Schools Matter: Dem Epiphany: Public Education Under Siege

Schools Matter: Dem Epiphany: Public Education Under Siege:

Dem Epiphany: Public Education Under Siege

In 2001, Democrats joined Republicans to create a massive school privatization corporate welfare plan known as No Child Left Behind.  With fanciful performance targets and unbending rules, which everyeducation policy person knew would detonate thousands of the poorest public schools over the coming years, NCLB ushered in the charter school era in a way that allowed the gradual ramping up of the paternalistic "no excuses" corporate reform school industry.

It wasn't until 2008, however, that privatization via charter school really took off.  When Obama was first inaugurated, U. S. schools had about 1.4 million students in charters.  By the time Obama left office in 2017, the charter population had more than doubled to 3.1 million students, and the federal commitment, alone, to charters was over $250,000,000 per year.


During the steady build-up of the charter industry before and during the Obama Era, the corporate teachers' unions continued to lend support for segregated charter expansion and discredited value-added evaluation schemes.  

The strategy of gradual privatization was cemented by the bipartisan reauthorization of Elementary and Schools Matter: Dem Epiphany: Public Education Under Siege: