7 Concerns About the MSNBC Public Education Forum
It was nice to watch the MSNBC Public School Forum online. Finally, Democratic candidates answered questions about education. But here are seven concerns.
For the record, I was trying to multi-task which I’m rarely good at, so I may have missed something. Corrections are welcome.
Billionaire Takeover
Candidates talked about making the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes to help schools, but no one mentioned Bill Gates, the Waltons, Eli Broad, Mark Zuckerberg or any of the corporate reformers who are taking control of public schools.
They didn’t mention Common Core or the failure of the initiatives funded by the Gates Foundation and taxpayers. Nor did they speak about portfolio schools, the latest corporate endeavor to push choice and charters.
No one mentioned using Social Impact Bonds or Pay for Success to profit off of public CONTINUE READING: 7 Concerns About the MSNBC Public Education Forum
In this incisive, meticulously researched book, Ravitch (education, New York Univ.; The Death and Life of the Great American School) argues persuasively that the U.S. school privatization movement has resulted in poor test scores, the closure of public schools, and attacks on the teaching profession. Ravitch blames the so-called school reformers, whom she renames the disruptors, such as Bill Gates, Alice Walton, Michelle Rhee, Mark Zuckerberg, and Eli Broad, who spend millions to replace public schools with charter schools and private institutions that are run like businesses. Though disruptors view themselves as opposing the status quo, Ravitch contends that they are doing everything they can to maintain it. She devotes most of her book to the resisters, or the teachers, parents, and union leaders who have taken on the disruptors and are working to keep their local public schools open. Through this lens, Ravitch discusses the Common Core teaching standards, standardized testing, the Obama administration’s Race to the Top grant program, and Teach for America.
