Thanks to reader and teacher-blogger David Taylor for sharing this post from the far-far-far right Acton Institute.
The Acton Institute will hold its annual dinner on October 18 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The keynote speaker is Betsy DeVos. There will be no protestors. She will be speaking to her tiny little claque of extremist libertarians, who are exulting these days about their great strides in rolling back the New Deal, shredding any safety net for the poor, getting rid of unions, eliminating pensions, and privatizing government programs and services. Betsy is their hero, because she has not only funded the free-market cause (and the Acton Institute) but has jumped into the arena to put her reactionary agenda into the mainstream.
The post includes the names and connections among some of Betsy’s friends.
Like J.C. Huizenga. Time for a personal anecdote. Many years ago, I was invited to lecture at Calvin College, Betsy’s alma mater. Betsy was probably in the audience. That’s when I was on the Dark Side, a period of my life that I have utterly recanted. What I remember best about Calvin was that everyone was so very nice. You know, midwestern nice. Not what I’m used to in New York City, where the default attitude towards strangers is brusque and even rude. At the end of my presentation and the reception, I met J.C. Huizenga, and he told me about his many business investments, which included a major waste disposal company and a morality-based for-profit charter chain, National Heritage Academies. Then he offered me a ride home on his private jet. Interesting combination of businesses. Waste management and charters.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I am among many who are clicking my heels and shouting hooray that you escaped from the Dark Side.
LikeLike
Another ed reform conference that completely excludes any advocates for public schools- the schools 80% of children attend.
How do you “reinvent education” without consulting 80% of families and schools?
God forbid a public school supporter should be permitted to speak to the US Secretary of Education when she’s busy “reinventing” schools. It’s vitally important they carefully exclude any dissenters to The Agenda.
This isn’t a “debate”. It’s an echo chamber steamroller riding over 80% of US families. They’re not even consulted when the Best and Brightest meet to discuss public schools.
I hope they let us know the plans for our schools! Can we somehow get a ticket so we can at least listen in?
LikeLike
The premise of the “debate” ed reform is conducting:
“Everyone in the United States knows education is badly in need of reform. While K-12 and higher education costs have outpaced inflation, we have yet to see commensurate returns. And parents who opt out of such a system pay twice for their children’s education–taxes and tuition.”
Did Americans vote to privatize public schools and gut the public schools the vast majority of them use? Because I don’t remember that national referendum.
When was this decree issued? “Everyone”? So by that they mean the 150 ideologues invited to that room, NONE of whom probably attended public schools or have children in public schools?
The whole country really aspires to the heights of excellence reached in Michigan? Where the public school quality has dropped every year these people have been in power and 80% of the privatized schools are for-profits? That’s our goal? Michigan ed reform which rivals only Ohio and Pennsylvania as an absolute disaster?
Ohio and Michigan seem to have taken their traditional rivalry and are now competing for Worst Ed Reform State. Ohio’s winning but Michigan is right behind us!
LikeLike
Take a trip through Grand Rapids sometime. It’s sort of the ed reform fantasyland- there is constant promotion of private and charter schools and public schools are completely invisible, and completely ignored.
They couldn’t make it clearer that public school families aren’t welcomed or valued in that city if they tried. That’s the city the DeVos family own, and that’s the template they have for where you live.
LikeLike
Here’s the wonderful and inspiring “vision” ed reform has for your child’s public school:
“When districts go into a major period of declining enrollment, schools can experience chaotic changes in staffing, course offerings, and student supports—as fixed costs eat up an increasingly large share of revenues, and teacher and student morale spirals downward. The harm this causes students should be unacceptable to everyone.”
Best to pull your kid out of public school now – clearly this just gets worse as the unfashionable public schools are phased out. Have they notified the public that they’ve decided to abandon the schools 80% of kids attend? I’m fairly confident NONE of the parents in my son’s school are aware these high level decisions have been made.
LikeLike
I am flabbergasted that so many folks think it is a social justice issue to FORCE inner city and poor kids to attend a failing public school for which they were zoned. Public schools were failing long before charters were invented. 50 years ago marginalized people protested to have the CHOICE to attend schools with their white counterparts. Now people are protesting against giving these people a choice. Makes no sense.
LikeLike
UZ,
Most urban charters are worse than public schools because they have inexperienced teachers who leave at a high rate every year. Most kids who get vouchers see their test scores fall, while they learn science from the Bible.
Great nations have great public schools.
LikeLike
“50 years ago marginalized people protested to have the CHOICE to attend schools with their white counterparts.”
Wrong word: “opportunity” – not “choice”.
LikeLike
Quit blaming the public schools for the failure of society. There is no such thing as a “failing school”. I have met many bright and contributing members of society who grew up in tough neighborhoods and got a better education than I did at a prep school. If the preponderance of people who graduate from inner city schools are seen as failures, why should we be surprised when the majority of people in these communities reject education?
Schools are not to blame for test scores or unemployment. Our society, perhaps the natural world, creates winners and losers. Quit blaming the losers. Do you not know that some of us have rejected the idea of a world based on labeling some as failures? We should all labor under the impression that those things that benefit us all do not exclude others for the sake of individual benefit. Any system that promotes the greatness of the single individual will end in tyranny.
LikeLike
Many (not all) persons who wish to perpetuate the public-school monopoly are hypocrites. I too, have noticed the incongruity. Some public school supporters, say that public schools give children the opportunity to “mix” with children from different neighborhoods, races, and socio-economic groups. Then the same persons tout the advantages of going to neighborhood schools. If kids only go to schools in their own neighborhoods, how can they “mix” with kids from other neighborhoods? As you say :”Makes no sense”.
LikeLike
So close the failing charters too (if they can’t turn it around after a certain number of years). Other charters, like where I send my kids, are beating the odds (and beating all the local public non-charter schools). Close the schools that are failing and keep the ones that are succeeding. Locking poor minority youth in failing public schools sounds like a neo-Jim Crow arrangement.
LikeLike
Having two seaparate school systems is called Segregation. Jim Crow. Charters use hedge fund money to open and use black children as pawns to destroy public education. Colonialism.
LikeLike
Oh–I get it. FORCING poor minority children to attend failing public schools–some of which have been failing for DECADES–is for their own good. Because hedge funds and blacks and colonialism. Don’t forget about the cisnormative heteronormative imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy! Sec Ravitch, take your buzz words back to W and the reputs–they probably worked on him. They won’t work on me.
LikeLike
“Not what I’m used to in New York City, where the default attitude towards strangers is brusque and even rude.”
Not my experience at all – my trip to NYC was a delight and people were friendly, helpful and curious to know about Australia. Or did I catch them all on a good day?
LikeLike
It depends. I am always courteous and helpful. I can’t say the same for others. New Yorkers live in a crowded environment. That tends to make people brusque.
LikeLike
Once I was driving over the Connecticut River bridge at 2:00 AM when my old car died. There was one place open at that time of night under the bridge where we could call for help. Dogs barking and obvious weapons led me to understand that there were places other than cornfields and coon hunts where people had dogs and guns. I greeted the taciturn Yankee with most disarming drawl, begging the use of a phone. Ultimately, the man who fixed my car at that time of night charged me 17 bucks.
No one will ever convince me that a generalization about a place is correct. Sometimes you have to look under the surface so that, as Henri Nowen put it, “the Christ in you can see the Christ in others”. In my experience, New York is a great place.
LikeLike