Tonight March 3, I am zooming with Jennifer Berkshire and Charles Siler to discuss the privatization movement. Charles has a unique perspective: he was part of it.
Jennifer is co-author of A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door with historian Jack Schneider..
Charles worked in the belly of the beast at the Goldwater Institute, and then he had an epiphany and walked out into the sunlight.
Diane Ravitch in Conversation with Jennifer Berkshire and Charles Siler
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I signed up thinking the meeting was today, but the confirmation email said tomorrow instead of today. I see now it is tomorrow. Oops. I can’t make it tomorrow; I have a union meeting. Hope there will be video afterward.
Sheesh. I did the same thing. Been sitting here for 5 minutes waiting for it to start and just realized it said 3/3.
My error.
I tried to change it, but it was posted already.
Please watch tonight!!!!
Wonderful. What a conversation. A brilliant host. Two brilliant guests.
Charles Siler has this lovely, disarming combination of self-deprecation and deep insight. At one point in the conversation, he suggested what I think could be THE strongest possible meme/argument to clue people in to the dangers of voucher legislation:
If you want a future in which you have to struggle to come up with the funds to pay for K-12 schooling for your kids as you now do to pay for their college education, then vote in favor of vouchers. These are all killing public schools, replacing them with vouchers for private schools, and then cutting back on the voucher dollars until school is entirely privatized and you as individuals have to meet the cost.
His major point is this: Vouchers aren’t about “choice.” They aren’t about “better alternatives for black and brown and poor kids. They are about privatizing a public good–our schools. The rich in the US HATE public goods. They want them all to become for-profit, money-making opportunities. THAT is what this is all about. The voucher thing is just part of the overall picture–the goal of erasing public goods altogether and replacing them with capitalist enterprises.
cx: These are all about killing public schools and replacing with with vouchers for private schools, . . .
I agree that the observation about potentially having parents pay for K-12 education and fend for themselves was the most interesting insight of the evening. But as you know, I’m a glass half empty kind of guy.
The novelty of having someone from the other side become a new ally is appealing and satisfying and it reinforces the Margaret Mead aphorism. On the other hand, the argument that we’re winning the rhetorical war is one that I’ve heard for too many years for too many issues. However true that may be, we still have standardized testing, we still have state legislatures cynically defying public opinion, teachers are still taken for granted, belittled and marginalized, DeVos minions are still wreaking havoc at the Department of Education, and so on. Winning the rhetorical argument does nothing without coordinated political activism, changing the public/media narrative, checking the public fawning of Bill Gates, et al, or flushing out the rot within our ranks.
On that last point, I get Diane’s point that the Bookers of the world are doing all they can to hide and minimize their past record–while doing nothing substantively about it, indeed, when it comes to actual policy they are undeterred–I also find the reasoning that it’s an example of winning tenuous. We would not accept that argument on other issues. Would we accept that argument, for example, from a repenting virulent racist who only does a better job of hiding it as a winning one?
If yesterday’s program is a step toward engaged activism to change the public narrative, I’ll be pleased. I’m just not confident it was. I guess I’m a three-quarters glass empty kind of guy.
We are NOT winning this war. But we are gaining ground. The hard right turn of the Biden administration on testing is a huge setback, and the right will keep coming back and back and back on vouchers and charters, trying every angle until they get their way. Very deep pockets. In it for the long term.
I thought the conversation last night with Jennifer Berkshire and Charles Siler was the best yet.
I’m in awe of Charles because of the courage it took for him to do a 180 and walk away from the riches and rewards of the privatizers. Not only that, he was deeply immersed and schooled in the culture of libertarianism that spawns the attack on government.
What I found most interesting was his bold assertion that the goal of the privatization movement is not only to destroy public schools but to privatize all government services: police and fire protection, roads, libraries, parks, everything. There is nothing that government is doing that can’t be turned into a private, for-profit enterprise.
The privatizers play the long game. If they lose one year, they are back the next year.
He said the public is with us,but I did not hear that as “we are winning.” Any time a measure about vouchers goes to a vote, it loses. I’m willing to pay the taxes for public schools, but not for private choices.
It was an outstanding conversation, and Charles is a position to know, for he has recently been on the inside of these organizations.
“I did not hear that as ‘we are winning.'” Precisely, in fact, he spoke of the “monotony” of the right coming back again and again and again until it wins and the deep pockets that enable that to happen–that fund all the folks who keep pushing privatization in all its forms.
Thank you, Diane, for hosting these incredibly informative salons. Other readers here, don’t miss these! They are outstanding!
As soon as I get the link, I will post it.
Awesome. I would love for this to be even more widely heard!
I’m in awe of Diane Ravitch because of the courage it took to walk away. I can only imagine how bitter and difficult this must have been–the lost friendships and influence and seats at the tables of the powerful. It takes incredible courage and decency to do this.
I understand Charles. When you discover or realize that the miracle cure you are selling is actually snake oil or poison, you have to make a decision. Do it and make lots on money on the gravy train of privatization, or listen to your conscience.
Very well understood. My own disgust with the Common [sic] Core [sic] and writing against it cost me a lot of money.
There was a great river of green running from Seattle.
We are, emphatically, NOT winning the rhetorical war because the right is better at producing slogans and simple memes. That’s why we need to settle on a message like this one and hammer it, again and again and again and again.
I guess I was trying to be a half glass full kind of guy and give a little credit to Charles and Jennifer for their viewpoints that people generally agree with us. But, honestly, I’m with you on this.