Brit calls US out on education policy...and he is right!

[erodriguez]

From his article in the Guardian:

The corporate takeover of American schools

The trend for appointing CEOs to the top jobs is symptomatic of a declining commitment to public education and social justice

The top positions in state education across the US – for example, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, recent chancellors Joel Klein (New York) and Michelle Rhee (Washington, DC), and incoming Chancellor Cathleen P Black (New York) – reflect a trust in CEO-style leadership for education management and reform. Along with these new leaders in education, billionaire entrepreneurs have also assumed roles as education saviours...

Like Obama, Secretary Duncan has led refrains against bad teachers, while ignoring the growing impact of poverty on the lives of children and on schools. One very visible effect of this trend for recruiting CEO-style leaders and billionaire entrepreneurs is the new commitment to corporate-sponsored charter schools – such as the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) and the Harlem Children's Zone (HCZ) among the most high profile.

The messages coming from state education in the US, then, are that government has failed and that only the private sector can save us.

In the US, achievement gaps and failure in state schools reflect larger inequalities in society, as well as dysfunction in corporate, consumer culture. The schools did not cause those gaps or failures – although it is true that, far too often, they perpetuate the social stratification. And the evidence shows that schools alone will never be able to overcome powerful social forces.

The real failure, which is the message being ignored here, is that one of the wealthiest countries in the world refuses to face the inequities of its economic system, a system that permits more than 20% of its children to live in poverty and to languish in schools that America has clearly decided to abandon, along with its democratic principles.

What a tragedy and embarrassment.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/nov/15/education-schools

[Reader Rabbit]

1. This is awesome!

Any chance of politicians here reading it? Probably not.

[Gabi Hayes]

2. they know all about it.....they're mostly in FAVOR of it. ask baltimore teachers

ask andrew cuomo, and his handpicked lt. governor

[erodriguez]

3. Unfortunately you are correct and Americans citizens seem like they are going to wake up too late.

[malaise]

4. Must Read

Rec

[Overseas]

5. K&R ! //nt