False Premises, False Promises: Corporate Education Reform and the Hostile Takeover of the Public Schools
By special guest blogger Michael Fiorillo
I. The Fallacy of the Knowledge Economy
One of the most oft repeated fallacies and falsehoods that underlie efforts to privatize the public schools in the US is the claim that we have entered a “knowledge economy” demanding high levels of education and skills, and that (teacher’s) failure to facilitate this will result in the US becoming less “competitive.” This rhetoric is used by proponents of the corporate restructuring of the schools, from Barack Obama and Arne Duncan on down, and is meant to signify the importance that college and preparation for it hold for future employment prospects. The not-very-hidden implication is that the Chinese