Charles Siler: A Former Privatizer Changes Sides | Diane Ravitch's blog

Charles Siler: A Former Privatizer Changes Sides | Diane Ravitch's blog

Charles Siler: A Former Privatizer Changes Sides

Charles Siler had excellent credentials to work in the privatization movement. In this article, he explains why he switched sides. To learn more about Charles Siler, watch this video in which I interviewed him.

Confessions of a Former Privatizer Why I Don’t Want to Eradicate Public Schools Anymore

I spent years working to privatize public schools. I realized that I was wrong, and am now proud to call myself a public education advocate.

By Charles Siler

Nearly all my life I believed public schools were obstacles to success, achievement, and social mobility for individuals and our society as a whole. And it wasn’t just schools. This was my belief about nearly all government activity. I saw government agencies as little more than hives of self-serving bureaucrats looking for ways to CONTINUE READING:  Charles Siler: A Former Privatizer Changes Sides | Diane Ravitch's blog

Former lobbyist details how privatizers are trying to end public education - The Washington Post

Former lobbyist details how privatizers are trying to end public education - The Washington Post

Former lobbyist details how privatizers are trying to end public education

A few years ago I ran a piece by Joanne Barkan about the long history of the movement to privatize public education. It began:

When champions of market-based reform in the United States look at public education, they see two separate activities — government funding education and government running schools. The first is okay with them; the second is not. Reformers want to replace their bête noire — what they call the “monopoly of government-run schools” — with freedom of choice in a competitive market dominated by privately run schools that get government subsidies.

Today, that privatization movement is alive and pushing ahead, with Republican legislators in 16 states actively pushing bills to create or expand school vouchers and/or charter schools that are part of that movement.

What and who are fueling the movement to privatize public education — and why you should care

This post — a continuation of sorts of the Barkan article — is a discussion with a man named Charles Siler, who was once a lobbyist for school privatizers but who came to oppose the very thing he was working toward. Siler worked for two privatization organizations, including the Goldwater Institute in Arizona, where his job was to convince legislators to pass laws that privatize public services, especially K-12 schooling.

In March, Siler had a conversation with education historian and activist Diane Ravitch as well as with podcaster Jennifer Berkshire, in which he provided insight into the playbook used by “school choice” proponents, the belief system that drives them and their long-term objective. He makes it very clear: their ultimate goal is to dismantle K-12 public schools. CONTINUE READING: Former lobbyist details how privatizers are trying to end public education - The Washington Post

The Dark Secrets of the Privatization Movement: An Interview with Charles Siler | Diane Ravitch's blog

The Dark Secrets of the Privatization Movement: An Interview with Charles Siler | Diane Ravitch's blog

The Dark Secrets of the Privatization Movement: An Interview with Charles Siler

Jennifer Berkshire and I interviewed Charles Siler about his inside knowledge of the privatization movement.

Jennifer is co-author of the important new book (with Jack Schneider) called A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door.

As you will learn in the interview, Charles was brought up in a conservative environment. He studied at George Mason University in the Koch-funded economics department (you can read about it in Nancy MacLean’s excellent book Democracy in Chains, which I reviewed in The New York Review of Books). He worked for the Goldwater Institute and lobbied for ALEC and other billionaire-funded privatization groups.

At some point, he realized he was on the wrong side, promoting ideas that would do harm, not good. He wanted to do good.

He said unequivocally that the goal of the privatizers is to destroy public education. They promote charter schools and vouchers to destroy public education.

He explains that school privatization is only one part of a much broader assault on the public sector. The end game is to privatize everything: police, firefighters, roads, parks, whatever is now public, and turn it into a for-profit CONTINUE READING: The Dark Secrets of the Privatization Movement: An Interview with Charles Siler | Diane Ravitch's blog

Diane Ravitch in Conversation with Jennifer Berkshire and Charles Siler - Network For Public Education

Diane Ravitch in Conversation with Jennifer Berkshire and Charles Siler - Network For Public Education

Diane Ravitch in Conversation with Jennifer Berkshire and Charles Siler

The Network for Public Education invites you to join us for a video conference with NPE President Diane Ravitch. Diane's guests will be Jennifer Berkshire and Charles Siler. Berkshire is the the co-author of the recent book, A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door and Siler is an anti-racist, equity, and pro-public education consultant. Join Diane, Jennifer and Charles in conversation about how public education advocates can win the messaging wars vs. those who seek to privatize public education.

Diane Ravitch in Conversation with Jennifer Berkshire and Charles Siler - Network For Public Education