School "reformers" are full of it

[gejohnston]

or, instead of attacking teachers, how about poverty instead?

In the great American debate over education, the education and technology corporations, bankrolled politicians and activist-profiteers who collectively comprise the so-called “reform” movement base their arguments on one central premise: that America should expect public schools to produce world-class academic achievement regardless of the negative forces bearing down on a school’s particular students. In recent days, though, the faults in that premise are being exposed by unavoidable reality.
Before getting to the big news, let’s review the dominant fairy tale: As embodied by New York City’s major education announcement this weekend, the “reform” fantasy pretends that a lack of teacher “accountability” is the major education problem and somehow wholly writes family economics out of the story (amazingly, this fantasy persists even in a place like the Big Apple where economic inequality is particularly crushing). That key — and deliberate — omission serves myriad political interests.
For education, technology and charter school companies and the Wall Streeters who back them, it lets them cite troubled public schools to argue that the current public education system is flawed, and to then argue that education can be improved if taxpayer money is funneled away from the public school system’s priorities (hiring teachers, training teachers, reducing class size, etc.) and into the private sector (replacing teachers with computers, replacing public schools with privately run charter schools, etc.). Likewise, for conservative politicians and activist-profiteers disproportionately bankrolled by these and other monied interests, the “reform” argument gives them a way to both talk about fixing education and to bash organized labor, all without having to mention an economic status quo that monied interests benefit from and thus do not want changed.

http://www.salon.com/2013/06/03/instead_of_a_war_on_teachers_how_about_one_on_poverty/

[love_katz]

1. attacking poverty...

now That would be a concept...a concept the plutocracy opposes, no doubt.

Wake up, folks. The rich have been trying to destroy (privatize) our school system for decades. It is way beyond time that we put a stop to that.

[nineteen50]

2. It's always been about

the poverty!

[BrotherIvan]

3. Why yes, yes they are

And why, since politicians have been screwing with education is there no improvement? I thought testing would bring all children up? What about the hundreds of millions on NCLB? How's that going?

[gejohnston]

4. NCLB,

not very well. I'm glad both of my kids are grown.

[BrotherIvan]

5. I'm glad I'm child-free and don't have to make those decisions

I BELIEVE in the importance of public schooling, but if I had kids, I would have a hard time sending them to one. It's so very sad and I wish parents would understand how crucially important this fight is. Your child's teachers are some of the most important adults with whom they will come into contact. WHY do we treat them so badly?

ETA: I would NEVER consider a charter school. That is just blasphemy to this child of a teacher.