financing. The plan, I believe, was to put pressure on Hillary to improve. And she did, on trade and Keystone, for-profit prisons, and ultimately on college tuition. But when it was clear Bernie was topping out around 42%, the (younger and more party-independent) Bernie crowd did not just fall in with Hillary.
Get to the DNC platform negotiations and Hillary’s side makes more concessions, such as legalizing pot, a strong alternative energy stand and reducing superdelegates by 30%. But Hillary wouldn’t change on other issues. On education, she held firm to charter schools and Common Core testing, but the biggest complaint was her Wall Street fealty.
Polls plainly showed independent voters going to Trump over her – she needed to respond, but refused to break with the rich donor class that has supported her for decades, starting with the Waltons in Arkansas. We know from leaks her own team wanted her to repair her Wall Street problem, saying internally it was hurting her badly. Still, she wouldn’t change.
Education is but one of many issues, but almost all of the problems in our nation stem from one single fundamental issue – money corrupting our political process.
Intelligent people disagree on our eternal conundrum – should we support a lesser evil for the greater good (Gorsuch v Ginsberg), or let things go to hell to send a message that we must never let corporate-funded candidates box us in? Even now, as we have indeed “gone to hell”, the two factions do not agree and blame each other.
My take on Jazzman’s message is that people who sell out schools to private corps are right wing, aka unsupportable – it should be a basic Democratic value not to take money from corrupt billionaires engaging in pay-for-policy. How did we compromise this, slick talk from good orators? Maybe we never really had a choice…
If we are faced in 2020 with the another match up like a Cory Booker vs. Trump, the question will not be whether to vote third party or stay home, the question will be why were we unable to reject a flawed candidate after getting burned so many times over and over.
The billionaires have unlimited money, the media, and great influence. But if more than 52% actually voted, the middle class could take control in a single election cycle. We could use primaries, advocacy, protests, small donations, organizing, volunteering and boycotts to prevent the DNC from installing another puppet of the rich. This would not have to be done from scratch, it would only require a 9% increase over the previous election results in a progressive vs. corporatist primary match up.
I held my nose and voted for Obama in 2012 because education was not the only issue.
But that does not excuse the fact that Obama sold out education. His position was indistinguishable from Romney on schools