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"The most serious issue facing public
education stakeholders is their belief
that since public education, as presently
constituted, has always been around, it
will be around in the future."
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A
Cartel of right-leaning corporations, foundations, Wall Street hedge
fund managers, and wealthy individuals has geared up for an aggressive
pursuit to privatize urban and suburban school districts across the
nation. Using President Obama’s Race to the Top (RTTT) legislation
(which the Cartel drafted) as an umbrella under which it promotes its
privatization agenda and the ongoing assistance of U.S. education
secretary, Arne Duncan, the Cartel has made significant gains. A close
monitoring of its private-sector educational reforms has revealed some
key marketing elements of these initiatives.
First,
the Cartel has seized upon the legitimate frustrations and/or anger of
parents, community activists, and average citizens about the
contemporary challenges of public education—high dropout rates, low
academic achievement, frequent student absences, etc.-- in our large
and small school districts. These problems have been aggravated by
Cartel-influenced governors and state legislators who have
systematically reduced funding for public education during the last
decade. Parents and community activists want higher quality education
outcomes; government officials and business leaders want lower taxes
and reduced expenditures for the public-sector, in general; and school
board members want respite from constituent complaints. With a
slickly-packaged, educational medicine show, private-sector educational
entrepreneurs have tapped into and have fomented this growing level of
discontent. Trumpeting corporate and virtual charter schools, charter
management organizations (CMOs), publicly-funded private school
vouchers, and educational management organizations (EMOs), the Cartel
pledges to raise achievement levels, reduce the dropout rate, improve
instruction, upgrade school facilities, and install state-of-the-art
educational technology in public schools. And it promises to do so for
less money, although they often raise millions of additional corporate
dollars to supplement the public funding. These strategically-marketed
offers of more for less have strong appeal to the aforementioned
groups, who consider themselves poorly served by the public school
establishment. Moreover, the Cartel principally target urban school
systems that are financially strapped and predominantly and
increasingly populated by poor students of color (African Americans,
Hispanics, new Asian immigrants, Native Americans, and poor whites).
Many of these school districts are headed by superintendents of color
and governed by school boards where minorities have major impact. Given
the seemingly insurmountable difficulties confronting these schools,
they are ripe for the plucking.
Second,
in order to facilitate productive negotiations with the central
administrations and school boards of these school districts, Cartel
member and allies have recruited minority leaders and educational
administrators to serve on their staffs and boards. Although few
minorities were included as original founders or shareholders of these
for-profit educational entities, they have been employed as part of an
overall marketing strategy. The majority male owners quickly realized
that attempting to peddle their educational wares in largely minority
populated school systems and cities, without minorities and women in
high profile roles, would have been politically and economically
untenable. In an era of increasing sensitivity to diversity, an
all-white educational team promoting school privatization services and
products to a predominantly minority public education body would have
likely evoked perceptions of the worst kind of plantation politics.
Third,
the tenure of urban superintendents and school board members has become
shorter of late, problem-ridden, plagued by corruption (e.g., Chicago,
Atlanta, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., etc.), irrespective of the
race and gender of the individual job holders and school board leaders.
Thus, by serving as buffers between school officials and their
residents, the Cartel is able to address the occupational survival
needs of school administrators and their governing bodies. In this
instance, the profit objectives of these privatizers of public
education are congruent with the job security objectives of
superintendents and school board members. The superintendents declare
that they are bringing a positive resolution to the crisis in public
education, while the school boards assert that they are engaged in
break the mold, cutting edge educational reform. This quid pro quo is
at the root of this alliance at the public trough. Additionally, the
Cartel, through political contributions in mayoral, school board, and
state legislative races has established a foothold in a growing number
of election districts throughout the nation.
Fourth,
the Cartel has strategically launched and marketed a sustained attack
on teachers and their unions with a steady stream of vitriol that
demonizes each in turn. Teachers are labeled as uncaring, having low
expectations for low-income and minority students, being racist and/or
culturally insensitive toward the students under their charge, being in
the profession for the money (although they are underpaid for the hours
they actually work), and lacking the professional and educational
competence to be effective in their jobs. The latter two indictments
provided the basis for creating a system of merit pay and the
evaluation of teachers via students’ standardized test scores. The
Cartel has been skillful in advancing the refrain of “No Excuses” for
students’ poverty; food insecurity; physical health, mental health, and
vision problems; the impact of neighborhood violence, gang, and drug
issues; and overcrowded, under-resourced classrooms. Missing from this
analysis is any mention of the tens of millions of dollars that
teachers collectively spend out of their own pockets each year to
supplement students’ nutrition, buy their school supplies, and purchase
students’ clothing. At the same time, teacher unions are branded as
having minimal concern for students’ educational outcomes, only caring
about raising teachers’ salaries. Unions have also been criticized for
curriculum failures despite the fact that school district
administrations set the instructional agenda. Elsewhere, the Cartel has
recruited union members in California and Tennessee to challenge the
union dues paying system as a way to implode the organization from
within. These cases are headed to the U.S. Supreme Court where the
probability for success is high given the Court’s conservative makeup.
Finally,
the most serious issue facing public education stakeholders is their
belief that since public education, as presently constituted, has
always been around, it will be around in the future. This increasingly
naïve view overlooks the current reality where the Cartel has
infiltrated every level of the political structure by utilizing
targeted campaign contributions and has cultivated major backing among
public education’s traditional supporters—parents, grassroots leaders,
civic and religious organizations, rank and file citizens, local
business leaders, and others—who have historically stood steadfast for
their local public schools. What does this mean for poor urban and
suburban students of color? Not very much, as current data show in city
after city (Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Milwaukee, Chicago,
etc.), student achievement data have been manipulated to show
fraudulent academic gains, or objective analyses have shown that these
private-sector education reforms (charter and voucher schools and other
private-sector education reforms) have performed no better than public
schools irrespective of the hype.
Then as now, it is apparent that the complex social, economic, and
educational challenges facing poor urban students are not subject to
quick fixes, no matter how well-intended or exaggerated the promises.
But the key need for teachers and their unions is to engage and
organize their local communities to restore their trust and support.
Otherwise, public education will be wholly be redesigned to reflect the
profit-making agenda of the Cartel and its private-sector allies.
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BlackCommentator.com Columnist, Dr. Walter C. Farrell, Jr., PhD, MSPH, is a Fellow of
the National Education Policy Center (NEPC) at the University of
Colorado-Boulder and has written widely on vouchers, charter schools,
and public school privatization. He has appeared on the Today Show with
Matt Lauer and National Public Radio’s The Connection to discuss public
school privatization, and he has lectured to parent, teacher, and union
groups throughout the nation. Contact Dr. Farrell.
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 is published every Thursday |
Executive Editor:
David A. Love, JD |
Managing Editor:
Nancy Littlefield, MBA |
Publisher:
Peter Gamble |
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