The War of Attrition Over Public Schools
By Anthony Cody.
Public schools are in the midst of a war of attrition over their control – and even the very institution of public education is in danger. There is a sort of pincer assault under way, with billionaires on the far right pushing for complete de-regulation, and others, like the Gates Foundation, pursuing top-down systemic control of every public school in the nation.
On the “anti-government” side, billionaires like the Koch brothers and Walton family want to turn schools into a publicly-funded free market free-for-all, where virtually anybody who wants to can set up a school and teach whatever they want. This philosophy is resulting in voucher money going to schools that use the Bible as a source in teaching about the origins of life on Earth. The American Legislative Exchange Council has developed legislation sometimes called “Opportunity Scholarships” which give parents tax credits that can be applied to private or parochial school tuition. This week, the state of Nevada became the latest to adopt this model, so soon tax dollars will flow to whatever school the parent chooses, stripping funds from public schools. Deregulation is extending to the teaching profession as well. In Wisconsin, newly proposed rules would allow anyone to teach, regardless of their level of education, so long as they have “relevant experience.”
On the “pro-government” side, the Gates and Broad Foundations have been working closely with the Obama administration and teacher unions to advance the Common Core and aligned tests as the new accountability system that will re-wire our schools and turn our classrooms into uniform “sockets” for technologically-based learning systems. With the lure of Race to the Top grants, and by threatening the loss of Title One funds, the federal Department of Education has coerced a majority of states into adopting the Common Core. For similar reasons, many states now mandate the inclusion of test scores in teacher evaluations, though these systems are irrational and unfair. The Vergara case in California diabolically pitted the interests of students against those of teachers, asserting that teacher seniority protections interfered with students’ ability to get a good education.
The result of these attacks has been the unprecedented demoralization of the teaching profession. The number of applicants for teacher credentialing programs has plummeted in the state of California from around 77,000 around 2001 to fewer than 20,000 in 2012. According to the MetLife survey, teacher The War of Attrition Over Public Schools - Living in Dialogue:
