The Faces of School Reform

[teacher gal]

Excerpt from the Indypendent:

http://www.indypendent.org/2010/01/29/faces-of-school-reform/

Led by a band of billionaires, the school-reform movement has gained increasing momentum during the past decade, spreading its reach into urban communities across the country. But instead of truly transforming public schools, private funders want to restructure them. They insist running schools like a business is the solution. At stake is not only control over hundreds of billions of dollars in local, state and federal funding, but also the future of the next generation of schoolchildren.

Well worth the read if you go to the URL. And quite accurate I believe.

[bain_sidhe]

1. No time right now - K & R for later

:kick:

[MichiganVote]

2. In time, "public" schools will be relegated to the poor, and the learner derelicts.

That "at risk" school model meets its death. Some of that is good. But I've said it before and I'll say it again, the public will be paying fees to have their kids attend charter schools.

Reap what you sow people.

[Jkid]

5. That's what they want.

[MichiganVote]

7. Yup. If they could charge us for air or issue stock for it, we'd buy that too.

[teacher gal]

3. Go democracy! n/t

[teacher gal]

4. Would like to keep this alive for a bit

We'll see how it goes.....

[Hannah Bell]

6. kik

[LWolf]

8. Notice how educators are never at the forefront

of education "reform?"

Educators know better.

[Catshrink]

9. Or no one respects the opinions and experience of teachers.

And we know there is no magic bullet. Of course, everyone is an expert on education. :sarcasm:

[LWolf]

10. I blame that on the anti-education and anti-teacher propaganda

begun under the Reagan administration, and continued relentlessly through to 2010, where Democrats are just as happy to engage in union-bashing, teacher-bashing, and privatizing as Republicans. :(

[Catshrink]

12. Reagan -- now there was a smart guy.

no wonder he supported education!

:sarcasm:

Of course, Obama is, really really is, smart and look what he's doing. :cry:

[LWolf]

19. Smart is great,

if it is used to make things better.

Not so great, otherwise. :(

[tonysam]

13. It began with "A Nation at Risk" in 1983,

which was a fraud and was proven so by the Sandia Report years later, but it didn't matter. Undermine public trust of education and then privatize it the way Milton Friedman and his crackpot followers always believed.

Remember Friedman came out with the idea of vouchers and the like in the mid-fifties, following Brown v. Board of Education.

[LWolf]

18. Yep.

It's interesting to note that the anti-education propaganda STILL frequently mentions "A Nation at Risk."

[GreenPartyVoter]

15. Well of course. If you were a student at a school, then you are an expert on

education.

And I was a patient in a hospital, so I am qualified to dispense medical advice should you need it. ;)

[ibegurpard]

11. Of course

they want to train unquestioning little automatons

[tonysam]

14. They don't want even that. The neoliberals want a slave class

with NO education at all; they are even easier to exploit.

[teacher gal]

21. It seems to me

that ed reform, as controlled by the ruling class, works to expand an underclass and keep it in its place, with just enough education to do the low paying jobs provided by the global economy.

[tonysam]

16. This quote from Broad

is truly astounding:

Speaking at the 92nd Street Y in New York City last year, Broad summarized his approach: “We don’t know anything about how to teach or reading curriculum or any of that. But what we do know about is management and governance.”

How the hell can you run a school if you don't have a clue as to what schools are supposed to do?

[timtom]

17. Not even Business

should be run like a "business." America's major gaff of the 20th Century.

[LWolf]

20. You nailed that one. nt

[femmocrat]

22. K&R --- definitely worth reading.

I don't think there is much we can do about it though. Obama has bought into this and the hell with teachers.

[Starry Messenger]

23. recommend.