Diane Ravitch: The New Era of Greed

[tonysam]

As usual, Ravitch hits it on the head:

Most people, however, feel uncomfortable at the idea of the profit motive becoming a regular part of public education, unless referring to vendors of materials. I know I do. I recoiled when I first heard the idea that children would be paid for raising their grades and test scores; I saw this scheme as undermining the core value of intrinsic motivation. If we pay children to study, will they continue to study if the pay stops? Without intrinsic motivation, education is a lost cause. My discomfort with the profit motive in public education is another reason I dislike merit pay. Merit pay assumes that teachers will not work hard unless they are paid more. It has been my experience that the overwhelming majority of teachers are working as hard as they know how; they will be happy to get more money for their efforts, but they have not been holding back and waiting for a bonus to spur them to greater effort.

Now, the Obama administration, with its odious Race to the Top, is welcoming entrepreneurs into public education with the expectation that the profit motive will lift achievement. This is arrant nonsense, though it is likely to take a decade before we see how little we have gained by this venture. A few weeks ago, my friends Checker Finn and Rick Hess published an amusing little essay called "Greedheads' Christmas: The Seedy Side of Entrepreneurial Education Reform." They acknowledged that many of today's "for-profit and non-profit operators are self-promoters out to make a buck—and some are little more than snake oil salesmen." The Race to the Top, they note, "has become a red light district for lusty charlatans and randy peddlers."

The new era of greed doesn't trouble them, because they believe that the world of public education has long been dominated by a government monopoly that serves the interests of adults, but not children. They believe that the only thing worse than a marketplace of greedy vendors is a government monopoly that is sluggish and bureaucratic.

link

Unfortunately, there appears to be no organized movement against the accelerating trend towards privatization.

When will the neoliberals learn?

[erinlough]

1. Thanks for this, everyone go to the link

and read her other articles. She is a great spokes woman and she has hit it on the head. Greed is what it is all about, follow the money.