Why the Carnival Barkers of Factory School Reform Continue to Have an Audience and a Megaphone
Oh! What a tangled web we weave
When first we practice to deceive!
A little dated, but still timely, is this verse to teach children that lies build on lies until they are so interwoven they can’t be pulled apart.
That’s timely because of the new report just published by Media Matters that helps explain the echo chamber of lies that continue to bounce off the crumbling walls of the famously failed factory model of education “reform.”
In a true and honest marketplace of ideas, the factory-model pillars of Privatize (vouchers, charters); Standardize (scripted lessons, test-score focus); De-Professionalize (Teach for Awhile, Easy-Pass Alternative Certification) would have been put to shame years ago. There is no country that is regarded as our global competition (Singapore, Finland, Canada) that is propped up by any of these pillars. There is no evidence after 14 years of national Test & Punish under No Child Left Untested that any of it worked to improve teaching and learning.
They used to tar and feather snake oil salesmen because snake oil wasn’t just useless – it made you sick.
But the Media Matters report explains why the carnival barkers of factory school reform continue to have an audience and a megaphone to invite the public to “step right up and see the amazing three-headed troll.” The report highlights which billionaires, which foundations and which corporate empires are providing the web of money and manpower to keep the lies tangled and tight.
There’s a simple pattern to the lies. First, they defund schools in our most challenged communities so that ceilings leak; technology is trashed; educators are demoralized; and programs in the arts and sports and clubs are slashed. Then they “bait and switch.” They lie to parents that vouchers, tuition tax credits, and other privatization schemes will save their children and provide them a “choice” to move to a better school. But the truth is, they want to hand public money over to private schools that have no accountability to taxpayers or to parents. Those “choice” schools choose the students they decide to serve.
The Media Matters report shows just how deeply entrenched these well-financed groups are in corporate education reform – and how tied together they are. As an NEAToday article points out, the connections are enough to make Why the Carnival Barkers of Factory School Reform Continue to Have an Audience and a Megaphone - Lily's Blackboard:
