Archives for category: Democracy
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Arthur Camins: Education is Everyone’s Business, But Not a Commodity

By dianeravitch
October 20, 2018 //
5

Arthur Camins explains why we all have a stake in the success of public schools.

I wish I had a dollar for every parent who has said, “I’d love to sent my child to a public school, but …” The but is invariably related to real and perceived deficiencies in zoned schools and by race and class prejudices insidiously driven and reinforced by persistently unaddressed planned inequity. The sequel to the but is always a justification for opting out of public schools and enrollment in a charter or private education. Some parents add, “I’m the product of public schools. I support public schools, but I’m not going to sacrifice my children.” Such are the inevitable responses to our country’s acceptance of inequality and scarcity as unalterable. The sum of thousands of these personal choices for some children– increasingly supported by tax revenues– undermines the education of all children. The blame is not on parent choices but on the politicians who refuse to address inequity, while funding policies that undermine public education. If we want a different outcome, we need to vote for politicians who represent different values.

Education in the United States is contentious. It always has been because personal and societal decisions are inextricably interwoven. Now, we are at an inflection point in which consequential questions about education are hotly debated. Consider these for the November elections.

Whose business is the education of students in the United States?

Who should get to make decisions about where, what, with whom, and how children learn?

If our nation values democracy and the common good, the answer to both questions is:

Of course, every parent cares about where, what, with whom, and how their children learn. However, decisions about education affect everyone, not just school attendees and their families. Their education is everyone’s business– but not in the mercantile sense of the word. Other people’s children grow up to be our neighbors, co-workers, and citizens (who vote or do not). Their subsequent behaviors and decisions as adults touch us all, whether or not we have school-age children. That is why decisions about education– a common good– should be made democratically on behalf of all children and not just by individual parents.

Unfortunately, the idea that education is a common good, not a commodity, and should be governed democratically is under assault.

Should decisions about education be made by and for all of us through locally elected school boards? Or, by unelected private boards? Is education literally the business of the eight families who have collectively spent over $35.5 million to influence the outcomes of local school board elections? Is it the business of would-be entrepreneurs out to make a buck?

Once again, if our nation values democracy and the common good the answers are clear:

Yes, no, no, and no.

Read on as Camins explains why Education is our responsibility, not to be handed off to the private sector.

Categories Accountability, Democracy, Education Industry, Education Reform, Equity, Supporting public schools

Mitch McConnell as “The Gravedigger of Democracy”

By dianeravitch
October 8, 2018 //
86

The New York Review of Books published a fascinating and alarming comparison of the Weimar years with our contemporary world order, by Christopher Browning, a historian of the Holocaust, Europe, and the world wars.

He reviews the similar policies—-isolationism, trade Wars, hyper-nationalism, militarism, suspension of basic freedoms, purge of the civil service, elimination of free trade unions, hyperpolarization of politics, openly racial policies—and the deterioration of democratic norms. He points to Paul von Hindenburg as the gravedigger of a fragile German Democracy.

When he turns to the American parallel, he points to Mitch McConnell as the culprit.

“If the US has someone whom historians will look back on as the gravedigger of American democracy, it is Mitch McConnell. He stoked the hyperpolarization of American politics to make the Obama presidency as dysfunctional and paralyzed as he possibly could. As with parliamentary gridlock in Weimar, congressional gridlock in the US has diminished respect for democratic norms, allowing McConnell to trample them even more. Nowhere is this vicious circle clearer than in the obliteration of traditional precedents concerning judicial appointments. Systematic obstruction of nominations in Obama’s first term provoked Democrats to scrap the filibuster for all but Supreme Court nominations. Then McConnell’s unprecedented blocking of the Merrick Garland nomination required him in turn to scrap the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations in order to complete the “steal” of Antonin Scalia’s seat and confirm Neil Gorsuch. The extreme politicization of the judicial nomination process is once again on display in the current Kavanaugh hearings.

“One can predict that henceforth no significant judicial appointments will be made when the presidency and the Senate are not controlled by the same party. McConnell and our dysfunctional and disrespected Congress have now ensured an increasingly dysfunctional and disrespected judiciary, and the constitutional balance of powers among the three branches of government is in peril.

“Whatever secret reservations McConnell and other traditional Republican leaders have about Trump’s character, governing style, and possible criminality, they openly rejoice in the payoff they have received from their alliance with him and his base: huge tax cuts for the wealthy, financial and environmental deregulation, the nominations of two conservative Supreme Court justices (so far) and a host of other conservative judicial appointments, and a significant reduction in government-sponsored health care (though not yet the total abolition of Obamacare they hope for). Like Hitler’s conservative allies, McConnell and the Republicans have prided themselves on the early returns on their investment in Trump. The combination of Trump’s abasement before Putin in Helsinki, the shameful separation of families at the border in complete disregard of US asylum law (to say nothing of basic humanitarian principles and the GOP’s relentless claim to be the defender of “family values”), and most recently Michael Cohen’s implication of Trump in criminal violations of campaign finance laws has not shaken the fealty of the Republican old guard, so there is little indication that even an explosive and incriminating report from Special Counsel Robert Mueller will rupture the alliance.”

Do read it all. It is supposedly forbidden in Internet discussions to compare anyone to Hitler (“Godwin’s Law”). But when a historian makes the comparison, we should pay attention.

Categories Democracy

“Democracy”: Kavanaugh as Judge

By dianeravitch
October 1, 2018 //
32

A reader called Democracy is troubled by Kavanaugh’s record as a judge, whose ideology trumps facts and evidence. Yesterday Trump told a political rally that Democrats are interested only in “power and control,” and “we’re not going to let them get it.” I think this is called “projection,” especially from a President whose party controls two of the three branches of government and is now seeking to control the third branch, thus eliminating the checks and balances envisioned by the Founding Fathers to prevent tyranny.

Democracy writes:

Kavanaugh has lied about sooo many things. He lied about his drinking. About blacking out. About “Devil’s Triangle” and “boofing.” About being a Renate alumnus. About the geographic locations of the houses where he and Dr. Ford lived.

But he also lied about being a neutral arbiter of the law. As Steve Pearlstein noted in The Post six years go in a case that involved EPA pollution regulations.

“But in reading the 60-page opinion by Judge Brett Kavanaugh, you’d have no clue of this historical, political, economic or health context…You’d have no idea that hundreds of dedicated, highly trained scientists, analysts and statisticians at the EPA might have spent more than a decade devoted to the extremely complex task of figuring out how much of the ozone or sulfur dioxide in the air in Rhode Island originated in Indiana.

“You’d have no idea that legions of government lawyers and economists might have spent a decade listening to, and negotiating with, state officials, industry groups and environmental advocates on an equitable formula for reducing pollution in the least costly way….You’d have no idea that, in earlier decisions, the same court had found it a reasonable formula resulting in reasonable compliance costs, but sent an earlier version back to be reworked because it didn’t make the air clean enough.”

Instead, what you get is 60 pages of legal sophistry, procedural hair-splitting and scientific conjecture….You find a judge without a shred of technical training formulating his own policy solution to an incredibly complex problem and substituting it for the solution proposed by experienced experts…You find an appeals court judge so dismissive of the most fundamental rules of judicial restraint that he dares to throw out regulations on the basis of concerns never raised during the rule-making process or in the initial court appeal.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-judicial-jihad-against-the-regulatory-state/2012/10/12/d9eb080c-13ca-11e2-bf18-a8a596df4bee_story.html?utm_term=.f29b265feb33

This is what judicial “restraint” looks like to conservatives like Kavanaugh. Just make things up. The same thing Scalia did in DC v Heller, when he basically rewrote the Second Amendment.

Kavanaugh also lied about his knowledge of the sexual proclivities of Alex Kozinski, ousted form the federal courts for sexual harassment and prolific use of pornography on federal court property. In fact, Kavanaugh hired Kozindki’s son as a lwa clerk, even though he didn’t have the kind of academic record that usually accompanies such a hiring.
As The Guardian reported,

“The decision to hire Clayton Kozinski, son of the now disgraced judge Alex Kozinski, smacked of the kind of cronyism that is rife in federal courts. It was especially common for Kavanaugh, who not only had a reputation for hiring ‘model-like’ female clerks, but also the children of powerful friends and allies…The move also marked the culmination of a decades-long professional and personal relationship with Alex Kozinski – the first high-profile judge to be forced to resign in the #MeToo era – that had helped launch Kavanaugh’s career…serious concerns about whether Kavanaugh lied under oath have also been raised – publicly and privately – on a topic that has received far less attention in the national spotlight: his insistence that he was shocked when he discovered last year that Kozinski, his mentor and friend, sexually harassed more than a dozen clerks in decades on the bench.”

“People who knew Kozinski have privately – and in some cases, publicly – challenged that statement, saying Kozinski’s abusive behavior, which ranged from kissing clerks to showing them pornography at work to making sexist remarks, was known throughout the judiciary. There were also public signs of his inappropriate use of pornography at work…Individuals who knew Kozinski and spoke to the Guardian on the condition that their names be withheld, for fear of retribution, described Kavanaugh’s testimony as ‘ridiculous’ and ‘unbelievable’.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/01/kavanaugh-clerk-hire-casts-light-on-link-to-judge-forced-to-resign-in-metoo-era

What the nation saw with Brett Kavanaugh’s arrogant, aggressive, abrasive, lie-filled Judiciary Committee statement, was what Kavanaugh truly is, especially when he’s alcohol-fueled.

Republicans don’t care about truth, or the Constitution, or women’s rights or voting rights, or the environment. They care about raw power and money, and they will subvert all – every one – of the republic’s core democratic values to get and keep them, even if it means using Russian intelligence agencies to do so.

Republicans are – in fact – a clear and present national security danger.

Categories Accountability, Democracy

Jeff Bryant: How the Rich Get Richer by Destroying Public Schools

By dianeravitch
September 18, 2018 //
26

I think we are beginning to understand the real purpose of Corporate Reform. The 1% and their minions repeat ad nauseum that school choice will fix all education problems, lift the poor out of poverty, and no new taxes are needed. Indeed, they have pushed for tax cuts and cheered on deep cuts to public education. We are watching a generation of defunding public schools, refusing to invest in teachers’ salaries, and a massive transfer of resources from the public sector to private institutions.

Jeff Bryant explains it here.

“Recent news stories about wealthy folks giving multi-million donations to education efforts have drawn both praise and criticism, but two new reports by public education advocacy groups this week are particularly revealing about the real impact rich people have on schools and how they’ve chosen to leverage their money to influence the system.

‘The Education Debt’

“The first report, “Confronting the Education Debt” from the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools examines the nation’s “education debt” – the historic funding shortfall for school systems that educate black and brown children. The authors find that through a combination of multiple factors – including funding rollbacks, tax cuts, and diversions of public money to private entities – the schools educating the nation’s poorest children have been shorted billions in funding.

“One funding source alone, the federal dollars owed to states for educating low-income children and children with disabilities, shorted schools $580 billion, between 2005 and 2017, in what the government is lawfully required to fund schools through the provisions of Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

“The impact of not fully funding Title I is startling, the report contends, calculating that at full funding, the nation’s highest-poverty schools could provide health and mental health services for every student including dental and vision services, and these schools would have the money to hire a full-time nurse, a full-time librarian, and either an additional full-time counselor or a full-time teaching assistant for every classroom.

“State and local governments contribute to underfunding too by keeping in place tax systems that chronically short schools, particularly those that educate low-income students, mostly of color. Two school districts in Illinois are highlighted – one where 80 percent of students are low-income and gets about $7,808 per pupil in total expenditures, while another, where 3 percent of students are low-income, spends $26,074 per student…

“In the meantime, while the nation’s education debt expands, the accumulated wealth of the richest Americans continues to grow. During that time period the federal government was shorting schools billions, the personal net worth of the nation’s 400 wealthiest individuals grew by $1.57 trillion, the report notes.

“There is a direct correlation between dwindling resources for public schools and the ongoing political proclivity for transferring public dollars to the nation’s wealthiest individuals and corporations,” the report declares. “The rich are getting richer. Our schools are broke on purpose.”

This is the context for Bryant’s discussion of the NPE Action Report, “Hijacked by Billionaires.” The 1% buy control of state and local races so they can advance their tax-cutting, budget-cutting ideas and promote school choice.

“What motivates these wealthy people from exerting their will in the electoral process varies. They are bipartisan politically. Some are directly connected to the charter school industry. Others have expressed disdain for democratically controlled schools and argue, instead, for school governance to transfer to unelected boards. Some are motivated by their hatred of teachers’ unions. While others believe strongly that public education needs to be opened up to market competition from charters.

“But what billionaire donors all have in common, the report authors write, is their devotion to blaming schools and educators for problems posed by educating low-income children. Instead of using their political donations to advocate for more direct aid to schools serving low-income kids, wealthy donors “distract us from policy changes that would really help children,” the report argues, “such as increasing the equity and adequacy of school funding, reducing class sizes, providing medical care and nutrition for students, and other specific efforts to meet the needs of children and families.”

Their one unifying idea is lower taxes.

His third example is a new book about how predatory elites subvert democracy.

“Rich people are playing a double game,” writes Anand Giridharadas in his new book ‘Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World.’ “On one hand, there’s no question they’re giving away more money than has ever been given away in history … But I also argue that we have one of the more predatory elites in history, despite that philanthropy.”

Categories Billionaires, Budget Cuts, Corporate Reformers, Democracy, Education Industry, Funding, Inequality, Inequity, Injustice, Philanthropy, Privatization

Tom Ultican: A Layman’s Guide to the Destroy Public Education Movement

By dianeravitch
September 9, 2018 //
20

Tom Ultican, a retired teacher of physics and advanced mathematics in California, has been piecing together the story of the Destroy Public Education Movement. This is his most comprehensive overview yet. It names the leaders of the movement and describes their methods, with the goal of undercutting democracy and privatizing public schools.

He creates a typology of the motives behind the movement.

He describes their game plan, which varies from district to district yet aims for the same result: The dismantling of democratic control of public schools.

He concludes:

“The DPE Movement is Real, Well Financed and Determined

“While growing up in America, I had a great belief in democracy instilled in me. Almost all of the education reform initiatives coming from the DPE forces are bunkum, but their hostility to democracy convinces me they prefer a plutocracy or even an oligarchy to democracy. The idea that America’s education system was ever a failure is and always has been an illusion. It is by far the best education system in the world plus it is the foundation of American democracy. If you believe in American ideals, protect our public schools.”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Democracy, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization

President Obama at the University of Illinois: The Full Speech

By dianeravitch
September 8, 2018 //
18

I listened to former President Barack Obama as he spoke at the University of Illinois yesterday. He was wonderful.

If you didn’t hear it or watch it, here it is.

Categories Democracy, Education Reform, Obama

Was George Washington a War Criminal?

By dianeravitch
August 30, 2018 //
68

No. Even though Tories thought so, he was not.

I ask this question facetiously, in response to the two or three commenters here who keep posting negative articles about John McCain and calling him a “war criminal.”

McCain served his country with honor. He spent five years in brutal captivity and rejected the chance for an early release because he didn’t want favorable treatment. He said he would not leave until his fellow captives were also freed.

I did not share his political views. If I were a Senator, I would have voted differently than he did. I oppose his views on almost every issue.

But from what I hear, Senator McCain had friends on both sides of the aisle. He represents an era when people could disagree but still be friends.

The great British political philosopher Walter Bagehot wrote many years ago that one of the great features of a democracy was that there are good people on different sides. If your side lost the election, you knew you could try again next time. You knew that the victor would not jail you and other members of the losing party. There would be no show trial and execution of the losing candidate. There would be no chants of “Lock her/him up” because the other side did not support the winner.

The fate of the Republic was secure because we shared a consensus of democratic values and love of country that were more important than a single election. There would always be another election, another chance.

In that sense, McCain was an exemplar of the democratic values that he fought for and suffered for.

Even though I did not agree with his politics, even though I hate war, I have the greatest respect for John McCain. He was a great American. In the current climate, his voice and his spirit will be missed.

Categories Courage, Democracy

Little Rock: Please Do Not Steal Our Public Schools and Our Democracy!

By dianeravitch
August 29, 2018 //
14

Reverend Anika Whitfield wrote an open letter to Arkansas’s State Commisioner of Education, its Governor, and the City Superintendent, complaining about the state takeover of the Little Rock School District. This has long been a goal of the Walton family, the richest, most powerful family in the state and in the nation.

She writes:


Superintendent Poore and Commissioner Key (with a copy to Governor Hutchinson),

How are you able to live with what appears to be placing a hit on the lives of over 17,000 innocent students in the LRSD?

What appears to be your willful cooperation with political and philanthropic interest groups to violate the most vulnerable children in our city by closing their schools; selling (without our permission) their community schools to private charter businesses and to governmental programs that are run by officials who have benefited from a prison industrial system that profits off of incarcerating the lives of many of these same students, is unfathomable.

What does it profit you to watch innocent children suffer at your own hands?

What do you gain by taking away resources from children, families, and educators?

How many families and communities must destroyed before you have seen enough?

Are there any valid examples of affluent neighborhoods and communities that you have imposed your power to take over their children and absolve their patriotic rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?

What wealthy communities have you tried to force, without the will of the people, to accept a subservient educational business model for educators and students while imposing legalized disenfranchisement of their wealthy parents?

What truthful evidence can you provide that school closures, increasing class sizes, creating job losses by merging schools, and re-segregating communities, has proven to be a successful model in strengthening those same communities?

The plans that were laid out today for the LRSD showed ample evidence that your jobs have been, as has been suspected and predicted since your unorthodox appointments, a political and economic bidding to make wealthy investors like the Walton Family Foundation, Stephen’s, Inc. and others, to gain more wealt by privatizatizing public institutions and disenfranchising persons primarily impacted by poverty and systemic racism.

We have attended your previous school forums in large numbers. We have participated with consistent and persistent voices our opinions and desires to regain locally, elected, representation by our peers.

We have made clear our desires to keep all of our schools open, to raise community economic support for all of the schools and, particularly students, in the LRSD so that all students are attending classes and schools that are excellent.

We have provided plans, options and opportunities to work with you to keep schools open, and to improve the overall moral in schools by creating more community support and developing public accountability.

Yet, despite our active participation in your created system of governance, you have repeatedly denied all of our requests.

What will it will take for you to stop disrespecting and disregarding the voices and presence of our LRSD children, their parents, community?

What is the ransom you require to return our district back into the hands of the LRSD community?

Sincerely,
Rev. Anika T. Whitfield

Categories Accountability, Arkansas, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reformers, Cruelty, Democracy, Education Industry, Injustice, Privatization

Why Philanthropy Is Bad for Democracy: An Interview with Anand Giridharadas

By dianeravitch
August 28, 2018 //
28

This article expresses our frustration with arrogant, clueless billionaires like Bill Gates, Eli Broad, Betsy DeVos, Michael Bloomberg, Reed Hastings, the Waltons, the Koch brothers, and Mark Zuckerberg. We have long known that they don’t like democracy. It gets in the way of their grand plans to change the world. Why should we—the targets of their plans—have any say? Those of us who are not billionaires think that they should stop rearranging our lives. We don’t want them to disrupt our lives and our institutions. We believe in the idea of one person, one vote. We are losing faith in democracy because these plutocrats have more than one vote. They use their vast resources to buy elections and, what is even cheaper, to buy politicians.

Anand Giridharadas frequented their circles, mainly at the Aspen Institute, which made the mistake of inviting him to join them as a Fellow. He confirms what we suspected. These people are a threat to democracy. They think they are “doing good,” but they are destroying democracy.

It begins:

“In 2015, the journalist Anand Giridharadas was a fellow at the Aspen Institute, a confab of moneyed “thought leaders” where TED-style discourse dominates: ostensibly nonpolitical, often counterintuitive, but never too polemical. In his own speech that year, Giridharadas broke with protocol, accusing his audience of perpetuating the very social problems they thought they were solving through philanthropy. He described what he called the Aspen Consensus: “The winners of our age must be challenged to do more good, but never, ever tell them to do less harm.” The response, he said, was mixed. One private-equity figure called him an “asshole” that evening, but another investor said he’d voiced the struggle of her life. David Brooks, in a New York Times column, called the speech “courageous.” That lecture grew into Winners Take All, Giridharadas’s new jeremiad against philanthropy as we know it. He weaves together scenes at billionaires’ gatherings, profiles of insiders who struggle with ethical conflicts, and a broader history of how America’s wealth inequality and philanthropy grew in tandem.”

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Billionaires, Bloomberg, Michael, Broad Foundation, Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, Democracy, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Inequality, Koch Brothers, Philanthropy, Walton Foundation

Beware the Elites Who Want to Change the World.

By dianeravitch
August 28, 2018 //
30

This is an unusually good opinion piece that appeared in the New York Times a few days ago.

Think Gates, Zuckerberg, Walton, Hastings, Koch, and many more who use their wealth to impose their ideas on what they consider lesser lives.

The author is Anand Giridharadas.

Please note the mention of charter schools, a bone used by the elites to distract us from wealth inequality and the necessity of providing a better education for all.

It begins:

“Change the world” has long been the cry of the oppressed. But in recent years world-changing has been co-opted by the rich and the powerful.

“Change the world. Improve lives. Invent something new,” McKinsey & Company’s recruiting materials say. “Sit back, relax, and change the world,” tweets the World Economic Forum, host of the Davos conference. “Let’s raise the capital that builds the things that change the world,” a Morgan Stanley ad says. Walmart, recruiting a software engineer, seeks an “eagerness to change the world.” Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook says, “The best thing to do now, if you want to change the world, is to start a company.”

“At first, you think: Rich people making a difference — so generous! Until you consider that America might not be in the fix it’s in had we not fallen for the kind of change these winners have been selling: fake change.

“Fake change isn’t evil; it’s milquetoast. It is change the powerful can tolerate. It’s the shoes or socks or tote bag you bought which promised to change the world. It’s that one awesome charter school — not equally funded public schools for all. It is Lean In Circles to empower women — not universal preschool. It is impact investing — not the closing of the carried-interest loophole.

“Of course, world-changing initiatives funded by the winners of market capitalism do heal the sick, enrich the poor and save lives. But even as they give back, American elites generally seek to maintain the system that causes many of the problems they try to fix — and their helpfulness is part of how they pull it off. Thus their do-gooding is an accomplice to greater, if more invisible, harm.

“What their “change” leaves undisturbed is our winners-take-all economy, which siphons the gains from progress upward. The average pretax income of America’s top 1 percent has more than tripled since 1980, and that of the top 0.001 percent has risen more than sevenfold, even as the average income of the bottom half of Americans stagnated around $16,000, adjusted for inflation, according to a paper by the economists Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman.

“American elites are monopolizing progress, and monopolies can be broken. Aggressive policies to protect workers, redistribute income, and make education and health affordable would bring real change. But such measures could also prove expensive for the winners. Which gives them a strong interest in convincing the public that they can help out within the system that so benefits the winners.”

There is more, if it is not behind a paywall.

Categories Billionaires, Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Democracy, Disruption, Equity, Fake, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Hypocrisy, Inequality, Koch Brothers, Philanthropy, Privatization, Walton Foundation
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »