Every blogger who has written about MSNBC’s Public Education Forum expressed gratitude that a big cable network paid attention to our most important democratic institution.
Nancy Bailey is angry about the issues that were ignored, the ones that threaten the future of students, teachers, and public education.
She is also streamed that the program was not on live TV. Public education not important enough for live TV? 50 million children are in public schools. They have parents. Quite an audience to overlook.
Good work, Nancy!
She writes (in part, read it all):
Candidates talked about making the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes to help schools, but no one mentioned Bill Gates, the Waltons, Eli Broad, Mark Zuckerberg or any of the corporate reformers who are taking control of public schools.
They didn’t mention Common Core or the failure of the initiatives funded by the Gates Foundation and taxpayers. Nor did they speak about portfolio schools, the latest corporate endeavor to push choice and charters.
No one mentioned using Social Impact Bonds or Pay for Success to profit off of public schools. See: “Wall Street’s new way of making money from public education — and why it’s a problem” by Valerie Strauss.
CEO Tom Steyer mentioned corporate influence towards the end, but it was brief, and no moderator attempted to explore what he said.
Ed-Tech
No one mentioned what might be the biggest threat to public education, the replacement of teachers and brick-and-mortar schools with technology.
Disruption was initially described by Clayton Christensen and Michael Horn in their book Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns. This is seen as the revolution by those in business and the tech industry and is being played out in online charter schools like Summit and Rocketship. Summit also has an online virtual school.
Many students across the country get school vouchers to be used for substandard online instruction like K12 and Connections Academy.Preschoolers are subjected to unproven Waterford UPSTART.
The candidates might want to review Tultican’s “Ed Tech About Profits NOT Education.”
Wrench in the Gears is another blog good at describing the threat of technology.
Teach for America
Teach for America corps members with little training have taken over classrooms, and they run state departments of education!
Do Democratic candidates have Teach for America corps members as consultants on their campaigns? It’s troubling if they do. They should not be wooing teachers with professional degrees and experience while relying on TFA behind the scenes.
Other insidious reform groups are also about replacing education professionals. Relay Graduate School, The New Teacher Project, New Leaders are a few.
This needs to be addressed, sooner, not later.
Betsy DeVos et al.
I don’t know anyone who doesn’t enjoy hearing Democratic candidates say they’re going to boot Education Secretary Betsy DeVos out.
But President Obama had individuals from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and other corporate reform groups, working in the U.S. Department of Education. Arne Duncan was no friend to teachers or public schools.
So, while applause against DeVos are justifiable, now’s the time to address the role Democrats have played (and continue to play) in corporate school reform.
The fact is, many groups and individuals are working to end public education, who wear Democratic name tags. It’s imperative that Democratic candidates address this.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Exactly!
Sorry I couldn’t view it and subscribe to the reasons cited.
Thank you Nancy Bailey for highlighting what was not discussed, who was not called out, and the combined consequences of federal overreach in NCLB and again in ESSA…known to be supported by a long line of billionaire foundations, corporations, and venture funders intent on profiting from “failing schools.” The four-year anniversary of ESSA was recently celebrated by those who love it more than they understand the multiple obligations of public schools.
yes
Re “But President Obama had individuals from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and other corporate reform groups, working in the U.S. Department of Education. Arne Duncan was no friend to teachers or public schools.” Hear, hear!
I consider Arne Duncan the biggest failure of the Obama administration. He not only pushed bogus initiatives, by built his department’s power when doing so. Remember when GOP candidates talked often about abolishing the Department of Education? Now that DeVos is Secretary, I haven’t heard a peep from those same people about abolishing her department. So, Mr. Obama facilitated the actions of Secretary DeVOs … through his pal, Arne Duncan.
The right wing still wants to abolish the DOE. I also see the right wing opposing property taxes, which is the way public schools are largely funding. Right wingers claim that paying property taxes forces people to “rent their house.”
Arne Duncan was hardly a “failure” of the Obama administration. He was the epitome of it. Remember, Obama was the president who flew into Flint, MI and “sipped” some water, declared it fine and thereby eliminated all hope for the people of Flint getting clean water, restitution for damages or any sort of justice. That’s who Obama was, not the “liberal” veneer he presented to the world.
Don’t forget that Obama did not put on his walking shoes to support unions when Scott Walker crushed them in Wisconsin in 2011
There are so many things about Obama that shouldn’t be forgotten. But let’s “Look Forward, Not Backward”.
The Expanding Universe
Looking fore
Is looking back
Time before
The current act
Obama also adopted the bank bailout plan of Bush Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and filled his own Treasury department with a bunch of Wall Street insiders , many of whom (like Larry Summers and Tim Geithner) had had a hand in causing the financial meltdown of 2007.
And of course, it had the intended effect: no high level prosecutions for the rampant fraud by big bankers and a massive (10+ trillion dollars) “bailout” and buyback of toxic waste from banks by Obama’s man at the Fed (Bernanke).
Meanwhile. The banks that were involved in massive mortgage fraud were allowed to forclose on millions of homes.
If Nancy Baily does not have her finger on the pulse of education, no one has. I am with her. Democrats need to get their confession out from behind the curtain. The priest may need to hear you, but the public does too. If there is a problem with education, and we all agree there are many, we need educators to be the ones who suggest solutions, not the self-important windbags who have brought us all this manure in the last three decades.
The Catholic bishops posted at their site that they have been strong advocates of parental school choice since the beginning. That’s not your point, RT, but, it’s worth noting.
No problem with divergence of thought in my book. While you bring up catholic schools, it strikes me that there is some difference between Catholics like our two recent court apointees and some of the more liberal ones.
Sandy Levinson’ review of Ken Kersch’s book (Balkinization, 6-7-2019) covers that territory.
I agree with the essay. While I believe the event was a great thing for numerous reasons, I was somewhat disappointed with the format and very disappointed with the moderators.
(I can be convinced otherwise by the wise commenters on here.)
why the moderators of any presidential debate should be actual working citizens who can advocate for reality? Hmmm….
Mainstream media reporting about public education is surgical and strategic by design.
Nancy Bailey’s criticism is excellent. if it was expanded it should include the example of Bellwether’s recommendation in a 2019 report that ed reformers reach out to churches to achieve their goals. Local media have begun to expose state Catholic bishops, state Catholic Conferences and action networks for their role in public school privatization.
New Orleans recently closed its last remaining public school. Louisiana is unique in the south relative to the large Catholic influence. Ohio expanded voucher funding (upwards of 80% going to Catholic schools) even after a Fordham-funded study found vouchers in Ohio had no positive academic effect. More than $100 mil. is spent on vouchers in Indiana, mostly going to Catholic schools. A Pennsylvania state representative was praised at a Catholic organization site for “gathering support for Turzai’s bill to expand school choice to Harrisburg”. The Florida Catholic Advocacy Network listed education as an area of interest and, states that its organization’s goal is, “to connect, educate and mobilize Catholics across Florida’s 7 dioceses on public policy issues”.
And, at the national level, Fordham funded a study, “self-discipline and Catholic schools” which was used to promote Catholic schools. The Catholic League criticized Elizabeth Warren’s education plan at its site. A report found that there are parishes which receive more revenue from vouchers than from worshippers. One of the nation’s biggest promoters of school privatization is Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu (DFER).
Recommended reading- Prof. Sandy Levinson’s review posted at Balkinization, “Why Ken Kersch’s book is an indispensable revelation about our constitutional situation.” Levinson wrote, “One may be tempted to dismiss all of this as an alternative (and, crazy) universe…but, Kersch places them (God talkers) in a narrative that accounts for their importance within the contemporary American right…When leaders… proclaim their desire to reChristianize (countries) …we should listen carefully (and, I think be appalled)”.
Levinson and Kersch inform us about the influential John Finnis, his students, Neil Gorsuch and Robert P. George (the religious right’s favorite professor) and, Trump supporter, Hadley Arkes, who is described as a former Jew, led to Catholic conversion by Finnis.
ESSENTIAL understanding about why we may be moving left, now, but we are often stuck doing it at a snail’s speed.
“CEO Tom Steyer mentioned corporate influence towards the end, but it was brief, and no moderator attempted to explore what he said.”
I must say my goosebumpometer ticked up a bit listening to Tom Steyer.
I think what nobody dares to bring up is even more basic than what Nancy has brought up. Namely how much teachers overwork, how much they burn out, while this is the job where you have to be fresh and cheerful every single morning and every single minute in front of a class. “Working hard” is not great to hear from a teacher. Appearing passionate, interesting, energetic are what kids need to see, not effort and sweat.
Fights for salaries or against technologies won’t change the fact that the teaching profession is not popular. Here in Memphis, they are talking about having subs via videoconferencing. They can’t even find TFAers to fill the positions.
CC and VAM have put even more on teachers’ shoulders, implying that teachers had not been working enough.
Nurses get pretty high pay, but they do not stay in the profession long because of the stress. That’s a loss since experienced nurses are better, but in teaching, experience and stability are necessary and absolutely essential. Higher pay won’t make the profession significantly more attractive. More funding in education needs to result in reduced load.
“They didn’t mention Common Core”
Yeah, they didn’t talk about this crazy push for teacher accountability, did they? It would have come out that Warren supports them.