Here is Part 1 and here is Part II for those of you who have been ditching or sleeping. Please sit up straight and keep your attention focused on the teacher. Thank you.
Today's lesson is going to take a closer look at the process of Disaster Capitalism as it relates to public schools.
I will begin with another quote from the book that describes Milton Friedman's (grand guru of the movement for unfettered capitalism) blueprint for privatizing our nation's public schools. It directly follows the Katrina Response quote from Part I.
New Orleans was now, according to The New York Times, "the nation's preeminent laboratory for the widespread use of charter schools," while the American Enterprise Institute, a Friedmanite think tank, enthused that "Katrina accomplished in a day ... what Louisiana school reformers couldn't do after years of trying." Public school teachers, meanwhile, watching money allocated for victims of the flood being diverted to erase a public schools system and replace it with a private one, were calling Friedman's plan "an educational land grab."
I call these orchestrated raids on the public sphere in the wake of catastrophic events, combined with the treatment of disasters as exciting market opportunities, "disaster capitalism."
--- Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine : The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
An orchestrated raid begins when a group of -"concerned citizens"- approximately 100 members provide the school district with oversight and broad-based experience from the business, civic and governmental communities. These members form a non-profit independent civic organization formed to help transform its public school district into the best in the country and to make increased student achievement and public school reform a top priority in the community.
The next step is to enlist the local media outlets to help Create Disaster (and while we're creatively financing "public schools", let's see if we can get creative with the teachers' pension fund ... there may be gold in them thar hills too!).
I realize that some of you may be thinking, "isn't reforming public schools a good thing?" "Shouldn't we be bringing our public schools into the 21st Century ... what with all of the technological and communicational advances we've had in the last ten years?" To that I say "Yes"! One hundred percent "Yes"! But, remember, I'm writing today on the process of so-called "reform". Teachers everywhere are craving to use their experience and creativity to help offer ideas to bring the revolution into the classroom. The problem is that they are being shut out of the process.
Step Three in the process is applying the Shock Therapy. Here is a great diary by TexMex that illustrates the frustration many teachers feel at having to watch the train wreck unfold on a daily basis. In the diary, I posted this comment. "Much healing is going to have to take place" is an understatement. Teachers and administrators have been undergoing Shock Therapy from business-minded School Boards for a few years now and the wear and tear is showing. Not only have they been fending off the perception created by the media that they are just a bunch of whiny lazy-asses who TAKE THREE MONTHS OF VACATION IN THE SUMMER! OMG!, but they have been pitted against each other and encouraged to fight. Think of it as a horrible Pit Bull Dog Battle with the Disaster Capitalists enjoying the show and profiting handsomely no matter which dog ends up dead. Come to think of it, there are actually three dogs in the ring ... the third dog would be the parents. Part of Shock Therapy Treatment involves the element of mass confusion. The Disaster Capitalists know that if they keep the parents confused in the process they, too, will inadvertently be enlisted.
I would like to post a quote from bookI read recently.
Dan Rather opined in The Camera Never Blinks Twice: The Further Adventures of a Television Journalist ,when talking about the students at the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, that the Revolution would start with the P.T.A. because one thing always unites and builds passion - good schools for their children.
"There was venom in their voices when they talked about 'party elite'. They jumped to their feet, and equated it with the Mafia, gansters riding on the running boards of '37 Fords with Tommy guns. I sensed they had seen some old Edward G Robinson movies.
One of the main complaints about corruption was that parents couldn't get their children into schools without a payoff. This was a complaint also heard inside the Soviet Union. The message : People care about schools not matter where they are. Parents will do anything to get their kids into a decent school.
When the revolution comes, it will start with the P.T.A."
---Dan Rather, The Camera Never Blinks Twice: The Further Adventures of a Television Journalist
Today, I ask you to unite to "bring a revolution" to our nation's public schools. It is time to begin the healing process. Here are a few things that you can do to get started:
- Stop buying The Fear Card. Our schools are full of talented individuals. Period. End of story.
- Instead of being jealous that "teachers get three months off in the summer" work to strengthen unions (that includes white-collar workers) and other labor laws so that all workers have more time to enjoy the finer things in life. See: France. Or, better yet, be a teacher.
- Contact the Colorado State Legislature and let them know that Rinse and Repeat is not a solution!!! This is akin to the "Mandate Health Insurance" fix - all it does is put more money into the pockets of Big Testing Industry. (See below)
As originally introduced, the bill created a complex series of assignments for both the state Board of Education and the Colorado Commission on Higher Education, including updating state content standards and expanding them to grades not now covered, choosing new testing systems to measure student competency in the standards, creating definitions of school readiness and postsecondary and workforce readiness and aligning what's taught in high school and what's required for college freshmen. The bill also requires local school boards to align their curricula and graduation standards with the new state requirements.
The amendment leaves much of that process in place but jumpstarts the process of selecting new tests.
- Send Sweatshop Bob/Charter School Chief Schaffer a message that Mark Udall is The Man for US Senator from Colorado!