Progressive Educational Policies LA’s Democrats Should Embrace
s LAUSD searches for a new Superintendent, there has been a call not to “politicize” the process by people who mysteriously or calculatingly believe that the job itself isn’t political.
Well let’s disabuse everyone of that notion right now.
There is nothing in human experience more political than Education. Whatever education you and I received over the course of our lives was part and parcel with a larger political/cultural/racial philosophy that shaped who we all are. Whatever “schools” our children go to are also part of a larger system that most certainly is not neutral.
A person’s belief in WHAT education is and HOW it is “managed” tells us a great deal about that individual.
Former LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy’s pedagogy and methodology was extremely political and his backers like Eli Broad, The United Way, the Chamber of Commerce are all very well-versed in power politics. These players seek to put in place a profit-driven political agenda in Los Angeles in regards to education. Their notion of education where charters ”compete” with the true public school system, a demonized and neutered teacher’s union, a notion of “accountability” through testing and haphazard teacher evaluations and a rigid curriculum is the exact opposite of what Progressive Education looks like.
Democrats have used their (rather timid) liberalism on social issues to keep their core members appeased while their top earners have embraced Neo-liberal economic policies that keep them rich and comfortable.
Democrats have used their (rather timid) liberalism on social issues to keep their core members appeased while their top earners have embraced Neo-liberal economic policies that keep them rich and comfortable.
There is an obvious split in the Democratic Party over the issue of Education Reform that in past years would have been described as Republican versus Democrat. Determined as the current presidential candidates are to avoid it, this is a debate about what actually constitutes Democratic education policy has to happen and it is verytelling who supports what. At the top of the chain is President Obama who through his Secretary of Education Arne Duncan (and now John King) has embraced much of George Bush’s education ideas. Self-described Democrats like Michelle Rhee and John Deasy also follow this script.
It is helpful to understand how the political parties are realigning themselves. The Old Guard moneyed-Republican establishment are far more liberal than the less well-off Fox News supporters on social issues like gay rights, women’s contraception and most of the moral/cultural war agenda—but they have had to embrace those boogeyman issues as a way of appeasing their base. Money and corporate freedom are paramount to the guys who historically have run the Party.
Meanwhile, the Democrats have used their (rather timid) liberalism on social issues to keep their core members appeased while their top earners have embraced Neo-liberal economic policies that keep them rich and comfortable. Claiming the traditional mantle of Champions of Public Education, these DINOS (“Democrats in Name Only”) shun truly public education. The primary supporters of Ed Reform in the Democrats are 1%ers whose own children are not subjected to the Reforms they would place on urban working class children.
The New York Times ran an Op Ed by Thomas B. Edsall earlier this month with the headline: How Did the Democrats Become Favorites of the Rich?
The areas where mainstream Republican “values” intersects with the Neo-liberal Democrats are financial policies and Education policies. It is because the Education Reform Democrats (and Republicans) always use Civil Rights language as justification for their motives, that a true honest debate on classism and racism in Education Reform has been successfully evaded. That debate is Progressive Educational Policies:
