By Ken Derstine
June 22, 2015
Frederick Hess is a resident scholar and director of
education policy studies at the right-wing American
Enterprise Institute. He has a blog on Education Week called Straight Up.
On June 11, 2015 he posted this column on his blog:
In the article Hess praises the newly enacted Nevada law that
makes Education Savings Accounts (vouchers) available to all families for a
hodgepodge of education choices if parents want to flee the funding and
resource starved public schools. The bulk of his article sings the praises of disaster capitalism as the means to promote privatization of
public schools.
He concludes his article with the astonishing statement:
“Finally, per usual, I'm puzzled
as to why teachers aren't embracing this kind of reform and all the
possibilities it holds for them. Instead, Nevada State Education
Association president Ruben Murillo has denounced the bill, arguing that
taxpayers should not be helping families to attend "private school
interests. Now, I’ve met Murillo (Nevada NEA President). He knows that plenty
of teachers in Nevada are frustrated with testing, disciplinary issues, teacher
evaluation, accountability systems, and more. And the opportunity for families
to choose the kinds of teaching and schooling that will best serve their
children means more kids will be in different kinds of schools—which gives
teachers opportunities to work in schools that aren’t wired into the system of
state-mandated evaluations and accountability, if they wish. After all, many of
those “private school interests” will offer a very different school culture and
approach. Seems like a win-win to me. I hope Nevada’s educators proceed with
that possibility in mind.”
On February 5, 2015 Hess moderated four hours of panels at the
American Enterprise Institute. The theme of the conference was “Is the ‘new’
education philanthropy good for schools? Examining foundation-funded school
reform”. The main purpose of the conference was how to promote standardized
tests for teacher evaluation.
For a synopsis of the conference, see:
Apparently the “starve the public schools, feed the charters”
tactic of corporate education reformers to make charters appealing to parents
is evolving into “flee from the public schools to escape standardized testing”
(which corporate education reformers initiated and are promoting).
Duplicity – deceitfulness in speech or conduct,
as by speaking or acting in two different ways to different people concerning
the same manner; double-dealing.
Also see:
Privatization
Primer
Curmudgucation - June 20, 2015
Curmudgucation - June 20, 2015
Investors
Ready to Liquidate Public Schools
Life at the Intersections - November 9, 2014
It's over half a year old, but this article captures the corporate education reform method.
Life at the Intersections - November 9, 2014
It's over half a year old, but this article captures the corporate education reform method.
Here's another take on the topic of corporatizing education. http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/sneaking-into-the-cracks-to-instill-the-outlined-characteristics-of-the-new-soviet-man-while-the-fatal-conceit-returns/
ReplyDelete