Jan Resseger was taken aback to read a major article by Laura Meckler of The Washington Post blaming the public schools for all their problems, in a classic case of blaming the victim. Schools did not cause COVID, and they are doing their best to overcome its consequences. Meckler even blames schools for gun violence, but schools are not handing out weapons or writing lax gun laws.
Resseger writes:
Meckler writes: “For public schools, the numbers are all going in the wrong direction. Enrollment is down. Absenteeism is up. There aren’t enough teachers, substitutes or bus drivers… Political battles are now a central feature of education, leaving school boards, educators and students in the crosshairs of culture warriors. Schools are on the defensive about their pandemic decision-making, their curriculums, their policies regarding race and racial equity and even the contents of their libraries. Republicans — who see education as a winning political issue — are pressing their case for more “parental control,” or the right to second-guess educators’ choices. Meanwhile, an energized school choice movement has capitalized on the pandemic to promote alternatives to traditional public schools.”
COVID-19 has brought a mass of challenges to America’s public schools, our largest civic institution. But there are myriad ways Meckler fails to sort out the issues. She fails to point out that most of the problems she names were not caused by public school leaders and teachers, and few are the result of mismanagement. Almost all of the problems she mentions fall into one category: challenges public schools haven’t been able fully to overcome…
Meckler worries about gun violence as a problem of public schools. School shootings are a problem of a society overrun with guns, but the problem is definitely not caused by public schools.
Meckler quotes a staff person at the pro-voucher Ed Choice about how such pro-privatization think tanks are exploiting today’s challenges for public schools as these organizations work hard to lobby state legislatures for vouchers and charter schools. She utterly fails to consider that almost nobody is celebrating remote schooling; millions of parents all over the country are demanding that their public schools reopen in person. Presumably the privatized online charter academies have suffered in reputation as we all learned that putting school on remote during COVID worked neither for students nor their teachers.
Meckler describes the uprisings by parents across American school districts—parents protesting mask mandates—parents protesting teaching about slavery and “controversial topics” that might make some children uncomfortable—parents demanding that school boards ban specific books on “controversial topics.” She neglects to mention that what appear to be grassroots parent-led attacks are in most cases the result of a well-designed political initiative—led by organizations like Moms for Liberty, FreedomWorks, Parents Defending Education, and No Left Turn in Education—designed by think tanks like the Manhattan Institute, the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute—and paid for by far-right philanthropists. This project has been set up to inflame white parents in segregated suburbs, or, as a new report summarized by the National Education Policy Center shows, in districts currently experiencing racial change, by stoking these parents’ fears that their privilege and their protective historical myths are threatened…
Public schools are durable and complex institutions. Public school teachers and administrators are struggling right now to bring students comfortably back to school after more than a year of disruption. My belief is that most of these professional educators will survive and succeed.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Public schools have been under siege since Reagan’s false report of A Nation at Risk. Public schools have been the targets of theft since Clinton’s massive charter school payouts. We have been attacked constantly since Bush’s NCLB. Obama’s Race to the Top felt like it would topple us. It didn’t. The guy elected president after Obama spouted hate at us with a billionaire secretary of education and the media lapped it up. Biden is letting the pandemic rip us up even more.
We are still here. We are not throwing in the towel. We are widely supported by parents and voters. We are doing the good work. Even if you are not ready for day, it cannot always be night. Be ready to fight. When we fight, we win!
Here is an article about how COVID and staff vacancies are hitting a the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Montana particularly hard, including staff deaths, and the resilient response of the staff and students there:
I don’t know why anyone is surprised to see yet another corporate mediot bashing any part of the public sector.
mediot: 🙂
mediot!!!!
I didn’t know this. Soooooo useful!!!
Some people try to blame everything on teachers. Those people blaming teachers are the people to blame.
The Finger Pointing Game
Everyone’s to blame
Except the ones who are
The finger pointing game
Will really get you far
Public schools are no more responsible for what is happening to them any more than airlines are responsible for the rowdy, belligerent behavior of some passengers. In fact, public education has been the nation’s “whipping boy” for at least twenty years. The truth is public schools have a target on their backs, and billionaires and Wall St are gunning for the funds that allow public schools to operate. Blaming, shaming and attacking are all part of a strategy to undermine trust and faith in the institution that plays a fundamental role in shaping democracy. Public schools reflect society just like any other institution.
Public education has been blamed for realities beyond its control and reach. Public schools have been blamed for poverty. Test scores correlate to socioeconomic levels of families. Teachers and schools contribute a relatively small amount to scores on standardized tests. Public schools did not create the Covid pandemic. They are merely responding to it to the best of their ability. Now public schools are on the defensive against a radical right wing propaganda campaign alleging that public schools are brainwashing young people with socialism and “radical ideas.” Hence, an engineered culture war funded by Koch family money is attacking curricula and library books in schools. Most of these alleged problems are the contrived product of right wing ideologues that are trying to destroy our public schools.
Of course Public Schools have become the epicenter of outcry and the grand old party has it smack in the middle of their playbook. Public Schools are not the blame for the problems – they are the only place people across the country can scream about them.
Public Schools are the ONLY true exemplar of democracy in action we have.
What other government entity comes anywhere close to a local school district?
The Statue of Liberty stands at the entrance figuratively and the microphone is open to everyone at least once a month.
Every federal case of discrimination that has won and been played out in schools.
Brown v Board of Ed. IDEA. Title IX. Plyler. Transgender bathroom access… …
Freedom of Speech cases get tested. Tinker.
I challenge anyone to find one elected state or federal legislator who holds an open meeting for public comment monthly. Our representative in Congress is notorious for never holding a town hall meeting.
Public schools have beat writers, tv vans, and social media posters on school site in moments for scandals, sunshine law violations, misinformation, bullying attacks, audits of misuse of public funds, discriminatory language in a classrooms – you know all the things the exPres did and never once got sent to the office.
SO – of course with hate and anger unleashed and unchecked, why march to Washington or the state Capitol when you can go to the Board meeting and get better coverage and attention?
I have never heard of Laura Meckler so I Googled her and found this from 2019 when she was appointed to cover education issues:
“These three stories demonstrate both the potential benefits and liabilities of having a heavy-hitting journalist who is also an education-policy neophyte weigh in on race and education.”
https://kappanonline.org/williams-russo-a-bold-imperfect-start-for-the-washington-posts-laura-meckler/
I think that any reporter and editor working for a major media publication that reports on education is going to end up probably being visited by lobbyists from the voucher and charter neo-education industry.
Since Meckler started out as an “education-policy neophyte,” charter and voucher industry lobbyists, for sure, would rush to influence her thinking.
Those lobbyists are going to take Meckler to breakfast, lunch or dinner, send her birthday cards and gifts (like tickets to Hollywood plays), pay for her vacations, send her an avalanche of press releases praising their industry just like lobbyists do with presidents, governors, state legislatures and members of Congress.
Lloyd,
I don’t think education journalists get bought off like politicians. It is unethical for a reporter to accept the kinds of gifts you describe. Politicians accept them all the time as campaign contributions.
But media corporations are bought off. At the very least, they bear a pre-established conflict of interest — they see the big bucks to be made as delivery platforms for online ed. That was what we saw with NBC’s Edumachination Nation. There are a few, yes, but increasingly rare individual hireling journalists who can buck that environment.
Media corporations are owned by individuals like Murdoch or Bezos or the Ochs family. They have their views. That doesn’t necessarily mean they impose them on their reporters. Reporters have their biases, as we all do, but few are bought like politicians.
The influence on reporters by media CEOs and/or owners can be very subtle but nonetheless very effective.
It’s very similar (if not exactly the same) as the influence exerted by a fraudulent banks CEO that was described by bank fraud expert William Black, for which he coined the term “control fraud”.
The CEO or owner of a business or other organization does not have to actually force employees to behave in a certain way, but can do it through much less direct means: rewarding those who “go along with the program” with promotions while sidetracking those who do not. A classic example of the latter would be assigning a journalist to write obituaries or to cover the dog catcher beat. The CEO makes life miserable for any employee who disagrees until they simply quit. Eventually, you end up with “yes” people. Anyone who has ever worked in any big organization knows that this is actually very commonplace (not the fraud part, but the indirect influence part)
whether or not she or he would allow themselves to be financially wooed, they will surely HEAR from many who are loudly and repeatedly telling them how wonderful the entire reform movement is
WaPo is owned by world’s richest man who’s company has a virtual monopoly on the online shipping business and other related (and not-so-related) ventures, including major work for the CIA (incidentally, one of the key definitions of fascism is the merger of business and government), yet y’all insist that it’s a reliable news outlet even after you read pieces like this.
I post links to independent, non-corporate owned media with a history of accuracy which provide evidence for their assertions and y’all dutifully stick your fingers in your ears and claim I’m a Russian asset.
I’m trying to figure out what it will take for y’all to wake up to how badly you’ve been owned by propaganda. If you understood that what you see in media coverage of education applies to all media coverage, you would begin to get it.
I agree with you wholeheartedly !
One of my sources :
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/02/05/oakl-f05.html
I do not agree with you wholeheartedly, not even whole-splenetically. Who the hell is “y’all?” There you go again assuming that everyone else here is a dumb-dumb while you alone possess the truth. Some of the folks who post comments here are authors, scholars, polymaths and intellectuals. Yet you have no trouble lumping them all together as “y’all!” You can make valid points without the “y’all” garbage which is a big turnoff for me. Sure, the WaPo is the corporate media owned by that uber-plutocrat Bezos, one of the richest men in the universe. But the education writer, Valerie Strauss, at the WAPo by some miracle has not been bought off and still writes great education articles. If I am wrong on this please feel free to attack me. In any case, Jan Resseger is criticizing the anti-education article, did you get that part. You should be agreeing with Jan Resseger.
The above comment is for D-77.
I do not agree with you wholeheartedly, not even whole-splenetically.
Lord, Joe, that is freaking great writing!!!
“I’m trying to figure out what it will take for y’all to wake up to how badly you’ve been owned by propaganda.”
Propaganda of the slickest kind. Something like 85% of Americans are indoctrinated to false concepts, mythologies and absurdities from the day they are born. . . under the guise of the holy, the sacred, the supposedly inviolable. . . of the three Abrahamic religions and some New Age woo-woo. Religious faith beliefs drilled into a child’s head has turned the collective American brain into a gray mush, willing to accept whatever any priest, rabbi, imam, preacher or huckster proclaim as the “truth”.
Their “truths” pounded into children’s heads help to set a person up to believe nonsense the rest of their life. And almost all Americans suck up the nonsense they see/hear on a daily basis as a ShamWow soaks up spilled water. . . with no critical thought whatsoever.
I don’t expect many to “wake up to how badly you’ve been owned by propaganda.” I’ve little hope that will ever change.
anyone who believes the WSWS isn’t propaganda is being quite disingenuous.
It’s like Trump lecturing us on how we don’t have any respect for the Constitution.
Two things that 77 never writes about- flaws in Putin’s religion and flaws in the GOP.
I have given up trying to understand what 77 favors. I know she hates Hillary and Biden. Beyond that, I’m
Not sure.
Did you notice, Dienne, that Jan Resseger’s article is a critique of a WAPO article?
I’m trying to figure out what it will take for y’all to start wondering how wsws.org and other “independent” media you keep linking to stay in business.
I can point to dozens of articles by Valerie Strauss in the Washington Post that were critical of ed reformers.
Can you even point to ONE article on wsws that is critical of Putin?
I just checked – I couldn’t find one.
Maybe you both can.
Here is what people who are NOT Russian assets want us to read:
“Canadian foreign minister’s Ukraine visit underscores Ottawa’s backing for US-led war drive against Russia”
“German media on course for war against Russia”
“Biden at one year: A government of mass death and political crisis”
It would almost be funny that you link to the most hilariously pro-Putin sites and act defensive about being accused of being a Russian propagandist, it it wasn’t so blatantly dishonest.
Valerie Strauss writes on the Washington Post site. Where is the equivalent on WSWS?
It’s really sad to see the WSWS carrying water for Vlad. If Vlad is a Socialist, I am the freaking Easter Bunny.
Here’s the deal: We need but look around us in the world to see sane societies that have adopted Social Democracy, and, in sharp contrast, tyrannical dictatorships, indistinguishable from fascist states, that pretend to be workers paradises. These are existence proofs as to what actually works and what doesn’t. CATO, the WSWS–these are propaganda arms of supposed poles that are actually distinguishable only in their rhetoric and mythologies–their simple-minded ideologies–but that actually result, on the ground, in everyday lives, in the same concentration of power, in the same authoritarianism, or totalitarianism, with all its attendant evils.
Really common theme right now in the ed reform echo chamber, the demise of public schools and how it is all the fault of the schools.
Here’s another one:
https://fordhaminstitute.org/national/commentary/did-public-education-have-it-coming
And another one:
https://fordhaminstitute.org/national/commentary/americans-have-lost-trust-public-schools
I wonder if the gleeful celebration of the end of public schools in the United States isn’t a little premature though. I also wonder when the public will start to ask what all of these professional public school critics contribute to public schools or public school students.
If you say you work full time on “public education” shouldn’t you be able to show a positive contribution to the school 85% of students attend?
It’s great that we have so many full time, paid, professional critics of public schools, but shouldn’t we also have some people who actually perform some work on behalf of public schools or public school students?
Can anyone point to anything any of these folks have contibuted or offered to public schools during the pandemic? Any positive ideas or practical work of any kind?
America without the Hoover Institute, the Koch and Gates machines, the Roberts Court, the alliance of evangelicals and conservative Catholics and without corporate-owned media would be a far better place to live.
The dominant narrative in the ed reform echo chamber on public schools and the pandemic is “all public schools failed and all parents are demanding the system be privatized”
That this was also the dominant narrative prior to the pandemic doesn’t make any of them question it, and indeed, there is no questioning of it. There is no alternative or competing narrative, no series of essays or arguments or advocacy the other way.
The “solutions” will all align with these assumptions, and they have- every single “solution” is some variety or flavor or scheme for privatization. That these same critics spent the 20 years prior to the pandemic proposing the exact same “solution” doesn’t matter at all. None of these people have any earthly idea if their privatized, fragmented, deregulated systems would have performed any BETTER in a pandemic, but that doesn’t matter either, because it’s an ideological belief.
Their proposed, theoretical, privatized systems perform better than the actual public system. They can’t prove this, because they have not yet succeeded in privatizing the whole thing, but they’re completely confident it’s true.
“Their confidence” is that it will hack away at democracy.
“Constitutional Coup: Privatization’s Threat to the Republic” (Jon Michael’s book)
Teaching about the fact of systemic racism only “controversial” or “uncomfortable” because some prefer to hide it in order to continue it.
THERE’S the propaganda (see above).
Every history book “y’all” ever used in school
What’s systemic racism?
Quick informal definition: racist laws, normative practice, and customs that are endemic to a society.
Systemic racism is found in many of our institutions. I suggest you read Richard Rothstein’s book “The Color of Law” to understand systemic racism.
Seriously, Flerp? Systemic racism is POC paying higher mortgage rates than do white people with the same credit scores. It’s POC getting longer prison sentences for the same crimes. It’s schools for children of POC that have far fewer resources than do schools for children of white people. It’s POC having worse alternatives for healthcare than do white people. Etc. Etc. Etc. It’s everybody playing the game of Monopoly, but some players starting with all the money and the ability to buy properties and others starting with nothing and following a rule that says that they can’t buy a property until they’ve been around the board 20 times. It’s redlining. It’s all these things that surely you actually know about, so why do you continue to ask this question? You are not a stupid person, and the answer is so obvious. So, again, why?
Separately, here’s Randi Weingarten not wearing a mask at an indoor event, again.
Warning that this person very recently posted a photo of NY Gov. Hochul properly following last summer’s mask regulations with the clear intent to deceive us readers that this was a recent photo where she was disregarding mask protocols and not wearing a mask.
It is always possible that this time, someone known for posting deceptive photos and linking to deceptive twitter accounts may be posting something accurate. Just like it is always possible that this time, Donald Trump’s new charitable foundation is really about charity.
Caveat emptor.
And here’s Stacey Abrams maskless with a group of masked elementary students.
Abrams retweeted this photo not quickly deleted it when people started asking her where her mask was.
FLERP, what’s your point?
Diane,
As a public school parent myself, I apparently don’t live in flerp’s rarified world where school parents are extremely outraged that their children have to wear masks in school and that their teachers might have once attended a diversity workshop that included a power point presentation with a slide.
Don’t you think this is about changing the subject from the underfunding and scapegoating of public schools?
If you can’t argue against the point, you distract.
I haven’t seen parents in schools serving low income families fighting against mask mandates. I do see parents wanting smaller class sizes. And yet seen some privileged people who send their own kids to private schools with small class sizes and mask mandates seem obsessed with forcing kids to attend public schools where mask mandates are illegal. Like Ted Cruz. I think their motives speak for themselves.
He’s “owning the libs”…. Russian assets live for dividing Americans.
My point is always the same: school mask mandates are harmful to children and should be removed, especially given that the adults who impose and support the mandates cannot follow them themselves.
flerp,
covid is also harmful to children. Having family die in a pandemic is also harmful to children. Not having access to medical treatment because of overstressed health care is harmful to children.
No one WANTS mask mandates. People are trying to find a balance between two lousy choices.
In fact, mask wearing makes it more likely a school can remain open if an infected student attends. I thought that was also a priority.
The answer is not to deny the pandemic.
The answer is not to claim to speak for “all” parents while you send your own kids to private schools with mask mandates.
Mask mandates are NOT perfect. Kids take off their masks during lunch to eat. We all know this.
But there is no excuse for you posting your deceptive photos of Gov. Hochul. Most parents would find that kind of dishonesty unacceptable.
And there is no excuse for being a grown adult and professing not to understand the difficulties of taking huge risks with a community’s health.
I remember when people blamed de Blasio for educators’ deaths and the raging pandemic because he did not close schools 4 days earlier than he did.
Meanwhile, some Bay area communities weathered that first wave much better by being proactive with shutdowns.
So be a mensch. Or don’t.
I saw a great post about parents teaching their kids that wearing masks was for other people, versus parents modeling a “me first” philosophy.
Not seeing a lot of parents in crowded, underfunded public schools that serve the most disadvantaged students demanding the end to mask mandates. I do see a lot of privileged parents claiming to speak for their children.
There are a few, too many articles sympathetic to teachers’ shameful teaching conditions – sick & absent students, inadequate COVID protections, shortages of staff, increased demands, low pay. The stuff they’ve been bitching about for decades & nobody listens. Ed reform insiders needed Meckler to balance out such coverage with overheated teacher bashing lest the public feel an urge to force a political uprising to fix it.
Off topic, but some good news: Phil Murphy is removing New Jersey’s school mask mandate next month.
Good news? According to you, those children are suffering great harm. Why would Murphy wait until next month? Is he actually concerned about the pandemic?
It’s always politics with you.
WaPo has been on the side of ed deformers since before No Child Left Behind. It was particularly enamored of Bill Gates. However, a few months back, I was astonished to see an article declaring that many of his “reforms,” such as small schools, hadn’t been successful. In the Post! Incredible.
Fortunately the readers at WaPo are a little smarter than Meckler gives them credit for. Especially if you start at the “oldest,” you’ll see page after page after page of comments to the effect that Koch et al, and Republicans in general have long been all about pubsch-bashing with the agenda of privatization.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster
Well, I couldn’t remember if it was a meatball or a monster. I guessed wrong.
The history of it is rather pertinent to the present brouhaha …
Oops, that was supposed to go on the Palm Beach County story …