Former GOP insider says "Billionaire Boys' Club" dismantling education.

[madfloridian]

Diane Ravitch, former Assistant Secretary of Education in the Bush administration, has a new book out. The title of the book is The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education.

She has a chapter dealing with the way billionaire groups have taken over the education system.

Former GOP insider: Billionaire Boys' Club dismantling public education

Nationally known education commentator and former privatizer ally Diane Ravitch, a New York-based fellow at the Hoover Institution who was Assistant Secretary of Education in the Bush I administration, has been shifting steadily into the role of resistance leader. Lately Ravitch, an NYU professor, has been calling out New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg over his heavy-handed steamrolling of the city's school system.

Ravitch now sounds as fiery as the urban parent activists who are popping up around the country to protest the Billionaire Eduphilanthropreneurs’ Club effort to take over our schools. The notion that a former Republican White House insider would all but out-rabble-rouse activists like my colleagues Gina Arlotto in D.C., Sharon Higgins in Oakland or Leonie Haimson in New York has me knocked speechless:

"It appears that the Big Money has placed its bets on dismantling public education."

Ravitch speaks of NY schools and Bloomberg and Klein in particular, but it could refer to any district in our country now.

The Department of Education has closed nearly 100 regular public schools and replaced them with charter schools or new schools. … All such decisions are made without consultation. And the chancellor goes around the country boasting of his success in closing established schools and replacing them with new schools and charter schools.

Most bizarre is when the mayor and chancellor show up at charter school rallies and tell the parents that
public schools are no good and that they are lucky to be in a charter. I often wonder at such times if these two have forgotten that they are responsible for the 98 percent of the city’s public school children who are in regular schools. It’s like the president of Macy’s telling his customers to shop at Wal-Mart.

Of course, this course of action has the enthusiastic endorsement of the Billionaire Boys Club, that is, the Gates Foundation, the Broad Foundation, and the Walton Foundation. They know what needs to be done, and they don't see the point of listening to such unenlightened types as parents and teachers.

At some point the music and the upheaval will stop. But when it does, will there still be a public school system? Or will the schools all be run by hedge fund managers, dilettantes, and EMOs?

Here is some of the transcript from her recent interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now.

AMY GOODMAN: Diane Ravitch, we said at the top of this segment that the Department of Education announced sixteen finalists for its first round of the “Race to the Top” competition. They’re going to deliver something like $4.35 billion in school reform grants. And the Washington Post is reporting almost all of these finalists got money from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In your book, chapter ten is called “The Billionaire Boys Club.” Explain.

DIANE RAVITCH: “The Billionaires Boys Club” is a discussion of how we’re in a new era of the foundations and their relation to education. We have never in the history of the United States had foundations with the wealth of the Gates Foundation and some of the other billionaire foundations—the Walton Family Foundation, The Broad Foundation. And these three foundations—Gates, Broad and Walton—are committed now to charter schools and to evaluating teachers by test scores. And that’s now the policy of the US Department of Education. We have never seen anything like this, where foundations had the ambition to direct national educational policy, and in fact are succeeding.

Not only do they have the ambition, they have the access to the very highest levels of this administration....including the president.

And she mentions how Arne Duncan's Race to the Top project is run by someone from a group whose goal is to promote charter schools.

The Obama administration appointed somebody from the NewSchools Venture Fund to run this so-called “Race to the Top.” The NewSchools Venture Fund exists to promote charter schools. So, what we’re seeing with the proliferation—with this demand from the federal government, if you want to be part of this $4 billion fund, you better be prepared to create lots more charter schools. Well, it’s all predetermined by who the personnel is. And, you know, so we see this immense influence of the foundations.

And I think that with the proliferation of charter schools, the bottom-line issue is the survival of public education, because we’re going to see many, many more privatized schools and no transparency as to who’s running them, where the money is going, and everything being determined by test scores.

So the whole picture, I think—I just wish that people wouldn’t refer to this as reform, because when we talk about “Race to the Top,” we’re talking about a principle that is antithetical to the fundamental idea of American education. The fundamental idea, which has been enshrined at least since the Brown decision of 1954, was equal educational opportunity. “Race to the Top” is not equal educational opportunity. It is a race in which one or two or three states race to the top to have more privatized schools, more test-based accountability, more basic skills, no emphasis on a broad curriculum for all kids, and no equal educational opportunity. I think that’s wrong. I think it’s also not the role of the federal government to do what’s being done and to call it reform.

Here is more about who is running the Race to the Top.

Corporate Welfare Venture Fund Specialist to Lead Duncan's "Race Over the Cliff" Fund

With $5 billion burning a hole in his pocket and with the ed industry leeches like Whittle lined up at the feeding trough and with the Oligarchs tapping their sharp pencils on the edge of their desks, Arne announced yesterday that a bundler from the corporate tax evasion outfit, the New Schools Venture Fund (NSVF), would be in charge of handing out the dough.

NSVF is a "non-profit" clearinghouse of sorts for corporate cash looking to generate tax credits in ways that shape social policy to benefit the corporate ideology of unrestrained greed.

Most of the faces of school reform are billionaires.

Faces of school reform. Too many billionaires.

As the Indypendent says:

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.

And few are showing concern.

[eleny]

1. K&R

[Tippy]

2. When it's all said and done we will have a system where only

the brightest will be educated the remainder will learn trades. Mark my words this will take place...

[uncle ray]

3. wrong.

you seem to be under the impression there still are trades.

service industry jobs is all that will be left. and take it from someone still in a trade, you'll probably get paid better flipping burgers.

[Tippy]

5. There are still some Trade Schools we have on in our area ..but

I know where your comming from

[WatchWhatISay]

22. Question is not are there trade schools

But whether or not there will be any jobs in those trades, and if so, do they pay a living wage.

[Tippy]

30. I look for wages to go down...

[Generic Other]

8. or the wealthiest

will have all the advantages as they always have...

[santamargarita]

21. That's true Tippy - it will be the white and wealthy among the brightest ...

[Tippy]

31. Sad but true Don't get me wrong Ther will be some who are not white

but they will be very rich...

[swilton]

99. Like President Obama

This process has already been put in place - it's more classism than racism

[SharonAnn]

51. No, not the brightest, the wealthy. Only the wealthy will be educated.

[CLANG]

59. And the educated will work for the state (fascist state)

If we don't fight back soon, it will be too late.

[AdHocSolver]

66. The brightest will be indoctrinated to be subservient to their corporate masters.

The rest will be indoctrinated into believing that they are too stupid and unworthy to merit a job and a livelihood...and that it is their own fault. People who blame themselves for their situation will be less likely to understand the class warfare that is being waged against them, and less likely to join with others in rebellion.

Whoever educates the next generation -- or denies the next generation an education -- controls the future. The wealthy elite are preparing a next generation that will be docile and easy to manipulate.

The Teabagger-types who decry "socialist government-run" health care while defending their right to Medicare will seem like geniuses compared to the next generation of uneducated, and miseducated, masses.

The purpose of The kind of educational "reform" expounded by the right wing is to dumb down education even beyond the dumbing down that we have seen in the last fifty years in order to make the masses feel inferior and helpless. Art, Music, and "real" science are empowering. Limit the education of the masses to "readin', writin', and 'rithmetic" at a sixth grade level, and the masses will have enough education to absorb right wing propaganda, but not enough to question or refute right wing propaganda.

Make the teachers fear for their jobs if they don't "teach to the standardized test", rather than actually trying to educate their students, and you ensure that the next generation becomes compliant and uneducated.

As to learning a trade, there will not be many jobs in the trades when practically all manufacturing is done in low wage foreign countries, and manufactured goods are designed to be throw away and unrepairable, such as electronics and shoes, or are designed to require specialized and expensive resources to repair such as the current generation of automobiles.

[swilton]

93. I see this as already happening

and perhaps even evolving from the Powell Memorandum.

Look at how much research in universities is already funded by big business. How the CIA - through the Minerva project provides scholarships for the study of the social sciences and guaranteed jobs on the outside working for the CIA or the intelligence agencies.

[defendandprotect]

110. Over last 30 years, colleges/universities have been corporatized and militarized . . .

Astonishing what's been going on -- from real estate dealings to military moving in -- !!

And, of course, the initial attempt to keep non-elites out of colleges by constantly raising

the tuition -- and subsequently bankrupting parents and the kids who manage to graduate!

That method evidently took too long -- a generation?

They've quickly moved to more aggressive means --

But look at how much they have to control and destroy for the right wing to take power!!

Not one bit of truth can be allowed because their myths/agenda are like a sheet of glass --

or a mirror. One tiny pebble of truth can shatter it in an instant --

The more powerful they become, the more vulnerable --

[The Doctor.]

101. Not the 'brightest', just the wealthiest.

Proof?

'W'

It's actually the trend of every plutocracy.

[Chemical Bill]

4. K&R. n/t

[madfloridian]

6. "no state and no nation has ever had 100 percent of the children proficient"

"DIANE RAVITCH: Well, this is the great legacy of No Child Left Behind, is that it has left us with a system of institutionalized fraud. And the institutionalized fraud is that No Child Left Behind has mandated that every child is going to be proficient by the year 2014. Except they’re not, because no state and no nation has ever had 100 percent of the children proficient. Kids have all kinds of problems. And whether it’s poverty or a million things, there’s no such thing as 100 percent proficiency.

But every year we get closer to 2014, the bar goes up, and the states are told, “If you don’t reach that bar, you’re going to be punished. Schools will be closed. They’ll be turned into charter schools.” That’s part of the federal mandate, is that schools will be privatized if they can’t meet that impossible goal. So in order to preserve some semblance of public education, the states have been encouraged to lie, and many of them are lying, and so we see states that are saying, “90 percent of our kids are proficient in reading,” and then when the national test comes out, it’s 25 percent."

[CLANG]

60. Doesn't seem to bode very well for the future

[madfloridian]

7. From Education Week: Ravitch In New Book Recants Long-Held Beliefs

There is a video at the link.

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/03/04/24ravitch_ep.h29.html?tkn=SNQF2nFAxY2Vbs0EM5X6rvnhFmeZrApPgUOF&cmp=clp-edweek

"Once a passionate advocate for injecting greater competition and accountability into the U.S. education system, the New York University scholar Diane Ravitch realized three years ago that her views had evolved to a point where she was contradicting herself on a regular basis. Like any good historian, she decided to set the record straight.

Her newest book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education, which was published this week by Basic Books, is the result of that effort. In 308 pages, it lays out the reasons for Ms. Ravitch’s about-face on charter schools, school choice, and other market-oriented reform strategies in education, and explains why she no longer supports the federal No Child Left Behind Act and other efforts designed to hold schools and teachers accountable for their students’ test results.

Along the way, the book also skewers much of President Barack Obama’s agenda for improving the nation’s schools; the recent involvement in the field of major foundations, including the Seattle-based Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; vaunted school improvement efforts in New York City and elsewhere; and the growing emphasis on using test-score data to guide educational decisionmaking.

“People were writing and saying, ‘What’s happened to you?’ ” said Ms. Ravitch, who makes her views known each week in Bridging Differences, a popular Education Week blog that she co-writes with Deborah Meier, the progressive educator who founded New York City’s famed Central Park East School. “The sands of time were running out, and I didn’t want to die leaving the record uncorrected,” the 71-year-old writer said in an interview here at her 1895 brownstone in the Brooklyn borough of New York City."

[Octafish]

9. Billionaires profit from stupid public.

Otherwise, they'd be asked to pay their fare share of taxes.

Duh.

[Larry Ogg]

100. Correction

Billionaires profit from stupid public...

Otherwise there would be no billionaires, because there would be a fair and just monetary system that an educated public would understand...

[Reader Rabbit]

10. Kicking for teachers and students-n/t

[HCE SuiGeneris]

11. Recommended.

[Starry Messenger]

12. I'm glad she's had a change of heart and is speaking out.

I just wish we could send her back in time to talk to herself two decades ago.

[madfloridian]

16. Amen to that.

And I wish a power voice in politics would speak out as well.

[Feron]

13. Education makes a person dangerous to TPTB.

Frederick Douglass is a case in point.

[sabrina 1]

14. What is so sad is that this WH is not only doing nothing to

undo the disastrous and for-profit educational system put in place by businessmen, few of whom are particularly interested in children, but they are implementing the worst aspects of it and actually strengthening it.

The problem is an uninformed public and a media that keeps them that way. If parents knew the truth about NCLB they would rise up against it.

Great article, should be read by everyone. Thank you for posting it.

[madfloridian]

17. People just are not aware. Our media is powerful...

in keeping things like this from the public. It's what they do.

[tonysam]

18. Or, like the NYT and WP, parrot the billionaire boys' line

Both papers are as bad as anything out of the right-wing think tanks when it comes to public education.

[flyarm]

39. yep!! +10,000!! eom

[Chisox08]

105. They're not going to do anything.

Arne Duncan loves NCLB and the charter schools. When he was the CEO of the Chicago Public Schools we saw the rise of charter schools and the closing of public schools.

[malaise]

15. Must read

K & R

[Greyhound]

19. K&R...

few are concerned perhaps because one has to be somewhat educated to realize how important it is.

We've been churning out increasing numbers of illiterate, disinterested, but very obedient drones for how many generations now?

(Interesting; http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_was_the_per_cent_literacy_in_1776">Americans were almost certainly more literate in 1776 than we are today)

[Kievan Rus]

20. They've been doing this since Worst POTUS Ever (Reagan) was in the White House

[mulsh]

23. his team sank CA schools while he was Governor, his

disciples continued that work. One of the many reasons I say people who admire Reagan are lower than child molesters.

[Jakes Progress]

24. And now much of DU wants the same thing. nt

[Reader Rabbit]

26. You know it!

When my folks moved to California to teach in the '60s, it had the number one public education system in the nation. By the 1980s, it was in the bottom ten.

Thanks, Ronnie! :puke:

[Enthusiast]

27. They're not low,

they're just misguided. They bought into all the Reagan caused the collapse of the Soviet Union and made the world safe for democracy bullshit. It's no wonder, it has been poured into their heads for years and years.

Reality has no place in the lives of these "true believers".

[flyarm]

40. yep again! +10,000!! it used to be one of the best school systems ..now one of the worst! eom

[Jakes Progress]

25. In the long run, this will be Obama's lowest.

A little good. Some kanoodling with the rich. Messing with the bush wars. Very nice speeches. And the dismantling of the American education system. Sure it started under ronnie, but DU and the Democrats would never let a republican president do what Arne and his buddy are doing. And doing it to the cheers of the usual crowd.

[leftstreet]

34. You're right, the Republicans could never get away with this

Any more than they could have gotten away with Wall Street bailouts or military escalation.

Unbelievable

:cry:

[flyarm]

41. You have that 100% right..same people pushing neolib policies..that will destroy our schools and

democracy!

eom

[readmoreoften]

91. Nope. The Money Party needs its "Democrats" to get liberals to stand down to this type of bullshit.

Great OP.

[annabanana]

28. The constant denigration and underfunding of the Public School System

has made the whole edifice vulnerable to the "sparkly magic" of the Charter School fix...

[defendandprotect]

108. And even worse, I've read that over the long years past, as much as 50% of the education

budget -- Federal level -- was actually hidden funds for the CIA!

Remember all those times when we were told Congress was simply "throwing money

at schools"!!!

Because they began this "Charter school" farce with Catholic schools, IMO, it's

disarmed people who think that the Catholic school system is superior to public

schools. Rather, IMO, Catholic schools were looking to government to finance them

because they had lost their reliable and free teachers -- the nuns!!

I recall at one point they also were lobbying Congress to pay for removal of asbestos

from their schools, but it had to be removed according to new laws -- but they didn't

want to pay for it! They lobbied constantly, but I'm not aware of all the requests/

issues.

[dysfunctional press]

29. one more reason that i'm glad not to have any children.

this country sucks harder every day.

[defendandprotect]

109. Ah, but what of reincarnation . . . ?

All of the world's major religions used to teach the concept of reincarnation

until it became "inconvenient for the elite" . . . !!

It's always amazed me that people by Poppy Bush care so little for their own

children -- you can absolutely see that within the family in many ways, I think.

But people always care about themselves. If you think you're coming back to sit

on a desert floor and swat flies off your starving children, you might do things

a bit differently?



I do, however, agree with you -- sadly!!


:)

[SlingBlade]

32. K & R

[Golden Raisin]

33. In the coming corporatist/fascist state

an under or uneducated populace is desirable by those at the top of the pyramid. An entire "lower" class unaware of their Constitutional rights, malleable, easy prey to corporate-owned media propaganda, not generally interested in voting, and ultimately: cannon fodder for the endless wars.

[flyarm]

42. heck you can see that here everyday. I was just on a thread about Babyboomers..it has always been to

1964..now you have these young folks coming along with propaganda and nothing but utter bullshit..and making a new name for those born when Obama was born in 1961..it is all a freaking cover up for the disparaging names Obama called baby boomers..when he didn't realize he was one! So the young ones suck up all the bullshit they can suck up and then try to spew that bullshit to the "grown ups" or whatever you want to call us..real babyboomers....they take us for fools..each and every day..or they freaking think they do!

They better keep thinking!

Their bullshit and propaganda is getting very old..and they are likely to piss enough of us off to stay home in Nov..I am already there..except i will vote third party against any incombant who is fucking with my and my grandchildren's education, health care and democracy!

Their little games are not working with me!

[leftstreet]

35. K&R

Thanks for posting this, and for the many excellent links

[mnhtnbb]

36. The Repubs have just taken over the Wake County (Raleigh, NC)

School Board and have set about dismantling a system built over the last 30 years to
adjust for economic disparity. They did it by electing four new school board members
in an election where approximately 11% of the electorate turned out to vote. They plan
to implement a system of "neighborhood" schools, which means a return to segregation.

The Superintendent of Schools submitted his resignation at a recent school board meeting (surprise!)
and commented that he could not, in good conscience, work for this new board. And what do you think
was the first thing suggested by these Repubs? They needed a 'businessman' to run the schools.

Make no mistake. The Repubs are determined to destroy public education. For a clue, take a look
at what they did in California when Ronnie Reagan was Governor.

[pleah]

37. K&R

[flyarm]

38. For all of our perpetual wars..they have to get an army someway..

seems this is how they plan to do it..and it makes me sick to my stomach!

How can the teachers fight this? with us.

With parents..

with involvement...of parents going to board meetings..and raising a huge stink.

With knowing who your administrators are that are up for election...check all of their backgrounds.

Expose the ones with military backgrounds and those going to the nefarious groups for training.

Stand with your local teachers!

[flyarm]

43. Oh and K&R great thread Madfloridian!! Thank you! EOM

[LarryNM]

44. Hopefully, not everywhere in the world will succumb to this

so that there will still be sources of light to fight against greed and wealth.

[RandomThoughts]

45. My understanding of the term 'race to the bottom' is a comment on unregulated market forces.

That term was used years ago in comments on the effects of unregulated market forces. If profit motive is the driving factor, then the effect is a race to the bottom where the system that treats society the worst is most profitable. So the worse a company pollutes, the more profitable it is. The lower the wage for workers, regardless of what survival wage is, the more profitable it is. The more monopolies and economics of scale are created, the more profitable a business is.

Then in a need to compete to stay in business, other companies have to also treat workers, environment, society, and anything else worse and worse, leading to a race to the bottom in society.


So in theory, a race to the top system should be one that does not use the profit motive as the factor for excellence. If it is about ideology of profit, or creating profit, the name of the program is Orwellian. If something like profit is given, for reaching non profit goals, like excellence in education, then market forces can be used for race to top not bottom.

It is possible that schools that show excellence in many diverse areas are promoted, and those that fail in many areas are downgraded. However that should not be because of how many dollars a school gets, but because of the level of development of many areas, how to learn, how to think, information retention, and even opportunity to diverse exposure of many areas including things like tech, science, history, music, and arts, along with skills that are easier to test like math and reading.

In theory every child should have the opportunity to find what they enjoy and are successful at. And children with potential in areas, or likes and skills for certain areas, should not be left out of those opportunities for reasons of 'lottery of birth' or 'ability to pay'.

The system would fail if children were forced into lack of exposure schools, or schools that teach a certain class role for one group or another. If some children had a broad exposure in learning, while others had limited exposure, especially if based on there ability to pay, then that system would not seem correct.

So if charter schools is to just move people into what other people think they should learn based on some social economic factor, it would be bad, if it is because it is what the parents and children want to learn, then it would seem good, much of it depends on if it is money based, or opportunity based. And if the choices are to best find what fits for each individual, or if it is to fit certain groups into assigned roles.

So I would ask, what is the criteria for charter schools to stay in business, if it was how much money they could squeeze out of each student, it would be bad. If it was a standardized test that leads to limited teaching or limited curriculum, it would be bad. But if it is a comprehensive look at the success of students including things like opportunity exposure, and areas of learning that allow children to reach individual potentials, then it would be good.


The quote They insist running schools like a business is the solution. Is only bad if the motive is profit, the motive in most business. If a regulatory structure moves that motive to what is best for the learning of the children, then that different business goal can let competition help the system.

Competition and models that reward success are vary useful in creating better systems, the problem becomes with defining what is success. In any system regulation or structure that inhibits 'profit first' systems can use the advantages of competition and market forces to help find better ways to solve problems. So I have to think the question has to be seen as what is the intent of the billionaires, and what is the measure for success that ends up rating the systems and that modifies the growth or shrinking of different schools.

[DefenseLawyer]

46. This is not some plot to make everyone stupid

Once you let corporate America in the door it is simply about maximizing market share and profit. Whether it results in smart people or dumb people in the long run is of little consequence. If it's profitable, like standardized testing, they are for it. If it isn't, like public school buildings and teachers, they are against it. It's all about "efficiency" and the mighty buck.

[laughingliberal]

55. Yes. Just one more way to get their hands on our tax dollars

Just as privatization of all services which were once public has been.

[tonysam]

63. It all boils down to ideology

Public schools must be dismantled because they are public. Never mind privatization will fail.

[Marr]

64. I disagree. I think it's both.

It's easy to say it's just a system working, but who constructed the system?

I'd agree that much of this is simply business doing what business does. But I *do* think that the people who got these trends moving really are motivated by a desire to promote a two-tiered class system, and removing educational opportunities for the general populace is part of it.

They want a large, uneducated class of poor people and small class of wealthy people. That's been a central tenet of conservative thought for a very long time.

[vssmith]

85. George Carlin explains this very well with his comedic style

Just watch The American Dream:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q

[WinkyDink]

71. Neil Bush has been in on the ground floor provided by his brother: "IGNITE!"

[Moochy]

98. That is just plain wrong

"Whether it results in smart people or dumb people in the long run is of little consequence."

To whom? That ignorance that you've captured so well in that sentence just sums up so much of what is wrong in this country.

[DefenseLawyer]

112. Sorry you couldn't grasp what I wrote.

I don't think it's that difficult to understand. Not everyone will agree with me, but I didn't think anyone would fail to grasp the concept. It's the people making money off education, but selling and administering standardized tests, by building and running private schools using public capital and and the myriad of other ways in which corporate America has converted public education into another chance to feed at the trough of taxpayer dollars- they are the ones that don't care whether schools work or not or whether their efforts result in smart kids or dumb kids. They want a model that has the lowest overhead, the most efficiency and the highest profit. That's my opinion, that we are not seeing some plot to make us dumb, just the natural result of allowing the profit motive to dictate education choices. If that doesn't clear it up for you then I'm truly sorry.

[Moochy]

114. I grasped it

DefenseLawyer

The ignorance of the side effects of greed. That is the ignorance you highlighted when you say there is no consequence as if bad education is just an innocent and undesired side effect of lowering education spending.

Nothing but the profit motive at work, and yet it still results in dumber kids. No consequence?

[DefenseLawyer]

117. Sorry, I'll type s-l-o-w-e-r

It is of no consequence to those trying to make money. It just so happens that the use of our education system that is most profitable trends to result in a terrible education system. The point is, Lex Luthor, isn't in his bunker plotting to make us all stupid, that's just what happens when the goal is profit instead of education. I am not implying that it is of no consequence to society. That was obvious, so I assume you were just looking to argue. Nothing wrong with that.

[Moochy]

118. It is of no consequence to those trying to make money.

And that's what matters, Superman. Color me fucking surprised that you are a lawyer!

Thanks for typing slowly, it really kept your immense intelligence from getting in the way of your massive overinflated ego.

[Fire1]

47. Here they include the Skillman Foundation, The Kellogg

Foundation, the McGregor Foundation and the Kresge Foundation. With these folks we can bypass the RTTT!! Building 70 new schools and the first one to open this fall.

[bullwinkle428]

48. RIP, America.

:cry:

[Swamp Rat]

49. k&r

[LWolf]

50. Who will stand up for public education?

Who will refuse to vote for or support any politician on board with this war on public education?

I will. Even if I am the lone wolf.

I'm glad to see Ravitch getting involved. Her past support of privatization, and her credentials as a member of the Bush I administration, gets her voice heard in more main stream outlets and lends some weight to what so many of us have been saying for years now.

[KoKo]

52. OBAMA is STANDING UP! CHARTER SCHOOLS for ALL..and FIRE the Crap TEACHERS!

and while You're AT IT...GET RID OF THE TEACHER's UNIONS!

THAT's the REFORM! And the REPUBLICANS LOVE IT...It's what they've been working for all these years while Controlling State Education Budgets to starve the Public Schools and both Bush II, Clinton I & II and St. Ronnie were all working and working to "silently and then loudly, then silently dismantle our Public School System The DLC and the RNC and every Conservative/Religious Organization has worked in concert with our last FOUR Presidents to get rid of Teacher's Unions...and any real Education in the Classrooms. "Teach to the TEST" has been around since REAGAn in nascent form and it's taken awhile to get it all out there...when BUSH II made it a Mandate and Obama really thinks it's "cool" so he's working to keep it going.

So...it's what we have. After all..isn't it up to the PARENTS to REALLY TEACH THEIR KIDS and NOT the "PUBLIC ECUCATION SYSTEM!"

WHAT'S WRONG WITH THESE "DUMB FUCK PARENTS" that they DON'T GET IT? :shrug:

[LWolf]

88. They believe the propaganda that they hear,

and they are more interested in siding with a "team" than they are the truth. :(

[KoKo]

106. I think you make a good point. "Team Leadership" wherever it comes from gets the "Folks" Motivated

in today's politics. It sad it doesn't come from Democrats, though, isn't it. Given how hard we have worked all these years...all these years.

[BrklynLiberal]

53. Another excellent post MadFloridian

:thumbsup:

[Odin2005]

54. An educated public is bad for the elites.

[laughingliberal]

56. It's always been very interesting that Republicans were against education

It would suggest they feel the stupider they keep the populace, the easier it is for them to keep power. Now the Democrats seem to have embraced the same philosophy. It's pretty nauseating.

[djp2]

61. Amen

Our kids have been getting too smart for those in power, they can think for themselves, so lets ruin education.

[midnight]

57. K&R.

[xxqqqzme]

58. Received a Borders gift card for my

birthday - so this is what I will buy w/ it. Interesting note - here is Borders' description of the book:

"Award-winning author, public intellectual, and former Assistant Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch critiques a lifetime's worth of school reforms and reveals the simple--yet difficult--truth about how we can create actual change in public schools."

public intellectual? What the hell is a public intellectual? Someone unafraid of displaying their intellect in public? I have never heard someone described in this way. Have I led a sheltered life?

[madfloridian]

62. Now that is a strange description.

:)

Being intellectual in public...:)

[applegrove]

65. Dismantleling the liberal arts education will be an end goal. Businesss has wanted that for

a while.

[Lorien]

72. And yet liberal arts education contributes to the sciences

for that matter, music and art courses help develop the brains of budding research scientists and the language skills or writers and journalists far more than many required classes-and certainly more than sports do. But you'll never see a dip in funding for school sports.

[defendandprotect]

84. I despised former Rep. Gephardt for that . . .

I have his quote somewhere . . . back then -- and that's way back --

he was saying that "what we need is for corporations to come in and

tell us what it is they need the schools to give them" --

that was roughly what he was saying!!

And what we actually need for the nation is just the opposite -- we need

education for the enrichment of the individual -- not corporations!!

Nothing could be truer that "ART is SMART" --

The right wing are the destroyers --

but how many people think Gates is a hero????

[tnlefty]

67. Thanks madfloridian.

That this is defended here makes me ill.

[Initech]

68. Maybe instead of putting billionaires in charge of education, we could put, I dunno, educators?

Just planting seeds. If they bear fruit, that's pretty sweet.

[WinkyDink]

69. And Superintendents LOVE the analogy! They LOVE calling themselves "CEO's." They LOVE testing!

Suicidal morons.

THE IRONY: NO CHARTER OR OTHERWISE PRIVATE SCHOOL IS MANDATED TO TEST STUDENTS AND EVALUATE TEACHERS; ONLY THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS ARE.

[WinkyDink]

70. Public School $$: the Last Great Treasure to Loot. We're on course with a privatized military.

[t0dd]

73. K&R

[madfloridian]

74. Help Wanted: Billionaire supporter to support public schools

From the great blog The Perimeter Primate

Help Wanted: Billionaire supporter

The Perimeter Primate is seeking a billionaire who is willing to support the fight to save public education and the teaching profession. This individual will be enlisted to pay for organizational needs such as salaries and office space, Web site design and management, research, publications, publicity and marketing, on-air time, training institutes, and more. Job satisfaction will be found on earth and rewards will be received in heaven. To apply, contact Sharon at [e-mail].

Well done.

[madrchsod]

75. save the books......

they will be burned

freedom will be taught in the shadows and under the trees.

[1776Forever]

76. Seen it coming for years now! It is all about control!

When I went to public elementary school in the 50's we had religious education and then it was taken out in the 60's. I think these good ole' boys would love to see that control come back and they could tell these kids what to do and how to do it. I don't like it but that is the way they have driven our lives too. The Have's and Have Not's! It has come to this!

[WinkyDink]

90. Money and Brain-washing Propaganda: Republicans and the Rich = FASCISM.

[JackRiddler]

77. Add George Lucas and his "Edutopia."

It's fascinating how concerned these guys are.

[defendandprotect]

86. Not familiar with that --

is it pro-liberal education?

[JackRiddler]

102. It's actually good in concept...

http://www.edutopia.org/core-concepts

An integrated, interdisciplinary, project-oriented approach with an emphasis on mixing methods and gaining emotional involvement in learning. I have no idea how honest or effective their approach is.

The problem is that billionaires' foundations are making the decisions (sometimes probably at cross-purposes) that in a healthy democracy, one with a full awareness of the importance of education, would be at the center of public debate and advocacy.

The other problem is the illusion that the billionaires' foundations are going to be fully funding their own projects, instead of using their contributions to leverage much higher totals in public monies into their own strategies.

The fundamental problem is obvious and everywhere unaddressed: money is NOT being thrown at the problems in education. It needs to be.

Raise TEACHERS' salaries across the board and hire more TEACHERS to reduce class sizes. There should never be more than 15 students in any class. Spend on THAT instead of banks and wars. Provide healthy free meals twice a day, snacks, outdoor sports and games, music and arts, rich extracurriculars, and LANGUAGES, which are the most powerful and important tool of cultural understanding, diversity and tolerance and all those supposedly good things that are kept all too vague. (Buy the food local organic and that's also a farms program.) This is to take NOTHING away from Math, Science and English - of course those should also be funded properly. Once you've established the most fundamental condition of a good environment for a few years, THEN you see results and start looking for tweaks, improvements, experiments. Long as students are in school hungry, in overcrowded, overheated or cold classrooms without equipment and underpaid teachers, saying you have to boost their performance via "assessments" is a big lie. Put up the money or shut up.

This is what the federal government should be financing, instead of trying to police every district with the goal, not of getting conformity to standards, but of catching "failures" via standardized tests and shutting down schools, privatizing them to profit entities, pretending the problems are solved. Unfortunately the idea of this control has a lot of support among education liberals, who want to see uniform standards and all teachers have education degrees. They may support mediocrity, but the currently dominant support simply aims to scorch the earth and pretend to build again.

The billionaires' club is not addressing the most fundamental problems, because they relate to public policy and public funding, rather than billionaires' club initiatives and little progressive projects that may well benefit the minority of children lucky enough to be in them, while further impoverishing the system as a whole.

This is really a case of all or nothing. A doubling of the money for salaries, hirings, food, arts and music, sports and play, infrastructure and equipment, and the core subjects is the first and main step. ALL OF THESE ARE NECESSARY. Until then all else is bullshit.

What's the cost of the Afghanistan war vs. the entire state and federal education budgets? Anyone got a number?

[defendandprotect]

107. Wow!! Sounds like you think education should be pleasurable . . .

and not painful for kids--!!!

:) . . . and I agree wholeheartedly --


I think every classroom should essentially be a library with lage glass windows to sit

near and read -- and a green outdoors for gardening when the weather is good.

ALL ways to learn. Let the kids learn what they want when they want to -- offer instruction,

offer ideas, opportunities. Let the kids tell one another what they have found -- what

they like and don't like. Offer the kind of structure that lets kids thrive rather than wilt.

Small classes and offer to let parents watch classes -- perhaps other than their own child's

to begin with. Let them offer some time to the school to aid in classrooms where they would

learn what works and what doesn't. And forget homework -- !! Unless kids ask for it ...

They'd probably only ask for ideas about material to read or research --

I have no experience with kids and computers -- seems good -- let's them do their own thing --

but not sure if it works for youngest. Variations on a computer set up for youngest children

might work?

Lots of art, music, nature -- and physical activities -- not so much for competitition --

[tango-tee]

78. madfloridian, thank you.

I am convinced that there is method to the madness we are witnessing. This is no fluke, and it is not a problem of lack of money. It is where priorities are placed.

It is important to dumb down the general populace as much as possible. Certainly, let the children learn reading, 'riting and 'rithmetic. But that's it. Don't teach them the skills which will enable them to think critically and ask questions, don't encourage curiosity about the world around them, history, languages, other traditions and cultures. Basics will be all that is required - and most of all, desired - by those in power who will need nothing but chattel to do their bidding in the not-so-distant future.

The so-called "cream of the crop", those who from their privileged childhood on are destined to be the leaders: They get the best education money can buy.

At times I think I should put on my tinfoil hat, because it couldn't possibly be THAT bad. At other times I'm convinced we are heading precisely in this direction.

[Citizen Worker]

79. This has been in the works for a very long time

I have a copy of the blueprint for the takeover of public education. It was written in 1995 and lays out a detailed strategy. Public education is the cornerstone of democracy and we had better fight to keep it.

[bertman]

80. it always boils down to the profit motive and greed. So sad. Rec.

[defendandprotect]

87. As long as we have Capitalism, that's going to be what's going on . . .!!

[alp227]

81. Dear Madfloridian, why did Obama not nominate you for Secy of Education?

This whole school reform movement is a doublespeak plan to demolish social mobility. You've done the research to expose this. Arne Duncan was playing basketball and eating at fancy restaurants with the Billionaire Boys.

[Hannah Bell]

82. kick

[defendandprotect]

83. Understood -- but who is going to stop them?

Do New Yorkers even fully understand what is happening?

Or people around the nation?

Meanwhile, thanks again Madfloridian for keeping us aware of the destruction of public

education!!

[lostnfound]

89. Why the race?? -- Making winners and losers alike be resigned to their fate

How useful it was to the "great industrialists" to oversee the transformation of citizen-based-education to worker-as-a-product education, where children are subjected to sorting for the first 12 years of their self-conscious lives. "Alpha children wear grey They work much harder than we do, because they're so frightfully clever. I'm really awfuly glad I'm a Beta, because I don't work as hard."

Children are being taught that they are "in a race" all the time, that they must "compete globally". The emphasis is on grades in relation to their "peers", being children of the same cohort. A healthier society would care WHETHER children could read and were educated; our society cares WHEN they "achieve grade level" -- when they surpass the 50th percentile. For comparison, imagine if drivers who learned to drive at age 16 were deemed superior while those who learned to drive at age 18 were somehow less. Senseless, isn't it?
But in the case of schools, it serves a societal sorting function to cause people to say "I must accept my lot in life because other students were ahead of me in this race", and insidiously causes other people to say "I deserve my wealthy and powerful position in life because I was at the top of my class". The underlying assumption is that life is a race.
In small farming communities of Canada or the Midwest a hundred years ago, schools educated the children of the community to be productive citizens and self-reliant adults.
Now they are exhorted and warned of the need to be competitive in the jobs race.

The charter schools are a capstone whereby the pretense of egalitarian opportunity in the education "race" will be given its final coat of paint. When education is no longer a public good, it will become the means by which factory kids are grateful for morsels dropped by corporate benefactors as they are lured into a life of unthinking servitude for those same benefactors.

[Hannah Bell]

116. [phone]

[tinrobot]

92. Quietly creating a two-tiered class system.

Upper class (owners) - People with money and a good education from an expensive private school.

Lower class (workers) - People with just enough education to do the work, but not enough critical thinking skills to speak out and rise up against the owners.

[Moochy]

94. Immanentize the Idiocracy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanentize_the_eschaton

[zeemike]

95. K&R because this needs to be seen by all.

It will effect the kids the most.

[penndragon69]

96. An educated peasent

is a dangerous thing....
especially to the ruling class.

[defendandprotect]

113. Yes, certainly . . . !!! But let's also remember that there is something very wrong . . .

with people who spend most of their time trying to figure out how to gain control

over others . . .

Spend a little of your time tomorrow with that on your mind and see how quickly you

become bored by it!

It is the very fearful, the very paranoid, the very unsuitable for society who think in

that way --

"The loveless crave power because they lack both love and self--"

[swilton]

97. Heard the Interview

And what she has so well apparently chronicled in her book is what I have observed as a social science substitute teacher in the public schools and as a PhD graduate student in the social sciences. I think this explains why we have an uneducated electorate which was the subject of the Craig'slist rant also posted on this page....

She noted in the interview that content has been taken out of the political science and history curriculum - I have seen that for myself in that undergraduate foreign students studying at the university have been accepted into graduate classes. Foreign students are so much better prepared than American taught students. Furthermore, the content (i.e., American Government, concepts like separation of powers) I am asked to 'present' at the high school level is very, very, basic political science - should be explained in grade school - any foreign student would know at least this much about American Government.

I use the word lightly as 'present' - in most of the classes I have substitute taught in - they teach to questions...to supposedly raise scores on college entrance exams or other state scores. The concept of learning a subject because it is exciting or fascinating is totally lost - there is no love of learning....You learn facts to answer questions that might be given on placement tests...Context is lost...

The absence of content in the social sciences - the absence of passion in learning - may be why the students I have taught (advanced placement in some of the 1,500 top schools in Maryland) just don't seem to care. They are rude and unruly and the reason I don't substitute teach anymore - rather than throw pearls to swine. This explains why they don't care about the social sciences and, with the subsequent lack of interest in the social sciences it in some instances loses its funding, unless of course its funding is from the State Department, DoD, or the intelligence agencies. Even within academia at large - what is taught within the social sciences varies greatly between schools, universities and junior colleges.

Content has been taken out of the teaching of the social sciences was a point brought out in the interview with Ravitch - she attributes to the Lynn Cheney challenging liberal education in the 1990s - I think that the challenge to the 'controversial' content of education goes back even further to the early 1970s and the Powell Memorandum...I have provided some links here...

I also disagree with Ravitch that this will happen in the future - it is already happening as noted by our undereducated electorate....furthermore academia has been/is/will be co-opted by big business and the military industrial complex - links are provided herewith.

Peace to the powerful!

The entire Ravitch interview can be found on

DemocracyNow.org


References to the Powell Memorandum
http://www.reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate_accountability/powell_memo_lewis.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_F._Powell,_Jr.
http://www.truthout.org/100109A

References to the Minerva Project
http://minerva.dtic.mil/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minerva_research_initiative
http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/news/1/8969-procuring-academics-for-empire-the-pentagon-minerva-research-initiative.html

[madfloridian]

103. From the Truth Out link:

"Initially, Powell identified the American college campus "as the single most dynamic source" for producing and housing intellectuals "who are unsympathetic to the enterprise system."<2> He was particularly concerned about the lack of conservatives on social sciences faculties and urged his supporters to use an appeal to academic freedom as an opportunity to argue for "political balance" on university campuses. Powell recognized that one crucial strategy in changing the political composition of higher education was to convince university administrators and boards of trustees that the most fundamental problem facing universities was "the imbalance of many faculties."<3> Powell insisted that "the basic concepts of balance, fairness and truth are difficult to resist, if properly presented to boards of trustees, by writing and speaking, and by appeals to alumni associations and groups."<4> But Powell was not merely concerned about what he perceived as the need to enlist higher education as a bastion of conservative, free market ideology. The Powell Memo was designed to develop a broad-based strategy not only to counter dissent, but also to develop a material and ideological infrastructure with the capability to transform the American public consciousness through a conservative pedagogical commitment to reproduce the knowledge, values, ideology and social relations of the corporate state. For Powell, the war against liberalism and a substantive democracy was primarily a pedagogical and political struggle designed both to win the hearts and minds of the general public and to build a power base capable of eliminating those public spaces, spheres and institutions that nourish and sustain what Samuel Huntington would later call (in a 1975 study on the "governability of democracies" by the Trilateral Commission) an "excess of democracy."

And today we still have not fought back. There are few funding the "liberal" base. Very little media to work with to stop such a takeover.

And today we have folks like Horowitz trying to silence professors.

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/02/16/david-horowitz-champion-of-open-debate/

[madfloridian]

104. Minerva project

"Minerva has proven controversial.<1> Although many scholars support Minerva, a number of academic researchers have sounded public alarm about the prospect of Defense Department funding for research. The American Anthropological Association sent a public letter suggesting that the funding be transferred to a different body, such as the National Science Foundation (NSF). Hugh Gusterson, a prominent anthropologist at George Mason University, has written a series of articles in a variety of venues that have attracted significant attention.<2> He worries that:

"any attempt to centralize thinking about culture and terrorism under the Pentagon’s roof will inevitably produce an intellectually shrunken outcome....The Pentagon will have the false comfort of believing that it has harnessed the best and the brightest minds, when in fact it will have only received a very limited slice of what the ivory tower has to offer—academics who have no problem taking Pentagon funds. Social scientists call this “selection bias,” and it can lead to dangerous analytical errors."<2>

The Department of Defense funds Minerva directly and through the National Science Foundation.<3>."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minerva_research_initiative

The defense dept funding academia directly and through the National Science Institute.

Shocking.

The other day someone here posted that they did not trust anyone's words anymore.

I am just about there myself.

[RexS]

111. Got to keep the poor masses stupid and uniformed.

With a better education, they might be able to comprehend what the uber rich have and might want it too. Might be competition.

[onpatrol98]

122. No worry...

If America's poor, uneducated, masses, start expecting more and getting educated, we can always import some other country's poor, uneducated, masses. We've thought ahead.

[NuttyFluffers]

115. ... and sometimes there are real conspiracies. this looks like one of them.

people need to get off their ass, dig in their heels and say "HELL NO!" against more deregulation and privatization. how much more before enough is enough? the American't capacity to take shit from its corporate masters is legendary.

[madfloridian]

120. Yes, they do. Soon it will be too late.

Thanks for the comment.

[Echo In Light]

119. Error: you can only recommend threads which were started in the past 24 hours

[Last Stand]

121. The Best Democracy Money Can Buy

by Greg Palast

[Dinger]

123. Belated Kick (nt)

[democracy1st]

124. kick