Sometimes I have nothing to add to what I think is a must read article. Ravitch hits it out of the part with Arne Duncan’s Legacy.
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When Obama was elected, many educators and parents thought that Obama would bring a new vision of the federal role in education, one that freed schools from the test-and-punish mindset of George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind. But Arne Duncan and Barack Obama had a vision no different from George W. Bush and doubled down on the importance of testing, while encouraging privatization and undermining the teaching profession with a $50 million grant to Teach for America to place more novice teachers in high-needs schools. Duncan never said a bad word about charters, no matter how many scandals and frauds were revealed.
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That’s just a teaser for the long list of just how much damage has been done to public education during Duncan’s tenure. Read it and weep.
…The next president and the next Secretary of Education will have an enormous job to do to restore our nation’s public education system from the damage done by Race to the Top. We need leadership that believes in the joy of learning and in equality of educational opportunity. We have not had either for 15 years.
Nothing would have been better than the federal, costly something of the past decade and a half. Can’t we ever get rid of these destroyers?
Educators should be in the streets screaming in rage, as should any parent whose child is exposed to this lunacy and yet way too many continue to sit on their hands on election day or worse – vote for the testers and privatizers. I just don’t get it.
Actually, I do get it. Whatever “the haves” can afford and get is what “the have nots” desire. And they’ll settle for cheap imitations that they can’t afford if that’s the best they get. Far too many young (and not so young people) today see the multi-million dollar weddings of the super wealthy and that’s what they want. Out of curiosity, I checked out DIY wedding cost saving tips. One of the biggest cost savers is to skip the “wedding planner/consultant,” but that was followed with “you’ll be sorry if you do.” Otherwise, the DIY tips are the cheap shit; some that even someone as thrifty as me (and I’ve done a few weddings) wouldn’t think of scrimping on.
Poor people want to send their kids to private schools — because they’ve seen and been told that private school kids grow up to be more successful. They don’t get that most of the success comes from wealthy kids hanging with other wealthy kids and the wealthy take care of their own kind first. Then there’s the economic reality that Charter Schools put fewer dollars into the actual education than public schools do — but cost as much or more in public dollars to deliver.
People that attended private schools when they were kids are biased in favor of private schools. Bill Gates- Obama–Duncan. Add their pro-corporatist agenda, and presto, Charter Schools.