Wisconsin: State Eager to Deregulate and Demoralize Teachers

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1. Chiara says:

   March 29, 2018 at 9:37 am

   It’s amusing though, Diane, because the “ed reform governors” who slashed public education budgets and weakened and gutted public education systems are all of a sudden HUGE fans of public education.

   They’re all running on how much they love public education. It’s baloney, of course. Ed reform is as anti-public education now as it was in 2010 when they all ran AGAINST public education.

   They’re changing their political branding because people in these states have figured out that these people are destroying their public education systems, and Scott Walker and the rest of the reformers are afraid they won’t be reelected.

   Supporting public education is fashionable again. Or will be until ed reformers get reelected. Then they’ll go back to their actual position.

   Why Republicans now brag about their investments in education

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2. Chiara says:

   March 29, 2018 at 9:47 am

   This is the newest marketing strategy for ed reform politicians- pretend they support public education:

   “The new rhetorical approach represents a major turnabout for a generation of conservative leaders who came into office promising to get better results with less taxpayer money for public schools. The backlash that boiled over into a teacher walkout in West Virginia is playing out in several states, as teachers and the public demand more money after years of tight budgets and a Republican focus on tax cuts. That has forced a change in strategy, even as the legislators continue to resist calls for new taxes.”

   It’s amazing how cynical these people are. Read Scott Walker or Rick Scott now and compare to 2010. Purely political, and purely self-interested. They don’t “support” public education anymore than they did in 2010- the only thing that has changed is they’re politically vulnerable on it.

   The plan is to lie to the public and hope this rebranding of ed reform as pro-public education comes soon enough to allow ed reformers to hang onto their jobs. Has absolutely nothing to do with children or young people or even public education- it has to do with THESE politicians and their careers.

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   • Duane E Swacker says:

     March 29, 2018 at 8:53 pm

     YEP!

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3. retired teacher says:

   March 29, 2018 at 9:55 am

   ALEC’s goal is much larger than just the “demoralization of the teaching profession.” Creating a privatized path to the teaching profession is an attempt to undermine the profession while ALEC controls the narrative. ALEC seeks to deprofessionalize both the training and profession. This move is a direct assault on democracy and opportunity in this country. If ALEC’s plan goes national, teaching and learning as we know it will cease to exist. ALEC will have destroyed the entire concept upward mobility for teachers, university professors of education and potentially the working class. ALEC seeks to create a separate and unequal opportunity path for working people in this country. Excellence and opportunity will be rationed for those that can afford private education with class lines more clearly delineated than they are today. ALEC will build a concrete wall around avenues of opportunity for working class young people with clearly delineated barriers. This is potentially an extreme version of the separate and equal treatment that is already typical of “reform.”

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   • Chiara says:

     March 29, 2018 at 10:06 am

     The part that amazes me is how many higher education people support this stuff.

     They know it’s coming to higher ed too, right?

     It’s a strange kind of privileged arrogance, where they somehow believe all this lousy education policy will never impact their jobs in higher education. Of course it will. The minute they succeed in eradicating public schools they’ll come for public universities.

     They’re ALL going to be working for 15 dollars an hour. All those well-compensated and secure college professors who back this stuff? They’re too stupid to realize it’s coming for them next.

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     • retired teacher says:

       March 29, 2018 at 11:26 am

       I see this separate an unequal path the road to enhanced classism that was always part of the British system, but a lot less true in America, which is supposed to be the land of opportunity for all. Billionaires like the Koch brothers are trying to build a pseudo-aristocracy by controlling access to opportunity. Any professors in state universities that ignore the signs are naive.

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     • ciedie aech says:

       March 29, 2018 at 1:18 pm

       It is definitely hard to hear university professors or public school teachers in more privileged areas scoff at the idea that THEY would ever fall to the push for eliminating the humanities and begin to spew Big Money messages: they refuse to see what is already happening around the nation, not understanding that the privatizing, segregating, free-market-pushing forces won’t stop when it gets to their doors.

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4. Chiara says:

   March 29, 2018 at 9:58 am

   The Ohio ed reform situation is interesting. For 20 years state government has been wholly dominated by ed reformers. Public schools (the schools 90% of the families in the state use) took a back seat to the ideological theories of national ed reformers. The neglect of public school systems started to show, and there was a distinct public backlash to ed reform.

   Now, we actually have a state superintendent now who is PRO public education. I know that’s an incredibly low bar but I never thought we’d see another one of those in my lifetime.

   National ed reformers usually lag what’s happening in the states. They’ll figure out that their anti-public education platform is unpopular, eventually, and then we’ll see the national ed reform lobbyists desperately attempt to rebrand just like we’re seeing at the state level. By 2020 it’ll pierce even the cloistered and cliquish “ed reform movement” in DC and national politicians will start running on supporting public education again.

   Public education will be fashionable enough for even our clueless and out of touch national political leaders to notice and get behind, if only rhetorically 🙂

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5. Scott Walker Elected to Gov Again says:

   March 29, 2018 at 10:12 am

   If the people in Wisconsin elect Scott Walker again to the Governor post then each and every person in the state of Wisconsin should be signed up for a psychiatric evaluation.

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   • drext727 says:

     March 29, 2018 at 10:39 am

     Agreed. Makes a person wonder what they are putting in the water.

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6. markstextterminal says:

   March 29, 2018 at 10:21 am

   Scott Walker is a college dropout and, by any standard to which I am prepared to stipulate, a pretty low-watt bulb.

   So there is something about this that looks very much like Freudian reaction formation to me. Governor Walker’s intellectual betters–which means most if not all of Wisconsin’s teachers–make him anxious.

   I grew up in Madison back when Wisconsin prided itself on its tradition of Good Government. So this is tragic, and Wisconsin, I have no doubt, will pay a high price for this dismal idea.

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   • ciedie aech says:

     March 29, 2018 at 1:19 pm

     an interesting comparison of Walker to a low-watt bulb: every time I see his photograph in the media it gives off that exact vibe.

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7. markstextterminal says:

   March 29, 2018 at 11:11 am

   Ah–thank you sir. Hope all is well out there.

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8. Susan Lee Schwartz says:

   March 29, 2018 at 11:55 am

   Posted at OPED NEWS:
   https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Wisconsin-State-Eager-to-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Educators–Teachers_Policy_Public-Education_Public-Education-180329-268.html#comment695109

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9. Susan Lee Schwartz says:

   March 29, 2018 at 12:00 pm

   We, TEACHERS at the bottom —with the kids— (who know what learning looks like, must stop this PLOY to destroy the VOICE OF THE TEACHER-PRACTITIONER so that the oligarchs can hand the schools over to state legislatures with not an educator on board, who knows WHATLEARNING LOOKS LIKE.
   WLLL!
   That is the key, you see, because ordinary folks have no idea what learning looks like in a classroom. Does it look like lots of hit -tech? Or does lots of pretty bulletin boards mean learning is ongoing?
   The PLOY inthe PLOT

   Whatever you call them these are people like the Koch Brothers, whose toxic empire provides them with ONE MILLION DOLLAR A DAY, so they can do this and this!

   They have ‘’bambooled the people, and sold them charter schools “a magic elixir,” because it is soooo easy to sell magic elixirs ‘education’ to people… no evidence required.

   The power elite, end out a steady stream of lies and noise —- so much static, so many talking heads, and pundits, the average ‘Joe’ is confounded as he goes to vote for bills with Orwellian names ‘to benefit the children.’

   DON’T MISS my comment at the end of THIS LINK which is at the end of a must read article on HOW this ‘elite; have entered the VOTING BOOTH in Pennsylvania, with a bill to END THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

   You can read all about how the oligarchs are working to privatize education in my series a here. But it is no secret. here is a report on their agenda.

   They promote ALEC which is hell-bent on taking possession of our schools, privatizing them —not for the enormous profit— but for the benefit of RE-WRITING HISTORY: Diane Ravitch is grassroots activist and educator who motivates parents to know stop the charlatans and liars.

   We, the people at the bottom, the parents and teachers, know what LEARNING does NOT resemble— no matter what is SPUN in the media, by Duncan, King, Eli Broad, Gates etc —the billionaire ‘dinosaurs’ of the EDUCATIONAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX (EIC) This ‘cabal ‘of the New World Order here in the US, the people who aspire to ‘run’ the US, as their fiefdom .

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10. SomeDAM Poet says:

    March 29, 2018 at 7:38 pm

    It’s the Uberization of teaching

    Just as anyone (or any computer) can be an Uber driver, anyone (or any computer) can be a teacher.

    So the theory goes, anyway.

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    • dianeravitch says:

      March 29, 2018 at 10:42 pm

      It is called the gig economy.

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11. SomeDAM Poet says:

    March 29, 2018 at 7:43 pm

    Maybe in the case of teaching, it would be better called Gooberization

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    • SomeDAM Poet says:

      March 29, 2018 at 7:46 pm

      I suppose that would make Scott Walker Gomer

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12. SomeDAM Poet says:

    March 29, 2018 at 8:02 pm

    Speaking of Democrats who back union members (not)

    Wasn’t there a very prominent Democrat who said he would don his comfy shoes and walk on the picket line if workers bargaining rights were threatened?

    Remember how he followed through on his promise in Wisconsin?

    Neither do I.

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    • dianeravitch says:

      March 29, 2018 at 10:40 pm

      I was in Madison, Wisconsin, in March 2011. Obama and Duncan were in Miami to hold a press event with Jeb Bush where they celebrated a high school that had been “turned around” by firing its staff. It was covered widely in the media. A month later, the state of Florida announced that the school was on its failing list. Some earnest begging bought some time. But the press didn’t cover that.

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13. wgersen says:

    March 30, 2018 at 6:13 am

    I am constantly amazed at how few voters realize the reach of ALEC… If the only news one relies on is TV or local newspapers there are seldom articles on it outside the op ed page. Their agenda is now fully embraced by the GOP and as bad as Donald Trump is, his VP would be even worse when it comes to enacting the ALEC agenda.
    https://www.indystar.com/story/opinion/readers/2014/10/05/…alec…/16788177/

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    • dianeravitch says:

      March 30, 2018 at 9:07 am

      You are right. Pence knows ALEC. Trump does ALEC’s bidding but never heard of it.

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