Follow the Money
Posted on February 2, 2014 by debmeier
I’m returning to my roots! Marx occasionally had it right. Along with Horace Mann, John Dewey et al.
This whole “new reform” movement in education is being fueled (the $$$$) by ordinary greed. Or second-hand greed—seeing a chance to destroy the political power of an already waning labor movement by undermining the two teacher unions. This is being done by fooling folks who mistakenly saw their own longtime critique of the public bureaucracy in the “radical” sounding idea charter schools being spread by the corporate think tanks that went into building the “Charter Movement.” Afraid of being part of the “status quo” some genuine school-based reformers provided cover for a shift in power quite the opposite of what they had in mind. Most of those genuine school and educational people, including of course Ravitch, have been abandoning that ship and returning to their roots.
Having failed time after time with vouchers—direct public funding of private schools, the new reformers saw a way around it. Their instincts also suggested that history favors reforms that make repeal difficult, almost impossible. So the motto is: move fast and thoroughly.
Reading back about the fall of the Soviet Union, the big question was what would happen to all the state-owned enterprises. It seemed a tough puzzle. But before one could seriously think it through they were all sold off—to friends and allies with money. Deed done. While I write this the same thing is happening to our public schools. This was not the plan in Minnesota which began the charter movement with the best of