Public Education: Who Are the Corporate Reformers?
March 28, 2014
Former Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, center, speaks during a news conference to announce the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's donation of $51.2 million dollars to the New York City school system at Morris High School in the Bronx, New York, Wednesday, September 17, 2003. He is flanked by Joel Klein, former chancellor of the city's Department of Education and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
The following is an excerpt from Diane Ravitch’s book Reign of Error.
The education reform movement must be defined in terms of its ideology, its strategies and its leading members.
The “reformers” say they want excellent education for all; they want great teachers; they want to “close the achievement gap”; they want innovation and effectiveness; they want the best of everything for everyone. They pursue these universally admired goals by privatizing education, lowering the qualifications for future teachers, replacing teachers with technology, increasing class sizes, endorsing for- profit organizations to manage schools, using carrots and sticks to motivate teachers and elevating standardized test scores as the ultimate measure of education quality.
“Reform” is really a misnomer, because the advocates for this cause seek not to reform public education but to transform it into an entrepreneurial sector of the economy. The groups and individuals that constitute today’s reform movement have appropriated the word “reform” because it has such positive connotations in American political discourse and American history. But the roots of this so- called reform movement may be traced to a radical ideology with a fundamental distrust of public education and hostility to the public sector in general.“Reform” is really a misnomer, because the advocates for this cause seek not to reform public education but to transform it into an entrepreneurial sector of the economy.
The “reform” movement is really a “corporate reform” movement, funded to a large degree by major foundations, Wall Street hedge fund managers, entrepreneurs and the US
Diane Ravitch is Research Professor of Education at New York University and a preeminent historian of education. She blogs at dianeravitch.net, a site with nearly 8.3 million page views in less than a year. Author of over ten books, her most recent is Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools. From 1991 to 1993, she was Assistant Secretary of
Public education is becoming big business as bankers, hedge-fund managers and private-equity investors are entering what they consider to be an “emerging market.” As Rupert Murdoch put it after purchasing an education technology company, “When it comes to K through 12 education, we see a $500 billion sector in the US alone.” Education historian Diane Ravitch says the privatization of public educat