Arthur Camins writes here about two different worlds, two different perceptions of reality.
On one side is money and power, defending privatization, promoting disruption, and ignoring corruption.
On the others are the defenders of the common good, who do not have money and power.
In recent years, people associated with the hedge fund industry, technology titans such as the Gates, Zuckerberg, and Jobs families, and right-wing foundations have all invested financial and political capital to promote charter schools. Their predominant ideological lens– no matter their political party affiliation– is competition and associated risk. That is why the liberal Gates and the conservative Walton families find common cause on charter schools. Long- and short-term triumphs and failures are essential features of their entrepreneurial worldview. Through that lens “start-ups” come and go, IPOs rise and fall, businesses merge, and divisions divested. Lost jobs and careers are collateral damage–especially when the victims are poor and/or not White. That is their normal. It is the world in which they have triumphed. They look at the world through the lens of their personal success. The losers in the process are, well–just part of how things get done. They have wealth and power and seek to impose and extend their will and perspective on everything within their reach. The public sector–including schools–is in their way. Increasingly democracy, and with it, government regulation is in their way too. Hence, they favor private over elected school boards. They are a tiny minority, but their perspective has gained bipartisan political and mass-media traction.
Another lens is the common good and its explicit companion, cross-racial unity. It has no wealth and power to extend its reach. However, it has a distinct advantage. It represents the vast majority of Americans. The questions you ask frame the answers you get. Let’s ask, “Do you favor single a democratically-governed, high-quality public education system for every child or two taxpayer-funded systems: One privately-governed and another democratically governed?” I haven’t seen such a poll, nor have I seen any that ask: “Is it fair to drain money from public schools to fund charter schools?” or “Is it acceptable for schools to frequently open and close?” My best guess is that the stability, the common good, and racial unity will win hands down over the disruptive, market competition, and racially-divisive perspectives.
Read on to see where Camins is going as he explores the two perspectives.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
So moving, and so beautifully written!
And now from our entertainment news division:
Rumor on the street has it that Donald Trump is “seriously considering” taking a break from railing against certain immigrant populations (and brown people generally) to assume the title role in Disney’s spin-off bioepic Jabba the Hut. “It’s a win-win. He wasn’t very good at this whole President thing, and the savings in CGI costs and make-up, alone, will pay for the film,” unnamed Disney sources said.
Mr. Camins’s list of proposals, in this article, is superb. This, in particular, caught my eye:
“Provide teachers with paid time for professional growth and collaboration.”
Here’s the thing about teaching, today: there is never enough time. And, if you Both a) empower teachers to do their own decision making and b) make room in teachers’ schedules for collaboration–for weekly departmental quality circles, for example–you get bottom-up, continuous improvement. But I’m talking real time here–not 20 minutes after school on Thursday. Half a day on Monday would do quite nicely–time to review materials, discuss curricula and pedagogy, plan lessons, talk about what’s working and what’s not working. Doing something like this requires visionary school leadership–people who are smart enough to get the hell out of the way and let teachers, for a change, run their departments.
The wealthy individuals that fund privatization have twisted our democratic institutions to serve them, and not the vast majority of the American people. In the best of all possible worlds, all that Camins’ recommends could be easily adopted. However, public education seems to always lose when billionaires buy politicians that refuse to hear the voice of the people. Politicians often manipulate laws that deliberately circumvent allowing the people to vote on local issues. We need to get the money out of politics in order for democracy to prevail. We need an amendment to the Constitution to overturn Citizens United. We need to give candidates a fixed amount for their campaigns that comes from the government. The only way democracy can win is if we can make it a fair fight. We can never have a level playing field as long as the ultra wealthy are pulling the strings of the politicians, and elections are generally won by those with the most money.
Most if not all wealthy powerful people don’t understand that most people do not think like them. Sure, almost everyone wants more money, but to most of us family and friends are more important than money so we find jobs that pay us enough to survive along with our family and friends, because most of the one percent that dedicates their lives to making money and buying power do not have the same kind of love and friendship in their lives.
Instead of cultivating love through family and friends, they buy what they think is “love” when in reality they are buying loyalty that will vanish the minute they turn off the flow of money that is paying for that loyalty.
To people like Eva and Trump and Betsy the Braindead, if you aren’t really wealthy, you are a loser. That means everyone in the working class is a loser to them and that makes all of us worthless in their eyes.
Lloyd,
People who have billions are not like us. They like to rearrange the lives of “the little people.” That’s us.
The entitled don’t even hang up their own coats at school. Honest. They expect their private school teachers to pick up their dropped clothings and personal items.
Then the people rise up like they did in the French, American, Chinese and Russian Revolutions and get rid of the arrogant 1%. The problem is there are always other psychos waiting in the wings to become the next arrogant 1%.
It seems that the cycle never ends.
Lloyd,
You are right.
Lloyd: interesting you bring up those revolutions. It has always struck me that the revolutionaries themselves often become the one percent. Daniel Ortega looks now a whole lot like a regular old cadillo. By the time the committee of Public Safety had marauded about France for a while, the incorruptible Robespierre looked for all the world like a monarch.
That said, the cycle of Oligarchy begets revolution seems inevitable through the lens of history. Vigilance is imperative. Often stability is an illusion, as the French Foreign Minister admitted to the Council on Foreign Relations after the onset of the Arab Spring. Now is the winter of our discontent.
George Washington and the other leaders among the Founding Fathers were the exceptions and not the rule, but what they accomplished without becoming the same type of monsters they rebelled against is all being undone by POT, the Party of Trump.
The Republican Party of Lincoln started to die when President Teflon Ray-Gun was elected in the early 1980s and it was a long and painful death ending with Trump.
Even if we get rid of Trump in 2020, we are stuck with POT.
We should have a funeral and bury the GOP that died with the election of Trump. It isn’t right to let the GOP’s corpse to lay around rotting as Trump keeps trampling it.
Many of the “revolutionaries” of the American Revolution were actually One percenters who simply did not like the king of England telling them (the 1% in America) how to live.
A recent play has celebrated Alexander Hamilton, who everyone now seems to believe was a champion of the common man, but the fellow was actually opposed to rule by the latter.
Even people like Jefferson wrote one thing but lived the opposite when it came to equity and equality.
yes; their view of “democracy” couldn’t even fathom a society where anyone but the few were making rules
True but at least the Founding Fathers didn’t create a monarchy in America even though they came close to it when they wrote into the Constitution that only white male property owners (excluding Jews) could vote and that was about 10 percent of the population back then.
“Liberal is as liberal does”
A “liberal” like Gates
Is liberal with lives
Determining their fates
With endless data drives