Money Bad, Teachers Good
Sighhh ..... Instead of debate, Ms Clawson tars the issue of school reform with rhetoric. Testing, is a real issue. The issue must not be whether to test but how to do it. The idea that unions should dictate how children are tested is as absurd as the idea that lawyer groups should regulate legal ethics ... oops!
by Laura Clawson Sun May 20, 2012 at 06:00 PM PDT
Reposted from
Daily Kos Laborby Laura ClawsonThe faces that dominate the education reform debate today—where “education reform” means increased reliance on standardized tests, the results of which are then used to determine the fates of teachers whose job security has been weakened—are people like former Washington, D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee and Harlem Children’s Zone CEO Geoffrey Canada. They are, or can be packaged as, dynamic and visionary, educators who are passionate about kids. But lots of teachers could fit that bill, so why is someone like Michelle Rhee, who has spent very little time in the classroom, so prominent while the average teacher faces cutbacks and scapegoating? The answer, as in so many things, involves money. Not just any money. Billionaire money. Hedge fund money. Goldman Sachs money. Bill Gates money and Walton money. Michelle Rhee and Geoffrey Canada are prominent because they embody a set of ideas attractive to major philanthropists working to remake public education into their own vision of how the world works.
The Walton Family Foundation is just one of the “philanthropies” advancing a highly politicized vision
for public education through big donations. (
Education Week)
When Bill Gates, or the Walmart Waltons, or former SunAmerica CEO Eli Broad, pour millions of tax-deductible dollars through their charitable foundations into education, they don’t suddenly cease to be people who inherited or made billions of dollars in the corporate world and magically become noble, pure-hearted philanthropists completely divorced from politics with only the non-politicized good of humanity in mind. They remain people who inherited or made billions of dollars in the corporate world. Their political beliefs, left or right, remain intact, and their philanthropic giving typically supports those beliefs.
Tags: Misc.
Posted 02 Jun 2012 by theaveeditor
in Misc.