An excerpt from Jennifer Berkshire at Jacobin, who writes: The Privatization Prophets—For years, millionaires and religious zealots have teamed up to preach "school choice" in an effort to dismantle public education:
During a recent talk to tech investors and “edupreneurs,” Secretary of Education Betsy Devos, the least regarded of all of the rogues and billionaires who compose the Trump cabinet, returned to a favorite theme of hers.
Apple, Uber, and Airbnb have worked their disruptive magic on one industry after another. Why aren’t our public schools being similarly disrupted? “Who here can pull out their Blockbuster card?” she asked the crowd.
But if the nation’s schools are the equivalent of a kitchen-wall rotary phone or the cab that never comes, DeVos was eager to let the audience know that a quick fix is at hand: school choice. The way to disrupt our educational malaise once and for all is to shift the way we think about education to focus “on students, not buildings. If a child is learning, it shouldn’t matter where they learn.” Even the best schools won’t be the right “fit” for all kids, DeVos noted. “The simple fact is that if a school is not meeting a child’s unique needs, then that school is failing that child.”
Beneath the folksy tech talk, though, lurks a radical vision, one that is taking root in state after state. The ultimate aim of the project of which DeVos is now the most visible face is to remove education from the public system. Those “buildings” of which she speaks so disdainfully, the disparaging “status quo” never far behind, represent the entire architecture of public education, and more importantly, its democratic control.
Diminishing this is key to reaching the promised land of privatization. Stodgy school boards are standing in the way of getting there; so are superintendents and parent teacher associations and teachers unions — above all, the teachers unions.
Unfettering the markets is only part of the vision. Control over the process of socializing children, the near-monopoly domain of a system that is both secular and, as the libertarian right deridingly characterizes it, collectivist, is another prize. And if there is some money to be made along the way, well, there’s nothing wrong with that.
DeVos’s efforts to take public education private are uniting seekers of profits and prophets. Let’s take a look at some of the key battles over those efforts. [...]
What’s coming up on Sunday Kos …
- They fled from swastikas in Germany to HBCUs in the Jim Crow south, by Denise Oliver Velez
- Why many are willing to ignore Trump-Russia, by David Akadjian
- Donald Trump’s staggering litany of national security hypocrisy and failure, by Frank Vyan Walton
- School choice, segregation by another name, by Mark E Andersen
- Loyal to country or loyal to Trump, by Ian Reifowitz
- In praise of Donald Trump, by Jon Perr
- We must not allow snake oil marketing of Trumpcare to gain traction, by Egberto Willies
- A free press: The fourth estate, by Susan Grigsby
- Trump visit to Israel could mean land mines ahead, by Sher Watts Spooner
- ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED, by DarkSyde
TOP COMMENTS • HIGH IMPACT STORIES • SUNDAY TALK
QUOTATION
“The mistake you make, don't you see,is in thinking one can live in a corrupt society without being corrupt oneself. After all, what do you achieve by refusing to make money? You're trying to behave as though one could stand right outside our economic system. But one can't. One's got to change the system, or one changes nothing. One can't put things right in a hole-and-corner way, if you take my meaning.”
~George Orwell, Keep the Aspidistra Flying, 1936
TWEET OF THE DAY
BLAST FROM THE PAST
At Daily Kos on this date in 2003—Color coding scheme a joke:
For those of you who suspected that the Department of Homeland Defense's color-coding scheme was a farce, reader Karen P sends in confirmation:
- • 9.11.01: WTC And Pentagon Attacks (3,044 dead)
- • 3.12.02: DHS's Homeland Security Advisory System established, alert set to Elevated
- • 9.10.02: Alert changed to High
- • 9.24.02: Alert changed to Elevated
- • 4.11.02: Tunisian Synagogue Truck Bomb (20 dead)
- • 5.8.02: Karachi Suicide Bomber (15 dead)
- • 6.14.02: Karachi Car Bombing (11 dead)
- • 10.6.02: French Tanker Bombing (1 dead)
- • 10.12.02: Bali Bombing (185 dead)
- • 11.28.02: Mombasa Bombing (15+ dead)
- • 2.7.03: Alert changed to High
- • 2.27.03: Alert changed to Elevated
- • 3.17.03: Alert changed to High
- • 4.16.03: Alert changed to Elevated
- • 5.12.03: Riyadh Bombing (29+ dead)
- • 5.16.03: Casablanca Bombing (41 dead)
- • 5.20.03: Alert changed to High
In other words, the color-coding system is a crapshoot. Not even, because even a crapshoot gets it right occasionally.
Terrorists can strike when we're least prepared, that much is clear. So scrap this stupid "scare the people" gimmick once and for all. It's not doing anyone any good.
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