Kozol on School Privatization

[Hannah Bell]

The next and more ambitious stage in the introduction of the private market and its values into public schools did not become possible until the voucher advocates made the well-timed marketing decision to renounce the terminology of “vouchers” and to forgo temporarily their efforts to assume the outright ownership of schools. They settled instead for the management of schools that technically remained within the public sector.

Newly created corporations, which characteristically adopted such academically impressive names as “Nobel Learning” or “Edison Schools,” began convincing officials in minority districts – first Miami, later Chicago, then Baltimore, Philadelphia, and many other cities – to contract with them to operate at first a few, then larger numbers, of their schools...Almost simultaneously, as states were pressured to test and measure children more relentlessly, to institute the same “goal-setting” mechanisms that are used in private industry, the testing affiliates of some of our largest textbook publishers, as well as the major test-prep companies began to move into our public schools, primarily in urban areas. By 2005, the schools were generating $2.8 billion a year for the testing industry.

In both these areas – testing services and the management of schools – the encroachment of the private sector on public education has been mightily assisted by provisions that the Bush Administration managed to insert into the No Child Left Behind Act. Among the various “sanctions” that this highly controversial law imposes upon low performing schools are two provisions that have opened up these schools to interventions by private corporations on a scale that we have never before seen in the United States.

The first of these provisions stipulates that if a school receiving federal funds under what is known as “Title I,” the nation’s largest program of assistance for low-income students, fails to raise its test scores by a fixed percentage within three years, it must then use a portion of its funds to purchase what the government describes as “supplemental services"...provided outside of the normal school day and, among other options, by a so called third-party provider...

If, despite their expensive test-prep programs, low-performing schools fail to pump up test scores fast enough to meet specific goals within five years, school boards are obliged to shut them down and dismiss their faculties and principals. Such schools will then be either operated directly by the state or reconstituted under an “alternative governance arrangement.”

...it is the profit-making firms, with their superb promotional machinery, that are best positioned to obtain these valuable contracts. It is this prospect – and the even more appealing notion that companies that start by managing these schools might at some future point achieve the right, through changes in state laws, to own the schools as well – that helps explain why EMOs like Edison, which has yet to tum a profit, nonetheless attract vast sums of venture capital...

http://schoolsmatter.blogspot.com/2007/08/kozol-on-school-privatization.html



The privatization of public ed is being deliberately carried out, in stages, through different administrations, R & D.

There is no other way to read the legislation being enacted, the money behind the "grassroots", the propaganda assault, the continuity of policy between administrations, & the movement of investment capital.

[fasttense]

1. I can't wait for my grandchildren to go to schools run by Blackwater and Halliburton.

Imagine GE plastering their logo all over your children's books and shirts.

Public schools are a goldmine waiting to happen for corporations. I can see it now, high school football teams competing in the fields with names like ENRON vs ANDERSON ACCOUNTING, or GOLDMAN vs AIG. They could turn their Corporation logos into mascots.

They would have all our children memorizing the names of corporation's CEOs and their boards. We would truly be a fascist nation then. It must make Republicons faint with happiness at the mere thought.

[Karmadillo]

2. No sweat. As soon as the Democrats take back the White House and the Congress, they'll put an end to

this crap.

[madfloridian]

18. lol

:rofl:

[ProgressiveProfessor]

3. Homeschooling, its not just for wingnuts NT

[Bandit]

4. Except you don't get to choose the teaching material

The curiculum is set by the school and they provide the materials and in fact the Teacher. The parent is basically a teacher's aide. You mail in the lessons to be graded and then the new lesson plans are mailed back out to you. The same tests need to be passed.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

5. Not in my experinece

There are a number of curriculums out there and you do not have to follow what the local schools do.

[imdjh]

6. Not in Florida. But we also have Virtual School which is way cool.

The bottom line for most people is that they want their happy six year old to stay that way and get a good education at the same time. That's really all there is to it.

[sense]

13. Unschooling

You and your children decide what they want to study based on their interests at any given time. Getting to learn about what interests you is the best way to learn and retain that knowledge. Yes, they usually need to pass tests every so often, but that isn't difficult as the dumbing down of public school has ensured that the tests are also incredibly easy. Critical thinking is taught, modeled and encouraged in those home schooling families who choose to home school for academic reasons, not to isolate their children from the world. Home schooling should have a different name as most home schoolers I know are rarely home, but out in the community interacting with all ages of people and learning 24/7. The old myths about home schooling need to be discarded just as the old myths about the magical person in the sky.

[imdjh]

7. Actually, it never was.

The first I heard about homeschool was hippies back in the 1970's who didn't want their kids indoctrinated by the public or private schools.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

9. When you show support home schooling here on DU many assume you are a nutter of some sort

We had to supplement the local school work for our daughters while living abroad. We really got into it as a family. Made for a messy situation upon our return to the US public school system since they were so far ahead of their peers.

[tigereye]

8. I agree with you - I still feel that the main goal of NCLB was to destroy

public schools and teacher's unions. It's a typically cynical, somewhat Orwellian re-packaging of what looked like a desire to help kids in schools in low-income areas and ended by putting even more goal-oriented pressure on teachers who used to love teaching and on students to produce only scores on those tests you noted. I think this is why more and more parents are choosing home-schooling, cyber-schooling, charter- schooling or private schooling for their kids.


Although in some cases (and I don't have any stats here at this time), I think it has engendered some positive gains in reading and math for some urban students.

[imdjh]

10. People want vouchers or choose homeschooling for a couple of reasons perhaps.

But the primary reason is to be able to choose your child's school environment and ensure the safety of your child from other children and other influences. It's a very me-first drive, and there is nothing wrong with that. You don't owe anyone else anything when it comes to your kids.

[tigereye]

11. yes, people want their kids to be safe, happy and enjoy learning

everyone should have that option.


I have friends who teach in the public schools here, and they are not happy campers because of so much bureaucratic pressure. They love the kids and care deeply for them, but it's almost as if the teachers are under siege. :(

[imdjh]

12. Happy public school teachers are very hard to find.

Happy private school teachers aren't exactly growing on trees.

I guess it happens anywhere there are people, but I really despise politics in the workplace. People are often rewarded for being devious, manipulative, dishonest, pandering, groveling, bullying, and all manner of stupid shit.

[tigereye]

15. I know a lot of happy private school teachers, but they aren't very well paid

sometimes it's a matter of money vs automomy in teaching, and that isn't fair, either.


I agree with you that politics in schools is a nasty thing. It's really unfair to kids.

[LWolf]

14. And this is the direction that the new administration is supporting.

:grr:

[Telly Savalas]

16. Not really. Duncan is fixated on charter schools which are non-profit in most states.

Elsewhere at DU it was cited that only 11.8% of charter schools were for profit corporate entities. (Although it may be closer to 11.875% or 11.8986% if that source rounded incorrectly.)

Duncan's obsession with charter schools as a magic formula to cure all education woes is off the mark. In some places they can be helpful in providing an option for parents, especially in large urban districts which suffer from unresponsive administrations that don't support teachers and students and are slow to make positive changes. In these environments, a charter school which is unburdened by an entrenched ineffective bureaucracy can adapt much more quickly to provide for its students. "Can" being the key word.

In other locations, the idea of starting up charter schools is just stupid. In a lot of places the school districts are doing a great job educating students, so encouraging them to change things is simply insane.

I don't know what the answer is at the federal level, other than that there isn't a simple answer. There are a few things I'd like to see the Dept. of Education doing more of though:

1. Make sure that poor districts have the resources they need to effectively run the schools. Kozol notes in his book "Savage Inequalities" the huge differences in funding between affluent school districts and poorer ones. A student shouldn't be punished just because she happens to live in an area that doesn't have a large property tax base.

2. Keep its ear to the ground with respect to things schools around the country are doing and experimenting with. It can then compile reports on best practices and share them with school districts around the country. Rather than having a top-down approach, the Dept. of Education can serve as an information clearinghouse in a bottom-up approach to school reform.

3. Provide more support for social services to work with schools. In many areas a major part of what's plaguing the school system is stuff that goes on outside the classroom. If a kid is homeless, has a parent whacked out on meth, or any number of less extreme issues of that sort to deal with, it's going to impair his ability to learn. Since a lot of state governments are dominated by right-wing nuts who feel that kids facing such issues are supposed to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, it falls to the federal government to provide social work services to help out. While the functions may not fall directly under the purview of the Education Dept., the Education Dept. should work to coordinate services so that kids' needs are met.

[LWolf]

17. I know what Duncan is fixed on. I'm well aware of his record,

which is not a good one. But then, I've spent a lot of time talking to Chicago teachers.

I'm also an educator who has taught in 2 states, large and small districts, been recruited by charter schools, visited and observed charter schools, and met with charter school teachers and administrators.

The history of charter schools? A right wing tool to move privatization forward. It's more politically correct than "vouchers."

They serve the same purpose. Not to say that there aren't some good charters out there; I've seen them. I've seen more bad than good. I also know enough about the way the system, and the way charters, work, to know that they have advantages that public schools don't have, creating a climate of disparity that is simply not right.

I know what some answers are on the federal level, and so do many other educators. Nobody in power wants to hear them. I will say that your 1-3 are vital parts of the whole.


Give ALL schools the support, and the flexibility, that they need to meet the needs of their students, and we will make schools as great as they can be.

Issues outside of education that affect student achievement can't be ignored, though. Poverty, to start with. Maslow's hierarchy applies. Until that big foundation is there, learning is handicapped. As you noted in point 3. Conditions are severe enough, though, that it can't just be schools who identify problems and try to meet out-of-school needs.