Another Whopping Failure For The School "Reform" Movement
at 3:35pm
I like Maggie Gyllenhaal. I really do. I thought Secretary was a star-making, hilarious performance. (Yeah, yeah, shurr'up, ya bastids. She and Spader were hilarious.) I thought she was brilliant in the The Great New Wonderful, and criminally unrewarded for her brilliant work in Sherrybaby. But she nearly lost me when she signed onto the public-school-teacher-bashing propaganda film, Won't Back Down. Central to the film was a "parent-trigger" law through which plucky Maggie and plucky Viola Davis defeat the lazy featherbedding teachers unions for the good of The Kids. The parent-trigger law was one of the newer gimmicks of the school "reform" movement.
Yet these petition drives differ from most elections. There is no public balloting place and no mechanism to ensure that all of those eligible to "vote" - i.e., the parents of the school's students - are notified. No public forums or debates are held to guarantee that parents hear both sides of the issue. This process does a disservice to parents, some of whom miss out on opportunities to become more informed about their options - or in some cases even to know that a petition drive is underway - before nearly irreversible decisions have been made. Yet neither the Legislature nor the state Board of Education has moved to fix these problems.
Of course, the process is less transparent. The entire purpose of the school "reform" movement is to make the public schools less public. For all the preaching about empowering parents and the community, the school "reform" movement's ultimate goal is to privatize public education in this country, either directly, through the familiar techniques of "starving the beast," or in a softer way, in which Michelle Rhee and her corporate dancing partners convince you that they know
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