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Billionaire boys: They're in charge here..
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.
Mayor Bloomberg decided long ago, when he took over New York City’s public schools, that their biggest problem was too much democracy. So he persuaded the legislature to turn control over to him, and he eliminated any vestige of democracy. We both know how messy democracy is; people make mistakes. But with a vigilant press, there is always a chance to make changes, correct errors.
That’s not the situation in New York City.
Michael Bloomberg does not confront a vigilant press. The press barons applaud his every move, and there has been no vigilance, no scrutiny, and no outcry against his authoritarian mode of governance. Those who don’t like it, most especially parents, are voiceless, except for blogs.
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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 their local 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?
Comments
I really enjoyed the article. For some reason Obama's whole education policy has seemed to be a slow slide into privatization. I teach special education when I'm not writing as Philadelphia Progressive Examiner and I am no fan of Arne Duncan. The other big threat that I had on my blog several months ago that really threatens our jobs and the quality of our education are the online schools. It won't be long until financially strapped school systems will be manipulating H1B claiming a teacher shortage so they can slip in cheaper labor. I really love teaching my students English and Reading its all the rest of it that is really frustrating. Keep on telling them like it really is.
what year was this article written?
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