Privatizing the Public (On Steroids)
In one of the scariest articles on education ever written, “States Weigh Turning Education Funds Over to Parents,” you will find that many states are creating policy that will allow parents to create “Educational Savings Accounts,” paid for by funds that were previously used to cover public education, that will give them“the freedom to design a custom education for their children — at taxpayer expense.”
It’s the ultimate in privatizing the public.
I shouldn’t be surprised. My own governor of the state of Michigan once developed a secret plan for the same idea. And that was 2 years ago. Of course, when exposed it disappeared, only to surface again in a different form. I guess I just hoped that such stupidity would be so abundantly obvious that no one else would ever attempt the same.
I was wrong.
So, to say the least, this idea is a threat to our most basic form of democracy, your local school district.
But then again, local democracy has also been disappearing for years.
And what has been the narrative that has allowed for such ideas?
The notion that our public schools are failing.
The article succinctly essentializes this point of view in quoting Tennessee’s state representative John DeBerry Jr.:
“Tennessee state Rep. John DeBerry Jr., a Democrat, couldn’t agree more: ‘We created public education. It didn’t fall from the sky. It wasn’t divinely given to us. We created it, so we can reform it,’ he said. ‘If the status quo isn’t working, it needs to be changed.'”
Unfortunately for John DeBerry, the status quo he’s referring to, the common good of public schools and the traditional idea of local democracy, has been Privatizing the Public (On Steroids) | educarenow: