DEATH BY A THOUSAND LIES
HOW BILLIONAIRES TURNED PUBLIC SCHOOLS INTO THE WORLD'S LARGEST PIÑATA
Act I: The Satisfaction Gap, or "I Love My School, But Yours Is Probably Terrible"
Here's a delicious irony that would make Kafka giggle: In 2026, roughly 74% of American parents are satisfied with their own child's school, while simultaneously believing that the entire U.S. education system is careening toward apocalypse like a school bus with no brakes and a substitute driver.
This is what researchers politely call the "Distance Paradox," though "mass cognitive dissonance" might be more accurate.
Think about it: Only 13% of Americans give the nation's public schools an A or B grade, yet 43% give their local schools those same marks. It's the educational equivalent of "Congress has a 20% approval rating, but my representative is doing great!"
Why the split? Simple: You know your kid's third-grade teacher, Mrs. Rodriguez, who sends home encouraging notes and organizes the fall festival. You don't know the abstract "failing public school system" except through a media diet of school shootings, book bans, and viral TikToks of students fighting in hallways.
Mrs. Rodriguez is real. The "crisis" is a story you consume between doomscrolling sessions.
And that's the crack in the foundation that billionaires have been sledgehammering for 25 years.
Act II: Citizens United, or "How I Learned to Buy Democracy and Influence People"
Let's rewind to 2010, when the Supreme Court decided that money is speech and corporations are people. The Citizens United decision didn't just open the floodgates—it ripped the dam apart with dynamite and a wink.
Suddenly, billionaires could spend unlimited amounts on political campaigns, think tanks, astroturf organizations, and media blitzes. And boy, did they have opinions about public education.
The Billionaire Brain Trust (a phrase that should come with air quotes the size of a charter school gymnasium):
Bill Gates: Spent millions pushing small schools, then Common Core, then teacher evaluations tied to test scores. When each initiative failed or caused chaos, he pivoted to the next "innovation" with the self-awareness of a goldfish.
The Walton Family (Walmart heirs): Poured billions into charter schools and voucher programs, because apparently dominating retail wasn't enough—they wanted to corner the market on childhood, too.
Betsy DeVos: The woman who became Education Secretary despite never attending, working in, or sending her children to public schools. Her family spent $200 million over two decades promoting vouchers and school choice, treating public education like a hostile corporate takeover.
The Koch Brothers: Funded libertarian think tanks that churned out white papers explaining why public schools are socialist indoctrination camps and the free market should decide if your kid learns to read.
These folks looked at $1.8 trillion in annual education spending and saw not a public good, but the world's largest untapped market.
Act III: The Marketing Campaign, or "How to Convince Parents Their Schools Are Failing (Even When They're Not)"
Here's where it gets diabolical.
Most parents like their local schools. That's a problem if you're trying to privatize the system. So the billionaire-funded think tanks and advocacy groups launched a decades-long marketing campaign that would make Don Draper weep with envy.
The Strategy:
Flood the zone with "crisis" narratives: Fund studies showing learning loss, achievement gaps, and international test score rankings (conveniently ignoring that U.S. schools serve far more diverse populations than homogeneous Finland).
Manufacture grassroots movements: Create organizations with friendly names like "Parents for Educational Freedom" that are actually funded by billionaire foundations. (This is called "astroturfing"—fake grassroots.)
Villainize teachers unions: Frame unions as greedy obstacles to reform, ignoring that they're often the only organized force protecting teachers' working conditions and students' learning conditions.
Promote "choice" as a civil right: Rebrand privatization as "parental empowerment" and "educational freedom." Who could oppose freedom?
Exploit culture wars: In 2025-2026, roughly 60% of education news coverage focused on political conflicts—book bans, DEI debates, parental rights laws. Keep parents angry and afraid, and they'll be more willing to abandon the public system.
The result? By 2026, nearly 60% of parents support using public funds for private school vouchers, and 75% have considered finding a new school for their child in the past year.
The satisfaction gap has been weaponized.
Act IV: The Voucher Trojan Horse, or "School Choice for Thee, Profit for Me"
Let's talk about school vouchers, the policy equivalent of a multilevel marketing scheme.
The Pitch: Give parents public money to send their kids to private schools! Competition will improve all schools! Innovation! Freedom! Eagles soaring over amber waves of grain!
The Reality:
Vouchers primarily benefit middle-class and wealthy families who can afford the additional costs (transportation, uniforms, fees) that vouchers don't cover.
Private schools can reject anyone: Students with disabilities, behavioral issues, or low test scores need not apply. Public schools must educate everyone.
No accountability: Private schools receiving voucher money often don't have to administer state tests, publish results, or meet the same transparency standards as public schools.
Draining public school budgets: When students leave with voucher money, public schools lose per-pupil funding but still have fixed costs (buildings, buses, utilities). The remaining students—often the most disadvantaged—get fewer resources.
In 2025, the federal government passed a national school voucher program (tucked into the "One Big Beautiful Bill"). Fox News celebrated it as "educational freedom." CNN called it a "risky bet" that threatens public school budgets.
Local news, meanwhile, reported the ground truth: "State Claims Record Funding, But [Local District] Faces $20M Deficit."
Act V: The COVID Cliff, or "Thanks for the Pandemic Relief, Now Watch Us Cut Everything"
Here's a fun fact that should make your blood boil: During the pandemic, the federal government pumped unprecedented funding into schools through ESSER grants (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief).
Districts used this money to hire mental health counselors, tutors, and technology coordinators. They bought laptops and Wi-Fi hotspots. They reduced class sizes.
Then, in late 2025, the money ran out.
The COVID Cliff.
Suddenly, districts that had been lauded for "innovation" were announcing layoffs and program cuts. The counselors? Gone. The tutors? Gone. The smaller class sizes? Back to 35 kids per teacher.
And where was the federal government? Proposing a 15% cut to Department of Education funding and reducing staff by 42%.
Local news covered this extensively. National news? Mostly moved on. Fox News framed the cuts as "draining the education swamp." CNN warned of "millions of students at risk."
Both were right. Neither could agree on what to do about it.
Act VI: The Oligarchy's Endgame, or "Why Democracy Is Bad for Business"
Let's be clear about what's happening: This is not about improving education. It's about dismantling democratic control over a public good and replacing it with a privatized, profit-driven market.
Public schools are one of the last truly democratic institutions in America. School boards are elected. Budgets are public. Meetings are open. Citizens have a say.
Billionaires hate this.
They're used to corporate boards where they call the shots. They're used to "disrupting" industries without pesky voters getting in the way.
So they've spent 25 years and billions of dollars trying to replace democratic governance with market-based "choice."
The Endgame:
- Replace public schools with charter schools (publicly funded, privately managed, minimal oversight).
- Expand vouchers to siphon public money to private and religious schools.
- Promote homeschooling and "micro-schools" (small, parent-run cooperatives) as alternatives.
- Introduce AI and ed-tech to reduce the need for expensive human teachers.
- Eliminate the Department of Education and federal oversight, leaving states to fend for themselves.
The goal isn't to improve education. It's to commodify childhood and turn learning into a consumer product.
Act VII: The Resistance, or "Teachers, Parents, and the Stubborn Belief That Public Goods Matter"
But here's the thing: It's not working as smoothly as the billionaires hoped.
Despite decades of propaganda, most parents still send their kids to traditional public schools (about 75% of students). Teachers unions, though battered, remain a powerful political force. Grassroots organizations are fighting back against voucher expansion and privatization.
The Resistance Includes:
- Teachers unions advocating for better pay, smaller class sizes, and adequate funding.
- Parent groups organizing against book bans, voucher schemes, and the defunding of public schools.
- Local journalists (in the shrinking number of communities that still have local news) holding school boards accountable and exposing budget shenanigans.
- Students themselves, who are increasingly vocal about the conditions in their schools and the policies that affect their futures.
The battle isn't over. But it's exhausting.
Conclusion: The Sad, Absurd, Infuriating Truth
Public education is the foundation of democracy. It's where we teach the next generation to think critically, engage civically, and understand their rights and responsibilities.
It's messy. It's underfunded. It's imperfect.
But it's ours.
And for 25 years, a small group of billionaires—enabled by Citizens United and cheered on by politicians who benefit from their donations—have been trying to convince us that the solution to underfunded public schools is to defund them further and hand the money to private operators.
It's like diagnosing a patient with dehydration and prescribing bloodletting.
The irony? Most Americans like their local schools. They trust their kids' teachers. They show up to football games and band concerts and parent-teacher conferences.
But they've been told, over and over, that the system is broken. That "choice" is the answer. That billionaires know better than educators.
So here we are in 2026:
- Public schools facing budget cliffs and staff shortages.
- Billionaires celebrating "educational freedom" while pocketing profits from charter networks and ed-tech companies.
- Parents caught in the middle, trying to do right by their kids while the ground shifts beneath them.
- Democracy itself on the line, because if we lose public education, we lose one of the last institutions where every citizen has a voice.
The question is: Will we fight for it?
Or will we let the billionaires win, one tax credit and one voucher at a time, until public education is just a memory—a quaint relic of a time when we believed that some things were too important to be left to the market?
The choice, as they say, is ours.
Just don't expect the billionaires to give us an honest menu.
Epilogue: A Love Letter to Public Education
Dear Public Schools,
You're not perfect. You're underfunded, overburdened, and constantly under attack. Your buildings are crumbling. Your teachers are exhausted. Your students are struggling with poverty, trauma, and a world that seems determined to fail them.
But you show up. Every. Single. Day.
You educate everyone—rich, poor, disabled, immigrant, native-born. You don't get to pick and choose. You don't get to expel the "difficult" kids or reject the ones who don't fit your brand.
You are democracy in action. Messy, frustrating, essential democracy.
And we will fight for you.
Because if we lose you, we lose ourselves.
With stubborn, exhausted, furious love,
The Citizens Who Still Believe Public Goods Matter
Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go donate to my local school's fundraiser for pencils and paper. Because apparently, in the richest country in the world, that's still a thing we have to do.
