Year: 2014

Rick Hess Resurrects the “Blow Up Schools of Education” Mantra

Deborah Duncan Owens education reform, schools of education , , ,

In a recent posting on his Education Week blog “Straight Up,” Rick Hess resurrected Reid Lyon’s now tired assertion that in order to reform education. a good place to start is blowing up colleges of education.  Only now Rick Hess thinks he has a better idea — a better “path.”  Apparently, Hess spent some time with a few dozen education school deans.  He found them to be “smart people and willing to engage with dissenting voices.”  However, he has a different view of the faculty members who work within schools of education.  We, according to Hess, “as a rule … display strong biases on questions like accountability, use of monetary incentives, and school choice.”  And Hess went on to state in a tweet that education faculty members are not only biased, but guilty of venality.  Actually, that’s not only outrageous, but seems to contradict his own thesis.  Hess lauds the University of Arkansas’ “Walmart Department of Education Reform and School Privatization.”  While many education department faculty members seem to be biased against the current feeding frenzy of free market corporate education reformers (and, thus, lose out on the wealth that can be accumulated by casting their lot with the charter school operators, test publishers, and data producing machine makers), the University of Arkansas is not accused of venality for cashing in on the Walton family fortune.  The Walton family certainly did pay a lot to buy a policy department that would actively promote a free market education reform agenda — a whopping $300 million dollars, the largest “gift” in the history of public higher education!

I think it’s interesting that Rick Hess positions himself and other “think tank” scholars as the downtrodden and oppressed — losing the policy debate to the “tens of thousand of faculty in teacher-preparation programs at state colleges of education.”  As one of those faculty members in a  teacher preparation program, I think Hess is disingenuous in taking this position.  Or maybe he just hasn’t gotten the memo — you guys have won!  You got pretty much everything you wanted: education reformers wanted more accountability, “no excuse” policies, more data, more testing, and more school choice.  They wanted teachers to be held accountable for their students’ performance on tests. they wanted a debate on teacher tenure, and they wanted more non-traditional teacher preparation programs like Teach for America.

Education reformers started winning the policy debate a long time ago.  Republicans promoted your agenda. Democrats promoted your agenda.  And Obama placed the laurel wreath on the head of education reformers as the ultimate winner when he and Arne Duncan gifted you with RTTT.  Rick Hess, thou protesteth too much!  Oh, I know you have been very vocal in your criticism of the Common Core.  However, the Common Core was just one of the policies in the gift basket education reformers received from the federal government.  And now some free market education reformers want to keep everything else in the gift basket and give back the one thing they find distasteful.

Rick Hess states, “It’s a huge mistake to regard ed schools as implacably hostile. Ed schools are shifting assemblages of individuals, with views that are not preordained. Instead of writing off all the institutional heft that ed schools’ control, it’s time for reformers to get in the ring and work to ensure that some top colleges of education become places that can produce and host a healthy quotient of reform-minded thinkers.”  By reform-minded thinkers, it’s obvious that he is referring to free market, corporate, pro-choice education reform proponents.

Law schools, according to Hess, had to address the same “entrenchment” he now cites as a problem in schools of education.  The conservatives had to step in and rescue the law schools.  Hess is laudatory of Henry Manne who was recruited in 1985 by George Mason University to “build a law school from scratch.”  Manne, according to Hess, was free to “launch an Austrian-flavored program free from such constraints. While lacking a significant endowment, alumni network, or institutional brand, the new school soon enjoyed enormous success as a place of refuge for conservative scholars… .”

It is clear, that Hess’ better “path” for schools of education includes creating some supposed refuge for these conservative scholars.  First, why do conservatives need a refuge?  They seem to be doing quite well in the education policy arena.  Second, just what would a school of education that employs conservative thinkers among its faculty look like?  I think Hess is woefully unaware of what teacher preparation program faculty members actually do, in spite of the fact that he claims otherwise.  Increasingly, our jobs revolve around enacting policies that these conservative free market corporate reformers have been promoting over the years.  Regardless of our personal and professional education policy beliefs, we are committed to our students’ success and the success of the students they will teach.  In New York, where I work in a teacher preparation program, our education majors take numerous standardized tests to become licensed to teach after graduation.  There’s no lack of accountability here.  Education professors may question the quality of the Common Core, but we prepare our students to enter a profession dominated by the standards.  It doesn’t matter if we are conservative or liberal, Democrat or Republican.  If we are entrenched as Hess claims, it is not an entrenchment of our choice.  It’s an entrenchment foisted on us by “reform minded” policy makers, the kind that Rick Hess admires.

Hess may decry those who wish to “blow up” schools of education.  However, his attack is no less vehement.  He concludes his article by saying: “‘Blow up the ed schools’ is the disgruntled cry of the defeated. The goal shouldn’t be to silence other voices, but to break the monopoly and insist on a fair competition of ideas.”  There is no monopoly, Rick Hess.  There is no  public school monopoly and there is no monopoly among schools of education.  The reality is this: there are those in dominant positions of power who want to destroy the democratic institution of public schools through free market policies under the guise of “choice.”  On the other hand, there are those of us who are actively working to preserve the long honored and beneficial system of public education.  It shouldn’t be surprising that many of us proudly work in teacher preparation programs.

Christopher Lubienski’s Review of The Origins of the Common Core: How the Free Market Became Public Education Policy

Deborah Duncan Owens Common Core Book, corporate education reform, free market education policies

I am indebted to Christopher Lubienski for taking time to review my book, The Origins of the Common Core:  How the Free Market Became Public Education Policy.  I consider his scholarship to be a valuable resource for anyone engaged in the quest to reclaim the democratic institution of public education in the U.S.  His book The Public School Advantage: Why Public Schools Outperform Private Schools (co-authored with Sarah Theule Lubienski) provides much needed insight into the failure of market-based education reform efforts.  Dr. Lubienski is a professor of education policy, organization and leadership at the University of Illinois.

I felt very honored to read Dr. Lubienski’s review of my book on the Palgrave Macmillian website:

“This timely book goes beyond the tired debates about the Common Core State Standards and asks instead: How did we get here, with self-appointed “reformers” casting public schools as the enemy, and unproven market models for education as the answer? This comprehensively documented treatment of that question proves that Deborah Duncan Owens is a voice to be reckoned with in education policy debates.” – Christopher Lubienski, Professor of Education Policy, University of Illinois, USA; Sir Walter Murdoch Visiting Adjunct Professor, Murdoch University, Australia; and author of The Public School Advantage: Why Public Schools Outperform Private Schools (2014)

Again, thank you, Dr. Lubienski!

Deb

Thank you Susan Ohanian for Reviewing The Origins of the Common Core: How the Free Market Became Public Education Policy

Deborah Duncan Owens Common Core Book, Deborah Duncan Owens ,

A number of years ago, when I was beginning my research in education reform I found a trusted voice.  Susan Ohanian’s website has been a ready source for commentary on education and she has been a stalwart supporter of public education.  Her book Why is Corporate America Bashing Our Public Schools, written with Kathy Emery in 2004, is a must read for anyone trying to understand how corporate reformers were able to highjack education policy in the U.S.  She’s written numerous other books, articles, and commentaries in support of teachers, students, and parents.  In 2003 she was awarded the NCTE Orwell Award for Distinguished Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language her contribution to public discourse about education policy.

Susan Ohanian generously agreed to provide a pre-publication review of my book The Origins of the Common Core: How the Free Market Became Public Education Policy.  I was delighted to read the following on the Palgrave Macmillan website:

“Deborah Owens offers a detailed probe of the corporate-political alliances that cross party lines to push radical ventures traveling as education reform. She provides a needed history of what is really behind the Common Core, the curriculum and testing it requires, and why anyone who supports the survival of local public schools should care.” – Susan Ohanian, Fellow, National Education Policy Center

Susan Ohanian’s endorsement of my book means a great deal to me.

Thank you,

Deb

Remembering Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney

Deborah Duncan Owens and chaney, civil rights, Freedom Summer, Presidential Medal of Honor , , , , ,

Today Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney will be posthumously honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.  In 1964, when these three young men traveled and worked in Mississippi during Freedom Summer, I was too young to know what Freedom Summer was about or to understand how important the events that unfolded in Mississippi that summer were to our nation.  When I moved to Philadelphia, Mississippi, in the early 90s, I found myself immersed in life in a town that embodied the historical southern ethos of tradition, hospitality, and charm.  However, there was a troubling and dark history associated with the town as well.  This was the town made famous by the movie “Mississippi Burning” and, while the movie was in many ways fictionalized, it did portray the murders of Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney that dark summer in 1964.  I read two books during my first month in Mississippi.  The first was We Are Not Afraid: The Story of Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney and the Civil Rights Campaign for Mississippi by Seth Cagin and Philip Dray.  The second was Witness in Philadelphia by long-time Philadelphia resident Florence Mars.

I raised three young children in Philadelphia and taught in the local elementary school for several years.  I remember being surprised that so many of its young residents knew very little about its legacy in civil rights history.  And how many Philadelphians would not speak of its dark past.  But I did meet a group of folks who wanted to confront the legacy and rectify a profound misdeed on the part of the state of Mississippi.  You see, when Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney were brutally murdered in 1964, the state refused to bring murder charges against the KKK.  The federal government brought several of the criminals to trial for violating the Freedom Summer workers’ civil rights and there were some convictions.  However, Mississippi refused to do hold anyone accountable for their murders.  That is until a group of Philadelphians formed a coalition and worked diligently to bring about what some thought would never happen.  In 2005 Edgar Ray Killen went on trial in Philadelphia and was convicted of being the KKK ring leader who orchestrated the murders of Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney.  I felt honored to be there during this momentous and historic moment.  I was honored to become acquainted with Susan Glisson, Director of the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation.  And I was honored to be able to work with the institute in 2005 to organize a summit for educators that coincided with the trial at Philadelphia High School, just blocks from the courthouse.

This period in my professional and personal life solidified my resolve to focus my energies on issues of social justice.  Now that I am a teacher educator, I want to ensure that my students understand what’s most important — the lives of the children they will teach.  I want them to understand that you can’t simply talk about education reform without talking about social reform and I want them to understand that the struggle still continues.  Andrew Goodman’s brother, David, wants to ensure that the work continues and that his brother’s legacy will never be forgotten.

Additional Thoughts about “That Kid” and Charter Schools

Deborah Duncan Owens charter schools, that kid

Amy Murray’s poignant article about “that kid” is timeless and will undoubtedly resonate with parents and teachers for a long time.  I know I will share it with my teacher education majors and, thus, will reread it many, many times.  And each time I know it will bring a tear to my eyes because, as I said in an earlier posting, I am a mother of one of “those kids.”

A thought occurred to me as I think about current education reform and the notion that charter schools are the panacea for all the perceived problems associated with our education system.  Much has been written about the practice of charter school operators who counsel out or overtly exclude special needs students.  We must acknowledge, however, that these are not the only students that meet the brick wall of exclusion by charter schools.  I think it’s safe to say that “those kids” would be problematic for charter school operators.  However, unlike traditional public schools, charter schools typically have a built-in mechanism to remove these students from their school.  Many teachers in charter schools will  never have to explain anything about “that kid” to other parents — except, perhaps, to say, “we’re taking care of the situation” before “that kid” is dismissed from the charter school.

A key feature of charter schools is the contract that parents, students and teachers are required to sign prior to enrollment.  Students are required to sign a contract agreeing to adhere to strict discipline policies.  The contract explains that failure to live up to that contractual agreement will result in sanctions and punishments and, ultimately, to dismissal from the charter school.  So, for charter school administrators and teachers, the contract  signed by students contains a “termination of contract clause” for “those kids” who have difficulty adhering to the discipline policies that are at the heart of the charter school experience.  They can be “disappeared” from charter schools and sent back to their traditional public school — where I hope they will find kind teachers who will welcome them back with open arms.

What about parents who see charter schools as a way to protect their children from “those kids?”  A word of caution is in order.  You may be surprised at how little it takes to have your child labeled as problematic by charter schools.  If their test scores are too low, that can be seen as problematic to the mission of the charter school whose survival relies on increases in test scores.  I read a charter school application recently that required parents to agree to have their children re-assigned to a different grade at the beginning of the year.  In other words, you may enroll your 3rd grade child in the charter school, only to learn at the beginning of the school year that your child has been re-assigned to 2nd grade! Well, that’s one way to game the standardized tests — make students repeat grades until they get it right.  And, while parents may know that their children can be a little “independant” — or not perfect — they may not realize that little misdeeds (like chewing gum, not looking straight ahead in the hallway, not responding with razor precision to a teacher’s prompt, etc., etc. — the list can be extensive) can quickly add up when a charter school doesn’t think your child is useful capital for their mission.  Your child may indeed become one of “those kids” quite quickly in a charter school environment.  And when or if that happens, I hope your child’s return to the traditional public school is made easier by a teacher like the one described by Amy Murray.

Pondering the Term Neoliberalism

Deborah Duncan Owens corporate education reform, free market education reforms, Friedmanomics, neoliberalism ,

Friedmanomics, School Vouchers, School Choice, and the Free Market: If you understand Milton Friedman you are on the road to understanding neoliberalism!

Let me save some folk’s time and state from the outset that if you understand the term neoliberalism and how it impacts current education reform, you need not go on reading. Going on might be a waste of time most of us can ill afford!

Now, I have confession to make. First of all, many years ago when I first encountered the term “neoliberalism” I actually thought it had something to do with what was generally considered liberal in the political sense, something like Progressivism and FDR’s New Deal policies – or fighting for social justice like what I thought all good “liberals” were engaged in doing. Maybe there are some folks out there who also had this experience – and maybe there are still some folks who think neoliberalism is just another way to describe the current tension between “liberals” and “conservatives” – and neoliberalism is just another word to describe liberals! Well – as I learned a bit more – I sure was wrong on that one!

Perhaps there are some who believe – just like I did many years ago – that neoliberalism was nothing more than liberalism with three additional words added! Well – I soon discovered that neoliberalism is conservatism in an economic sense. I wonder if there are a goodly number of Americans who when they hear the word neoliberalism Do Not automatically think conservatism?

I have another confession to make. I think the study of neoliberalism is not only intellectually fascinating, but also an essential activity for anyone who supports America’s public school system and wants to understand the free market corporate ideological forces that want to dismantle that system.

And now I have to make another confession, I think studying the writings of people like Michael Apple, Henry Giroux, Joel Spring, Stanley Aronowitz, Svi Shapiro, Noam Chomsky, and David Harvey – to mention only a very few who have written about neoliberalism – is always a truly enlightening and intellectually invigorating experience! (Good God, am I now a full-fledged NERD???) Nevertheless, I suggest that supporters of public schools read some of the works by individuals such as this.

However, here is the problem. They are not easy reads. That is one reason out of a number of reasons why chapter 3 titled “Friedmanomics, School Vouchers, and Choice” in the The Origins of the Common Core: How the Free Market Became Public Education Policy was written. Its accessible to folks. As chapter 2 of the book explains, the power of the conservatives since the Reagan administration was due in part to the coalescence of different factions of social, political, and economic conservative thinkers. Therefore, the book’s author, Deborah Duncan Owens, chose to use the term “conservatives” to refer to the coalesced group of pundits and policy makers who would drive education policy in the years since Reagan ascended to the presidency.

For me, understanding neoliberalism was an exercise in what the “educationsists” would – I think – call scaffolding. http://edglossary.org/scaffolding/. The term is often applied to children, but in fact as you can see from the definition we all actually learn that way. I know I had to do a good deal of scaffolding before I understood neoliberalism and I could begin to grasp what many of the authors mentioned above were talking about.

I mention all this because when I was teaching both undergraduate teacher education majors and graduate students, most of whom were practicing teachers, a lot of those folks did not really understand neoliberalism and actually were at first thinking the way I was thinking about neoliberalism those many years ago. I think many of them were quite relieved when I told them that that’s what I also originally thought neoliberalism actually meant!

However, if you want to understand the current state of the free market corporate ideological assault on America’s democratic institution of public schools, then you need to understand neoliberalism, and a good place to start is with understanding Milton Friedman and his Friedmanomic ideas.

Sometimes professionals and scholars write in a way that really marginalizes citizens. Of course, sometimes the way they write is essential in analyzing ideas within their professional context. However, sometimes people think that these writers are just being “kinda snooty” but they really are not. On the other hand, Henry Giroux explains, there is a need help citizens understand ideas like “neoliberalism” since citizens in a democracy are generally a pretty savvy group of folks! http:// www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/4349:the-public-intellectual-project

So I think a good way to begin understanding neoliberalism for those folks who find this topic rather new – or rather confusing (always remembering that I freely admit that I was one of those) might be to start here: http://www.globalissues.org/article/39/a-primer-on-neoliberalism

Then you might want to read Harvey, David. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

For me, after experiences like that, I actually began to understand the writings of the folks mentioned above!

And those are my thoughts about neoliberalism this Sunday morning before Thanksgiving!

The Problem with RTTT’s Big Data Banks: Garbage In Garbage Out — The Data can Simply be Wrong!

Deborah Duncan Owens A Nation at Risk, Carol Burris, corporate education reform, education data systems, Gerald Bracey, new york, NYSED, Race to the Top, Sandia Report, systemic education reform , ,

One of the RTTT mandates for states is the implementation of massive data storage and reporting systems for students that extends from preschool through their college years.  Education reformers’ devotion to the infallibility of data is misguided and troubling.  I remember a quote from my days in a college computer programming class — a long time ago now: “Garbage In Garbage Out” (GIGO).  The concept was quite simple and highly understandable and still applies today.  It is still used to explain the problems inherent when humans make decisions based on faulty or incomplete data.

Valerie Strauss shared an article by New York principal Carol Burris that illustrates just how problematic it is when big brother Orwellian data systems are used to drive education reform decisions.  The New York State Education Department released a report recently that demonstrates the problems associated with GIGO errors.  While the NYSED soon realized their mistake and notified school districts that the data was incorrect, one must wonder how many GIGO – type errors actually occur within data systems and the egregious problems that result when policy makers cite faulty or incomplete data as the rationale for policy decisions.  How many times does the data go unchallenged and, thus, uncorrected?

This most recent example of GIGO error ridden data is NYSED’s report about the number of students leaving high school to attend — and remain — in college.  Carol Burris questioned the low percentage of students graduating from her high school in 2012 that were currently successfully enrolled in college as reported by the NYSED.  She quickly realized that a number of her most successful students were left off the list entirely.  And it was chilling to see the extent of the data reported for students who were on the list: whether or not they received free or reduced lunch, their special education status, their race, the name of the college or university they attended, and sometimes their major.  Why were some students left off the list?  Because, in some cases, they did not receive financial aid or perhaps because they did not require remediation once in college.  And some colleges refuse to share data.

What was the potential fall-out of this GIGO error by the NYSED?  Once again, public schools would be blamed for not adequately preparing students to be college and career ready and, thus, a ready argument for the Common Core State Standards would be on hand.  GIGO errors like this have too often been left to stand and have been used to perpetuate the zeitgeist that all public schools are failing.

As a matter of fact, the data used by the Reagan commission that created A Nation at Risk can be cited as the GIGO error that culminated in the freight train of systemic education reform we’ve been living with since the early 1980s.  The National Commission on Excellence in Education (NCEE) relied heavily on SAT data to draw their conclusion in 1983 that the education system in America was an abject failure. While citing statistical data that SAT scores had been dropping since the early 1960s, they ignored the very real data about the societal changes that led to these drops.  Was that data available to the NCEE?  Absolutely.  In 1977 the College Board, the organization that oversees the SATs,  published their own report explaining that the drop in scores was largely due to changes in the number and type of students who were taking the exam in preparation for attending college.  Far from being a negative phenomenon, this was a positive reflection on a nation that had for too many years excluded students of color, students from low income homes, and women from realizing the dream of higher education.  With larger numbers of diverse students taking the SAT, it was only logical that, at least for a period of time, scores would drop.  The SAT scores could not, therefore, be used as an adequate measure of school or instructional quality.  The NCEE’s lack of acknowledgement of the College Board’s findings about SAT score declines is a clear example of a GIGO data error — and one that had a disastrous impact on education policies in the U.S.  Their use of incomplete data to draw decisions and make policy recommendations in A Nation at Risk has brought public schools in the U.S. to the brink of destruction as their conclusions have gone largely unchallenged by the federal government, policy makers, and corporate education reformers who persist in declaring that our education system is a complete failure.  Even when William Turnbull, Distinguished Scholar in Residence for the Educational Testing Service, elaborated on the College Board’s findings and published his report Student Change, Program Change: Why the SAT Scores Kept Falling in 1985, his report was largely ignored by policy makers.

Federal education reformers had an opportunity again in the early 90’s to clarify their position on education quality in the U.S.  The Sandia Laboratories was commissioned to write a report about the status of the American education system by Secretary of Energy James Watkins.  Far from echoing the findings of the NCEE and A Nation at Risk, Sandia researchers found that there was no need for systemic education reform across the country, citing some of the same data the College Board and Turnbull relied on for their respectives reports.  However, by the early 1990s, the federal Department of Education was well entrenched with systemic education reformers hell-bent on radically reforming the education system and the Sandia Report could simply not be tolerated.  The report was buried.  One can only wonder the outcome for education policy in our country if the DOE had officially published the report with the same accolades as A Nation at Risk.  What a triumph of patriotism!!  The headlines could have read “Guess what, America?  New Report Says Your Education System is a Source of Pride!”

That was not to be, however.  It was best to squelch research that contradicted education reformers in their quest to free-marketize public schools and radically reform the education system.  What was needed was a steady stream of reports that labeled public schools as a total failure.  Stalwart critic of education reformers, Gerald Bracey began publishing annual reports in 1991 on the condition of public education.  His reports were an annual event for 18 years.  Bracey revealed to America the misuse of data by policy makers intent on destroying our education system and he wrote about the Sandia Report debacle.  He passed away in 2009 and his voice is missed.  He angered a lot of education reformers with his truth speaking, but he continued to speak out on behalf of supporters of public education, teachers, parents, and children.  His many books are a good place to start when questioning the GIGO data continually trotted out by education reformers.  And you may want to go to Susan Ohanian’s website to learn more about Gerald Bracey’s life and work.  Her index of tributes to Dr. Bracey is a touching reminder of his legacy.

 

So, Does the United States Really Love its Children?

Deborah Duncan Owens children and poverty, rights of children , , , , ,

In a nation that seems obsessed with comparing our educational achievement with other nations across the globe, I think it is fair to ask if our nation really does love its children.  It’s appalling that the U.S. is one of only three nations refusing to ratify the United Nations’ “Convention on the Rights of the Child” treaty.  The other two nations rejecting the concept of the rights of children are Somalia and South Sudan.  That’s really bad company!

Today is the 25th anniversary of the United Nations General Assembly’s adoption of the children’s rights treaty.  In spite of the fact that the Reagan and H.W. Bush administrations played a role in constructing the treaty and in spite of the fact that the U.S. is active all over the world in nation building and promoting democracy, we have refused to join hands with other nations across the globe in declaring that children have inalienable rights.

While on the campaign trail in 2008, Obama openly declared his support for the ratification of the children’s rights treaty, declaring, “It is embarrassing to find ourselves in the company of Somalia, a lawless land. It is important that the U.S. return to its position as a respected global leader and promoter of human rights. I will review this and other treaties to ensure that the U.S. resumes its global leadership in human rights.”  However, six years later, the rights of children seem to be another one of the dreams deferred.

The rationale generally provided for a failure to ratify the U.N. treaty typically revolve around concerns that it would erode U.S. sovereignty.  Some voices on the far right decry the U.N. treaty as part of a broad conspiracy to control our nation’s children.  Ironically,  in 1993 Phyllis Schlafly asserted that the U.N Convention on the Rights of the Child was designed in part to be a “grab for power over education.”  Schlafly wrote: “Suppose Congress were to consider legislation to set up a procedure for the Federal Government (or the U.S. Department of Education) to define the content of the education of every child. Imagine the howls that would go up as parents and concerned citizens protest that Congress has no business prescribing school curriculum. From all sides, we would hear citizens reassert their dedication to local control of education. Private schools would express fear that they would become an endangered species.”

Well, Phyllis, the federal government did it and the howls weren’t so loud, were they?  As a matter of fact a number of your fellow conservatives have been the most stalwart proponents of the movement to erode local control of public schools, prescribe curriculum through national common core standards, and gift the corporate world with huge profits through efforts to privatize and “charterize” education.

Arguably, if the U.S. were to embrace the U.N. treaty and actually recognize the rights of children, it could impact the money-lenders, hedge fund managers, and corporate education reformers who can only seem to see the dollar bills that are atop every child in America.  Consider, for example, Article 12 of the treaty which states, “When adults are making decisions that affect children, children have the right to say what they think should happen and have their opinions taken into account.”  This is clearly not the case in the United States where children are subjected to hours and hours of standardized tests and are used as data producing machines.

All of America’s closest international allies have ratified the children’s rights treaty.  These are the countries that cause education policy makers so much angst when international education rankings are published.  Or maybe it causes them joy — because they can keep perpetuating the lie that our schools are a dismal failure and in need of continuous reform that translates into ready profit.

How would education policy change if we truly loved our children in the U.S. and formalized our declaration of love by recognizing that they have the same rights as children in countries like Finland, France, Germany, and Sweden?  Maybe this would, in the words of George W. Bush, help create a “kinder and gentler” nation for America’s children.  It would certainly be easier to enact policies that favor families, providing the impetus to fund universal preschool programs and affordable childcare.  It would certainly be easier to enact policies that help to eliminate poverty and result in genuine education progress.

Public Schools as Public Freedom

Deborah Duncan Owens education reform, free market education policies, public freedom , , , , ,

By Thomas J. Fiala

I was just reading a review of Francis Fukuyama’s new book Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy” published in 2014. The review appeared in the October 2014 issue of The Atlantic and was written by Michael Ignatieff, the Edward R. Murrow Professor of the Press, Politics, and Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School. Recall it was Fukuyama who became famous in 1989 when he wrote an essay entitled “The End of History.” Ignatieff’s insightful and well written review of Fukuyama’s new book in the Atlantic is the reason I have already ordered my copy. More specifically, however, what did I find interesting in this review that made me “shell out the cash” for this book?

Ignatieff tells us that while Fukuyama believed that “history as we knew it had ended with the victory of liberal-democratic capitalism over Communism … Fukuyama wondered … whether citizens in the newly hegemonic West would lose spiritual and moral purpose now that the all-defining conflict with Communism was over.”

But what Ignatieff then says is what really made me think about capitalism and a free market approach to governance, and in particular how all this related to the current assault on America’s institution of democratic public schools. Again, quoting Ignatieff, “Capitalism did win in 1989– no credible alternative has emerged – but capitalism did not lead to liberal democracy.” (Interestingly enough 1989 was the first year of the governor’s conference on education that many would argue really opened the gates (no pun intended) for free market education reform initiatives.) Now here is where Ignatieff starts to pique my interest a little bit more! He states, “Market systems turned out to be politically promiscuous: they could share a bed with any number of political regimes, from Nordic democracies to Singaporean meritocracies. In Xi Jinping’s China or Vladimir Putin’s Russia, Western liberal democracy now faces a competitor Fukuyama did not anticipate: states that are capitalistic in economics, authoritarian in politics, and nationalist in ideology.” Now here is what really caught my attention and something I’ll have to think a great deal about as I read Fukuyama’s new book!!! Quoting Ignatieff again, “These new authoritarians are conducting an epoch-making historical experiment as to whether regimes that allow private freedoms can endure when they deny their citizens public freedoms.”

Now maybe I am way off when I say this – although I don’t think so – but to me America’s locally controlled public schools are an example of one of those public freedoms. Consider, for example, the last thought in The Origins of the Common Core: How the Free market Became Public Education Policy: “Public schools are not government schools, nor are they corporate free market schools. Public schools belong to the public. Public schools are citizen schools, and it is now up to citizens to re-claim what is theirs!”

Now supposedly Fukuyama still believes, according to Ignatieff that “history still has a democratic destiny … and the prospects for democracy globally remain good.” But now Ignatieff really gets me thinking about education reform in the United States and how we are going to help – or not be able to help – students living in poverty. He explains that “this assessment depends greatly on the global rise of the middle class.” As Harvard theorist Barrington Moore Jr. proclaimed, “No bourgeois, no democracy.”

I along with many who are reading this blog would agree with this statement. And if this is the case, then America is really in trouble considering that America’s middle class has been shrinking at an alarming rate since Reagan became elected president and Democratic presidents after Reagan often acted more like Republicans particularly when it came to adhering to free market ideas regarding education reform. It seems, particularly when it comes to the creation of education policy, this is an example of governmental and corporate mutualism. This way of governing is but an illusion of liberal democracy in action, and instead reflects a free market political authoritarianism that seeks to take decision-making, in the case of public schools, away from democratically elected school boards. I would argue that America’s public schools are an example of citizens’ public freedom. And when the federal government became allied with free market education reformers in a for-profit education government and corporate mutualistic love-fest, many citizens who understand the importance of public schools in America’s pluralistic democracy became irate! As Ignatieff explains, “… people become insulted when authoritarian systems of rule treat them as disobedient children.” Fukuyama observes that “there is a crisis of representation” leaving millions of Americans convinced that their politicians no longer speak for them.

When it comes to the current state of education reform in the United States, and the corporate free market assault on America’s democratic institution of public schools with the support of central government authoritarianism, clearly it is time for America’s citizenry to reclaim what is theirs – their locally controlled democratic public schools!

“Ya know” – come to think of it – I am also going to read Michael Ignatieff’s Fire and Ashes: Success and Failure in Politics.” I think that both of these books seem like a wise purchase for all American citizens to further understand what is going on in America!