The Race to Nowhere

[tonysam]

Diane Ravitch hits it out of the park--again:



Today, with the proliferation of charter schools, we may be seeing a resurgence of the historic pattern as public schools are privatized and taken over by very rich men (and women) who see themselves as saviors of the children of the poor. Naturally, you find this a repellent portrait because it undermines the democratic foundations of public education. It means that our society will increasingly rely on the good will of wealthy patrons to educate children of color. It means that education is seen as a private charity rather than as a public responsibility. Let's hope that the new owners who have taken over these schools are able to sustain their interest. After all, having 500 children in your care is not the same as having a stable of polo ponies or a vineyard in Napa Valley. If the children don't produce results that make the sponsors proud, they may pick a different hobby.

Though the rise of the hedge-fund managers as charter school operators may distress us, it thrills others because it dovetails so perfectly with the Obama administration's Race to the Top. I don't know about you, but I am getting sick of the rhetoric of the Race to the Top, as it implies the very opposite of "equal educational opportunity." But "equal educational opportunity" is so...yesterday, so now we shall all "race to the top," to see who can get there first. Who can privatize the most schools? Who can close the most public schools? Which district can replace the most public schools with charter schools? Who can compel their teachers to focus intently on those pesky math and reading test scores? Who can boot out the most teachers whose students didn't get higher scores than last year? Who seriously believes that this combination of policies will produce better education?

We try not to be New York City-centric, but so much is happening in this city that it is hard not to see it as a bellwether. After all, NYC not only was a faithful representation of No Child Left Behind, but it is now outfitting itself to be a faithful representation of the Race to the Top. This is not a hard transition because NLCB and the Race to the Top are really the same, except that President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan's "Race" has nearly $5 billion as a lure to persuade states to climb aboard the express train to privatization.


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[montanto]

1. It's all pretty silly.

If you project this privatization out far enough the corporate schools will eventually stop taking on low achieving students / neighborhoods and open up the necessary expense for "new" public education that the corps don't want to take on. In Los Angeles they are already going after the "cherry" schools, brand new buildings that the taxpayers built that don't have a population yet, thus no culture of failure, no conservative force of teachers, no culture at all. As they go along they will "redistrict" poor performing neighborhoods out of these schools. When they gobble up all of the easy and moderate schools they will take on the harder cases, but at a certain point, they will abandon patches of cultures that don't respond to "drill and kill" techniques, and the public will have to foot the bill and find new space to house and educate those kids (playing catch-up again). But look at the bright side, the corporate schools will improve test scores, even if they have to use Bush's SecEd's "eliminate the low scorers" technique!!

As for the sponsors finding another hobby? I doubt it. It's a giant corporate money laundering scheme at taxpayer expense. I doubt they ever get off it if they can come by enough schools.