How did Anti-Public School Corporate Reformers become the Dominant Force in Education Reform?
The following is a point by point summary by Dr. Deborah Owens, whose book, The Origins of the Common Core: How the Free Market Became Public Education Policy is the main focus of a War Report on Public Education mini- series that begins today, Sunday, March 29, 2015.
We here at War Report encourage our audience to listen to the series, read this synopsis, and respond in the comments section. We will have a new blog post from Deborah each week, a live internet radio show, and a podcast. We will address questions from our audience and we urge listeners and readers to please call in, respond to the blog post, and then listen and read ahead in preparation for next weeks show on the Common Core and the Corporate Ed Reform Agenda.
by Dr. Deborah Owens
How did anti-public school corporate reformers become the dominant force in education reform? Here’s what I learned in researching and writing my book:
- The campaign to end public education has been a decades long venture. There have been forces that for at least the last 80 years have been engaged in an assault on the institution of public schools, claiming that they are socialist institutions and actively seeking to label public schools as “government” schools. Vouchers are not a new idea — they were born in an era of Cold War mentality, anti- New Deal rhetoric, and Jim Crow resistance to integration. Charter schools are nothing more than an extension of this idea and we are seeing the ramifications of this misguided so-called reform effort now.
- The book, The Origins of the Common Core: How the Free Market Became Public Education Policy, and the series, is one of unity around the preservation of the institution of public schools. The goal is for the public and the education community to cast aside any political or ideological beliefs that distract from an ultimate goal.That goal is the preservation of the public school system and local control of this systemwithin each community.
- How can we accomplish this goal? First of all, acknowledge that there are differing ideological views about education in the U.S. Very importantly, we must acknowledge that many are militantly against the CCSS for various reasons; most are against high-stakes testing and the data mining that has resulted from the testing movement; and others are equally opposed to charter schools. But what unites us?
- Underlying all of this is the reality that corporations are dominating education policy decisions in a new environment of corporate and governmental mutualism that is out to usurp locally controlled public schools and that envisions children merely as a source of profit. We must unite to stop this corporate assault. Do you want to defeat the Common Core? Stop the profit machine associated with these national standards. Do you want to put an end to Draconian high stakes tests that are sucking the life out of education? Stop the profit machine associated with high-stakes tests. Do you want to reclaim public schools and end the incursion of the charter school movement? Stop the profit machine associated with charter schools.
- If we are able to accomplish this, we will reclaim the sacred ground of public education for all children, for all families, and for all communities. Holding teachers accountable for the test scores of their children will become history. We will realize that true societal transformation begins with the communities in which children and families live and that the schools within those communities are a part of a larger societal system. Make it known to every federal, state, and locally elected official that they will lose their elected offices if they do not listen to the UNITED pro-public school forces.
Author Bio:
Deborah Duncan Owens Elmira, New York
I am a product of public schools. My father’s career in the Coast Guard provided me with the opportunity to live in different states and communities within the U.S. Armed with the education I received in the various public schools I attended, I was able to earn a teaching degree at Mississippi State University and serve as a public school teacher for several years before earning a Ph.D. and joining the ranks of teacher educators — first at Arkansas State University and currently at Elmira College in upstate New York. Deborah Duncan Owens, Associate Professor of Literacy Education Elmira College
To learn more and read a complete Bio about Dr. Owens, please visit her website Public Schools Central for up-to-date information on the Common Core and the Corporate Ed Reform Agenda. Here is the link for the BBS Live Radio Show and Former and Future Podcasts: The War Report on Public Education Here is the link to The War Report Facebook Page: The War Report on Public Education Facebook Group Twitter: @WarRepPubEd
Here is the podcast link from today’s show: How did Anti-public School Corporate Reformers become the Dominant Force in Education Reform? Hosted by Dr. James Avington Miller, Jr and Special Guest Dr. Deborah Owens. This is the first in a three or four part series based on Dr. Owen’s book. If you missed today’s show please listen to the podcast, read the summary from the blog, and then leave feedback in the blog comments section.
Also, hot off the press! United Opt Out has an activist handbook that is now available for purchase: An Activist Handbook for the Education Revolution
Thank you UOO and Test Resisters everywhere. You are true heroes battling against the War On Public Education.
In Solidarity,
Team War ReportHow did Anti-Public School Corporate Reformers become the Dominant Force in Education Reform? | The War Report on Public Education:
The Gorilla in the Room: Part 2 in the Series: How did Anti-Public School Corporate Reformers become the Dominant Force in Education Reform?
Welcome to Part 2 of The War Report’s Back to the Future Series on the Common Core. In this episode, Dr. Deborah Owens will answer questions from our previous blog and address what she calls “the gorilla in the room.” The following is Dr. Owen’s synopsis of the upcoming show:
By Deborah Owens
The Common Core represents the “gorilla in the room.” This gorilla has further facilitated a raft of pro-corporate education reform initiatives that support charter schools, Teach for America, Draconian high stakes testing, VAM models for teacher accountability, and data mining of students’ personal and academic information — each of which lines the pockets of Wall Street entrepreneurs at the expense of our locally controlled public schools and, most importantly, our nation’s most precious resource, our children.
The following excerpts from The Origins… illustrate the third way of governance as it was developing in the 1990s.
In a first-rate example of how the corporations began their full-out assault on public education, here’s a quote from former IBM corporate superstar Lou Gerstner — the corporate superstar who sponsored the Palisades conference of corporate and gubernatorial CEOs that birthed ACHIEVE — in his opening remarks at the 1995 National Governors Association (NGA) meeting where Gerstner was an honored guest. He said, “I’m here because of Willie Sutton. Willie Sutton robbed banks, the story goes, because he realized that’s where the money is. I’m here because this is where the power is – the power to reform – no, to revolutionize – the US public school system.” (The Origins of the Common Core, p. 118).
In February 1996, one month before the IBM sponsored Palisades conference, Lehman Brothers sponsored the Education Industry Investment Conference. According to Douglas Dewey, “Conferees were regaled with new opportunities in a $600 billion industry, including preschool, K-12, post-secondary, and training and development.” For Dewey, writing for “The Freeman,” corporate entrepreneurship in the education field held the promise of finally eliminating government from education completely, “as public confidence in government schooling continues its inexorable collapse, and the whiff of billions begins stirring in the air, the savvy investor will focus his attention on the greatest emerging market in decades and treat government schools as just another competitor to blow out of the water.” (from The Origins of the Common Core, p. 129)
In summary, this series will suggest ways for all Americans who support their locally controlled schools to unite in efforts to reclaim the sacred ground of our democratic and locally controlled public schools. The conclusion of the first two programs will set the tone for the third part of the series in which diverse forces, which are heroically challenging corporate education reformers and their governmental allies, engage in collaborative discussion that will unite and energize America in its efforts to marshal a unified front to reclaim America’s democratic locally controlled public schools.
To learn more and read a complete Bio about Dr. Owens, please visit her website Public Schools Central for up-to-date information on the Common Core and the Corporate Ed Reform Agenda. Here is the link for the BBS Live Radio Show and Former and Future Podcasts: The War Report on Public Education Here is the link to The War Report Facebook Page: The War Report on Public Education Facebook GroupTwitter: @WarRepPubEd
Here is the podcast link from last week’s show: How did Anti-public School Corporate Reformers become the Dominant Force in Education Reform? Hosted by Dr. James Avington Miller, Jr and Special Guest Dr. Deborah Owens. This is the first in a three or four part series based on Dr. Owen’s book. If you missed last week’s show please listen to the podcast, read the summary from the blog, and then leave feedback in the blog comments section. Thank you!
Please join Deb Owens and James Avington Miller Jr. this Sunday, April 5, 2015 to discuss the Willie Sutton-like takeover of public education in America.
War Report Team
Reporting from the Front Lines
Boots on the Ground
PROGRAM ARCHIVES
Part 2 will be posted soon
| The War Report on Public Education on March 29, 2015 | Guest, Dr. Deborah Duncan Owens |
| The War Report on Public Education on March 22, 2015 | Guests, Leonie Haimson, Ken Previti and Bob Braun |
| The War Report on Public Education on March 15, 2015 | Guest, Bob Braun |
| The War Report on Public Education on March 8, 2015 | host Lucianna Sanson, and guests Michael Elliott, Sarah Blaine and others |
| The War Report on Public Education on March 1, 2015 | Guest, Jia Lee |
E-mail: jamfilm@yahoo.com
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Occupation:
Public Advocate, Activist, Professor, Teacher, Independent Scholar, Radio Talk Show Host
Biography:
James A. Miller, Jr., PhD is a public education advocate, activist, professor, teacher and independent scholar. For most of his life, he has been involved in and with public education, either as a student, university professor, researcher, substitute teacher and full-time classroom teacher K-12.
Dr. Miller has held Professorships in Sociology/African-American Studies at Wayne State University, the University of Detroit, California State University at Northridge and Los Angeles, and the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA), and has been a Senior Research Associate at the National Institute of Education (NIE) in Washington, DC – focusing on creating a five year national research program on the social and cultural foundation of education.
Currently, Dr. James Miller is a radio talk show host on BBS Radio with his new show “The War on Public Education” starting Sunday, February 23, 2014 at 2:00pm PST on Station 1. The format of the show focuses on the corporate war on public education and the rising public resistance movement to the war.
James email address: jamfilm@yahoo.com, and he cordially invites people to write him and express their thoughts.
James email address: jamfilm@yahoo.com, and he cordially invites people to write him and express their thoughts.
