The Paucity of Dan Walters' Commentary on School Issues
The column by Dan Walters in the Sacramento Bee entitled “California’s School Wars Heat Up” in the print edition for Dec.20, and “Powerful Factions Go to War Over Direction of California Schools,” http://www.sacbee.com/2013/12/20/6015661/dan-walters-powerful-factions.html in the on line version seriously and deliberatively misinforms . He frames the conflict between the School Establishment ( school administrators, elected officials, CTA] vs. the “School Reformers”. These are indeed two of the powerful factions, but not at all the complete story.
To understand the distortion lets see who these “reformers “ See the Democracy and Education Institute https://sites.google.com/site/democracyandeducationorg
The cadre Walters’ calls reformers are not reformers. These are a corporate financed advocates and some well financed opportunists. In most cases they do not work in schools, rather they work in lobbyist offices financed by the Waltons, the Gates, and others. See here https://sites.google.com/site/democracyandeducationorg/Home/corporate-funded-reform
There is at least one additional group who Walters ignores- the social justice equity oriented based school reformers who have been working in schools for decades to improve school opportunities for low income and minority children.
There are numerous examples of this groups, here https://sites.google.com/site/chicanodigital/home/the-creation-and-demise-of-bilingual-education-at-csu-sacramento-2, and here https://sites.google.com/site/democracyandeducationorg/and CABE, Ca-Name, Raza Educators, and the movement within both CTA and CFT known as social justice unionism. On the national level these approaches are well represented in the Broader, Bolder Approach, Rethinking Schools, the Shanker Institute and others. Diane Ravitch has been writing well about some of these efforts.
Walters’ essay reflects the similar narrowness in the media as it portrays the U.S. political struggles as only between the Democrats and the Republicans . This media narrowness- created and funded significantly by corporate ownership of media functions to move the society in the direction of restricting democracy. See, Democracy Inc. Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism by Sheldon Waldon, (2008) and Digital Disconnect; How Capitalism is Turning the Internet Against Democracy, by Robert McChesney (2013) .
Digital Disconnect readers benefit from McChesney’s long critical scholarly record of studying corporate journalism as an imbedded form of corporate capitalism and its challenge to democracy. As he says, “capitalism imposed its logic” ( p.89).
Most media, as illustrated by Dan Walters in today’s column with reporting and opining on “inside baseball’ at the state capitol, are not objective observers. Walters is in fact an integrated and important part of the campaign to turn public schools (and other public institutions) over to even more corporate influence and corporate control. This narrow frame of media coverage corrupts our democratic system.
I have been fortunate to have served to prepare over 600 new teachers and educational leaders who are currently working in Sacramento area schools and educating children. Some are becoming administrators and college professors. These teachers and educational leaders are not considered in the narrow framing of opinions presented by Walters’, but they constitute a significant cohort of persons immediate knowledge of the school reality and who are working for substantive educational reform.
Duane Campbell is the Director of the Democracy and Education Institute. Sacramento.