The Privatization of Public Education2016 Reading List

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Books about the Privatization of Public Education 2 David W. Hursh, 2016: The End of Public Schools... 2

Megan E. Tomkins-Stange, 2016: Policy Patrons... 2 Wayne Au; Joseph Ferrare (Eds.), 2015: Mapping Corporate Education Reform... 2 Diane Ravitch, 2014: Reign of Error... 3 Kristen L. Buras, 2010: Pedagogy, Policy, and the Privatized City... 3 Lois Weiner; Mary Compton, 2008: The Global Assault on Teaching... 3 Dave Hill (Editor), 2008: Contesting Neoliberal Education... 4 Alfie Kohn, 2002: Education, Inc.,... 4 Gerald Bracey, 2001: The War Against America's Public Schools... 5

Books Related to the Privatization of Public Education 6 Jesse Hagopian, 2014: More than a Score... 6 Christopher Tienken; Donald Orlich, 2013: The School Reform Landscape... 6 Wayne Au, 2010: Unequal By Design... 7 Sharon L. Nichols; David C. Berliner, 2007: Collateral Damage... 7 David Berliner; B.J. Biddle, 1995: The Manufactured Crisis... 7

Articles about the Privatization of Public Education 8 Charles P. Pierce, 9/19/16: Don’t Believe the Charter School Hype: ...it’s all about profits. 8 Jeff Bryant, 7/20/16: Charter Schools and the Waltons... 8 Peter Greene, 6/23/16: Privatizing Primer 8 Kristen Steele, 7/14/15: Education—the Next Corporate Frontier 8 Lee Fang, 9/25/14: Venture Capitalists Poised to ‘Disrupt’ Everything About the Ed Market 8 Gordon Lafer, 4/24/14: Do Poor Kids Deserve Lower-Quality Education Than Rich Kids?... 9 Anna Simonton, 12/5/13: Wall Street is designing the future of public ed as a $-making machine 9 Ruth Conniff, 5/8/13: How School Privatizers Buy Elections 10 Lois Weiner, 2012: Privatizing Public Education: The Neoliberal Model 10 Julie Underwood; Julie Mead, 3/12: A Smart ALEC Threatens Public Education... 10 Joanne Barkan, Winter 2011: Got Dough? How Billionaires Rule Our Schools 10 David Sirota, 9/12/11: The bait and switch of school “reform”... 11 Danny Weil, 11/24/09: Neo-liberalism: The Leveraging of Charter Schools w/ Public and Private Funds 11

Exposing How Privatization of Public Education is Done, Step by Step 12 Peter Greene, Updated 6/23/16: Privatizing Primer 12

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BOOKS ABOUT THE PRIVATIZATION OF PUBLIC EDUCATION

The End of Public Schools: The Corporate Reform Agenda to Privatize EducationDavid W. Hursh, 2016Publisher description: “The End of Public Schools analyzes the effect of foundations, corporations, and non-governmental

organizations on the rise of neoliberal principles in public education. ...(I)t describes how specific policies that limit public control are advanced across all levels. Informed by a thorough understanding of issues such as standardized testing, teacher tenure, and charter schools, David Hursh provides a political and pedagogical critique of the current school reform movement, as well details about the increasing resistance efforts on the part of parents, teachers, and the general public.”

Chapter 1: “...(C)urrent reforms have transformed the purpose of schooling, teaching, and learning. The curriculum is

being reduced to what will be tested, teaching to implementing lessons designed to resemble the test questions and often scripted by someone else, and learning reduced to test taking strategies and memorizing for the test. Good teachers are retiring early or finding other jobs and enrollments in teacher education programs are declining...”

“... (W)e can continue pursuing the neoliberal agenda that aims to create a society in which decisions about how we are to live are made through unregulated markets, with a diminished governmental role as what was once public is privatized, schools focus on holding students and teachers accountable [through a system] in which students and teachers are infinitely examined… and the rich and powerful become even more so. (Or we can pursue an) ...agenda in which the government plays its required role in the creation and development of markets, provides services that are best provided through the government, creates schools as learning communities that support the development of trusting and caring relationships, and aims to create democratic institutions and structures so that everyone has opportunities to participate in democratic processes...”https://www.amazon.com/End-Public-Schools-Corporate-Privatize/dp/1138804487

Policy Patrons: Philanthropy, Education Reform, and the Politics of InfluenceMegan E. Tompkins-Stange, 2016

Publisher’s Description: “Policy Patrons offers a rare behind-the-scenes view of decision making inside four influential education

philanthropies: the Ford Foundation, the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation. The outcome is an intriguing, thought-provoking look at the impact of current philanthropic efforts on education. ... The picture that emerges reveals important differences in the strategies and values of the more established foundations vis-à-vis the newer, more activist foundations—differences that have a significant impact on education policy and practice, and have important implications for democratic decision making...”http://hepg.org/hep-home/books/policy-patrons

Mapping Corporate Education Reform: Power and Policy Networks in the Neoliberal State Wayne Au and Joseph Ferrare, Eds., 2015Reviews: Wayne Au and Joseph Ferrare’s collection charts the upward redistribution of money, influence, data and

governance from public education into private [white] hands, with brilliant, multi-site network analyses. A "must read" for pre-service and contemporary educators, parents, organizers and school board members who are being recruited into reform efforts, this book reveals the slow violence of privatization, displaying the hollowing carcasses of public institutions and documenting the profoundly uneven collateral consequences. --Michelle Fine, Distinguished Professor of Critical Psychology and Urban Education, The Graduate Center, City University of New York

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Mapping Corporate Education Reform is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how the neoliberal state’s shift from government to governance has transferred democratic control of public education to corporate interests. This book’s rich case studies concretely map the networks of powerful individuals and organizations that are now making key education policy decisions in favor of education markets, as well as the broader neoliberal restructuring of public education around the world. --Pauline Lipman, Professor of Educational Policy Studies, College of Education, University of Illinois at Chicagohttps://www.amazon.com/Mapping-Corporate-Education-Reform-Neoliberal/dp/1138792004

Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public SchoolsDiane Ravitch, 2014Publisher’s Description: “From one of the foremost authorities on education in the United States, former U.S. assistant secretary

of education, an incisive, comprehensive look at today’s American school system that argues against those who claim it is broken and beyond repair; an impassioned but reasoned call to stop the privatization movement that is draining students and funding from our public schools. In a chapter-by-chapter breakdown she puts forth a plan for what can be done to preserve and improve our public schools. She makes clear what is right about U.S. education, how policy makers are failing to address the root causes of educational failure, and how we can fix it.https://www.amazon.com/Reign-Error-Privatization-Movement-Americas/dp/0345806352

Pedagogy, Policy, and the Privatized City: Stories of Dispossession and Defiance from New Orleans Kristen L. Buras, 2010Publisher’s Description: “In cities across the nation, communities of color find themselves resisting state disinvestment

and the politics of dispossession. ‘Students at the Center’, a writing initiative based in several New Orleans high schools, takes on this struggle through a close examination of race and schools. The book builds on the powerful stories of marginalized youth and their teachers who contest the policies that are destructive to their communities: decentralization, charter schools, market-based educational choice, teachers union-busting, mixed-income housing, and urban redevelopment. Striking commentaries from the foremost scholars of the day explore the wider implications of these stories for pedagogy and educational policy in schools across the United States and the globe. Most importantly, this book reveals what must be done to challenge oppressive conditions and democratize our schools by troubling the vision of city elites who seek to elide students' histories, privatize their schools, and reinvent their neighborhoods.”https://www.amazon.com/Pedagogy-Policy-Privatized-City-Dispossession/dp/0807750891

The Global Assault on Teaching, Teachers, and their Unions: Stories for ResistanceLois Weiner and Mary Compton (Eds.), 2008Publisher’s Description: “Public education's character is increasingly under assault as privatization of education is advanced. This

collection of essays by noted scholars, teacher activists, and teacher's union leaders from around the world fuses insights with background and analysis to make real the goal of quality education for all the world's children.”

Chapter Two: ‘Remaking the World’: Neo-liberalism and the Transformation of Education and Teachers’ Labour (Susan L. Robertson https://susanleerobertson.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/2007-weis-teachers.pdf): “In the introduction to his short book on a brief history of neo-liberalism, David Harvey

(2005: 1) begins by arguing: “Future historians may well look upon the years 1978-80 as arevolutionary turning point in the world’s social and economic history”...Three decades later, few disagree that the globalisation of a neo-liberal utopia... has become hegemonic. In doing so, its promoters have remade the world, including the world of education. Out with the collective and welfare; in with the individual and freedom. This tectonic shift has transformed how we talk about education, teachers and

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learners, unions, parents’ groups and professional associations. In short, it has altered the conditions for knowledge production, along with the spaces and sites for claims-making around education. With education yoked more closely to national and regional economies, schools and universities are now universally mandated to (efficiently and effectively) create the new breed of entrepreneurs and innovators; the value-driven minds who will spearhead the battle for global markets and consumers, and a bigger share of the spoils. Education, once untrammelled virgin territory, is also being initiated into the world of property rights, markets, trade and rating agencies (Molnar, 2006; Hentschke, 2006; Ford, 2006; Hatcher, 2006); a pre-pubescent services sector that offers the promise of wealth creation in a utopia of endless wealth creation (Bourdieu, 1998).

“...A core argument of this paper is that the mobilisation of neo-liberal ideas for reorganizing societies and social relations, including the key institutions involved in social reproduction (schools), is a class project with three key aims:1. the redistribution of wealth upward to the ruling elites through new structures of governance; 2. transformation of education systems so that the production of workers for the economy is the

primary mandate; and 3. (the) breaking down of education as a public sector monopoly, opening it up to strategic

investment by for profit firms. “To be realised, all three aims must break down the institutionalised interests of teachers, teacher unions,

and fractions of civil society who have supported the idea of education as a public good and public sector, and as an intrinsic element of the state-civil society social contract...” http://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9780230606319

Contesting Neoliberal Education: Public Resistance and Collective Advance Dave Hill (Editor), 2008Publisher’s Description:

“Neoliberal education policies have privatised, marketised, decentralized, controlled and surveilled, managed according to the business and control principles of new public managerialism, attacked the rights and conditions of education workers, and resulted in a loss of democracy, critique and equality of access and outcome. This book, written by an impressive international array of scholars and activists, explores the mechanisms and ideologies behind neoliberal education, while evaluating and promoting resistance on a local, national and global level. Chapters examine the activities and impacts of the arguably socialist revolution in Venezuela, the Porto Alegre democratic community experimental model in Brazil, the activities of the Rouge Forum of democratic socialist teachers and educators in the USA, Public Service International, resistance movements against the GATS (General Agreement on Trade in Services), and trade union and social movement and community/parental opposition to neoliberal education policies in Britain and in Latin America.”https://www.amazon.com/Contesting-Neoliberal-Education-Resistance-Neoliberalism/dp/041595777X

Education Inc., Turning Learning into a Business Alfie Kohn, 2002Publisher’s Description: “While educators want their students to grow into thoughtful and curious people, the overriding objective

of corporations is to maximize their own profits. From that fact alone we can predict what is likely to happen to the nature and purposes of our schools when business becomes involved in the education of our children. This unique and timely anthology chronicles the extent of that involvement, along with the troubling consequences it has already brought.Author Alfie Kohn and professor of education Patrick Shannon have assembled a provocative collection of articles, includingo an analysis of the racial implications of voucher programso vivid accounts of how schoolchildren are targeted by advertiserso descriptions of how corporate propaganda is insinuated into classroom curriculumso an expose of the political connections enjoyed by giant textbook and test publishers

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o a critical look at the process whereby teachers are turned into grant writers.This book builds a convincing case against those who see children as "customers" or "workers"-and those who would turn learning into a business. As Kohn notes, "[Corporations] are not shy about trying to make over the schools in their own image. It's up to the rest of us to firmly tell them to mind their own businesses."”https://www.amazon.com/Education-Inc-Turning-Learning-Business/dp/0325004897

The War against America's Public Schools: Privatizing Schools, Commercializing Education Gerald Bracey, 2001Publisher’s Description: “This book provides a comprehensive view of forces such as charters, vouchers, educational management

organizations (EMO's), and private schools that are altering the future of public education. Gerald Bracey describes why Americans are nervous about their public schools and examines whether their anxieties are justified. In the first section, the book looks at education reform efforts such as privatization. It then concludes with an overview and analysis of how American schools actually perform on achievement tests and international measures. In the second half of the book, Bracey explores the alternatives to public schools that have sprung up in recent years.”https://www.amazon.com/Against-Americas-Public-Schools-Commercializing/dp/0321080734

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BOOKS RELATED TO THE PRIVATIZATION OF PUBLIC EDUCATION

Authoritative books on the use of high stakes testing, etc., against public schools to serve privatization schemes.

More than a Score, Uprising Against High Stakes TestsJesse Hagopian, 2014

Publisher’s Description: “For too long so-called education reformers, mostly billionaires, politicians, and others with little or no

background in teaching, have gotten away with using standardized testing to punish our nation’s youth and educators. Now, across the country, students are walking out, parents are opting their children out, and teachers are refusing to administer these detrimental exams. In fact, the “reformers” today find themselves facing the largest revolt in US history against high-stakes, standardized testing. More Than a Score is a collection of essays, poems, speeches, and interviews—accounts of personal courage and trenchant insights—from frontline fighters who are defying the corporate education reformers, often at great personal and professional risk, and fueling a national movement to reclaim and transform public education. Along with the voices of students, parents, teachers, administrators, and grassroots education activists, the book features renowned education researchers and advocates, including Diane Ravitch, Alfie Kohn, Nancy Carlsson-Paige, Karen Lewis, Carol Burris, and Mark Naison.”https://www.amazon.com/More-Than-Score-Uprising-High-Stakes/dp/1608463923

The School Reform Landscape: Fraud, Myth & LiesChristopher Tienken and Donald Orlich, 2013Publisher’s Description: “In The School Reform Landscape: Fear, Mythologies, and Lies, the authors take an in-depth and

controversial look at school reform since the launch of Sputnik. They scrutinize school reform events, proposals, and policies from the last 60 years through the lens of critical social theory and examine the ongoing tensions between the need to keep a vibrant unitary system of public education and the ongoing assault by corporate and elite interests in creating a dual system. Some of events, proposals, and policies critiqued include the Sputnik myth, A Nation At Risk, No Child Left Behind, the lies of the Common Core State Standards Initiative, and other common reform schemes. The authors provide an evidence-based contrarian view of the free-market reform ideas and pierce the veil of the new reform policies to find that they are built not upon empirical evidence, but instead rest solidly on foundations of myth, fear, and lies. Ideas for a new set of reform policies, based on empirical evidence and supportive of a unitary, democratic system of education are presented.https://www.amazon.com/School-Reform-Landscape-Fraud-Myth/dp/1475802587

Unequal by Design: High-Stakes Testing and the Standardization of Inequality Wayne Au, 2010 Publisher’s Description: “(The book) critically examines high-stakes standardized testing in order to illuminate what is really at

stake for students, teachers, and communities negatively affected by such testing. This thoughtful analysis traces standardized testing’s origins in the Eugenics and Social Efficiency movements of the late 19th and early 20th century through its current use as the central tool for national educational reform via No Child Left Behind. By exploring historical, social, economic, and educational aspects of testing, author Wayne Au demonstrates that these tests are not only premised on the creation of inequality, but that their structures are inextricably intertwined with social inequalities that exist outside of schools.”https://www.amazon.com/Unequal-Design-High-Stakes-Standardization-Inequality-ebook/dp/B001OMWIMQ

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Collateral Damage: How High Stakes Testing Corrupts America's SchoolsSharon L. Nichols and David C. Berliner, 2007Publisher’s Description: “Drawing on their extensive research, Nichols and Berliner document and categorize the ways that high-

stakes testing threatens the purposes and ideals of the American education system.For more than a decade, the debate over high-stakes testing has dominated the field of education. This passionate and provocative book provides a fresh perspective on the issue and powerful ammunition for opponents of high-stakes tests. Their analysis is grounded in the application of Campbell’s Law, which posits that the greater the social consequences associated with a quantitative indicator (such as test scores), the more likely it is that the indicator itself will become corrupted—and the more likely it is that the use of the indicator will corrupt the social processes it was intended to monitor.”https://www.amazon.com/Collateral-Damage-High-Stakes-Corrupts-Americas/dp/1891792350

The Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Frauds, and the Attack on America's Public SchoolsDavid Berliner and B.J. Biddle, 1995Publisher’s Description: “The Manufactured Crisis debunks the myths that test scores in America’s schools are falling,

that illiteracy is rising, and that better funding has no benefit. It shares the good news about public education. Disputing conventional wisdom, this book ignited debate in Newsweek, The New York Times, and the entire teaching profession. Winner of the American Educational Research Association book award, The Manufactured Crisis is the best source of facts and analysis for people who care about what’s really happening in our schools.”https://www.amazon.com/Manufactured-Crisis-Attack-Americas-Schools/dp/0201441969

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ARTICLES ABOUT THE PRIVATIZATION OF PUBLIC EDUCATION

Don't Believe the Charter School Hype: In the end, it's about profits.Charles P. Pierce, Esquire, 9/19/16“They are not campaigning for freedom of choice for Massachusetts children. They are campaigning for their own freedom to gobble more and more from the public trough. See also: Privatization, all forms of.”http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a48717/massachusetts-charter-schools/

Privatizing PrimerPeter Greene, Curmudgucation, 6/15/15, updated 6/23/16 “,,,Step One: Create Failure...; Step Two: Consolidate Power...: Step Three: Cash In...”“...Note: It makes no difference whether the charters bill themselves as for-profit or non-profit. They are always profitable. Non-profits know many tricks for still turning a profit (eg, hiring themselves to run the school, or leasing the building back form themselves). A non-profit charter is just a for-profit charter with a money-laundering department...”http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2015/06/privatization-primer.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-greene/privatizing-primer_b_7648338.html

Education—the Next Corporate FrontierKristen Steele, CounterPunch, 7/14/15“...Privatization in education is eerily reminiscent of every other sector that has come under corporate control; many of the justifications and methods are exactly the same. Just as in agriculture, technology is touted as creating “efficiency.” Just as in healthcare, we’re presented with the illusion of “consumer choice.” Just as in global trade, corporations are deregulated and given generous subsidies. Just as in manufacturing, skilled employees are displaced by underpaid workers with no job security. Just as in energy, the profit motive trumps the wellbeing of people and planet. Just as in politics, legislation is influenced by rich private interests. In none of these sectors has corporate control brought about increased wellbeing for any but the richest segment of society. Why will education be any different?...”http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/07/14/education-the-next-corporate-frontier/

Venture Capitalists Are Poised to ‘Disrupt’ Everything About the Education MarketLee Fang, The Nation, 9/25/14“...The tantalizing prospect of tapping into the K-12 market has drummed up new level of zeal from education reformers. A good barometer of this passion is a document distributed by Moe, who now leads a firm called GSV Capital... The revolution GSV goes on to describe is a battle to control the fate of America’s K-12 education system. Noting that this money is still controlled by public entities, or what’s referred in the document as “the old model,” the GSV paper calls for reformers to join the “education battlefield.” (A colorful diagram depicts “unions” and “status quo” forces equipped with muskets across businesses and other “change agents” equipped with a fighter jet and a howitzer.) The GSV manifesto declares, “we believe the opportunity to build numerous multi-billion dollar education enterprises is finally real...”https://www.thenation.com/article/venture-capitalists-are-poised-disrupt-everything-about-education-market/

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Do Poor Kids Deserve Lower-Quality Education Than Rich Kids? Evaluating School Privatization Proposals in Milwaukee, WisconsinGordon Lafer, Economic Policy Institute, 4/24/14“This report evaluates the “blended learning” model of education exemplified by Rocketship (a charter management organization) and seeks to understand how the “school accountability” legislation debated during the most recent legislative session would likely affect Milwaukee schools. This briefing paper also explains how such proposals might fit within the broader economic agenda of both local and national corporate lobbies. “Above all, the report questions why an educational model deemed substandard for more privileged suburban children is being so vigorously promoted—perhaps even forced—on poor children in Milwaukee...“The “blended learning” model...—often promoted by charter boosters—is predicated on paying minimal attention to anything but math and literacy, and even those subjects are taught by inexperienced teachers carrying out data-driven lesson plans relentlessly focused on test preparation..“Decades of rigorous research have established that families’ socioeconomic background is the preeminent factor affecting how children perform in school. “Among the factors education policymakers can control, students benefit from small class sizes; experienced teachers; diverse opportunities for learning; a broad curriculum including music, art, and playtime for young children; and professionally staffed libraries. “On all of these dimensions, Rocketship falls short.”http://www.epi.org/publication/school-privatization-milwaukee/

Wall Street is designing the future of public education as a money-making machineAnna Simonton, Salon, 12/5/13 “...Michelle Constantinides has three children in Atlanta Public Schools and was alarmed by the level of corporate influence in the (school board) race. She explains her worry is not that donors will directly dictate board members’ decisions: “It’s much more sophisticated than that,” she says. Rather, “it’s about building a relationship with people and making them feel comfortable, and then once they feel comfortable, coming in and providing a service.”As evidence, she points to Arthur Rock’s investment in Rocketship Education, a charter school management company. In donating to school board candidates, she says, “He’s marketing a product.”...“Turner cautions that while most of Atlanta’s charter schools are non-profit organizations, they are very much a part of the for-profit education market. They can spend money without oversight, and direct much of it to private management companies and other contractors. “This is about corporate control of taxpayers’ money,” she says. “[The private sector] already has part of the military, some of the roads, that kind of thing. The new money pot is education.”“Valued at $1.3 trillion, the U.S. education market is more like a giant cauldron, and many of the individuals stirring it have a long track record of funding pro-charter candidates for state government across the country. Now, as Rock’s investments in the APS race indicates, they’re setting their sights even further down the food chain, pumping big money into local school board elections, which have historically been the stuff of door-to-doors visits, town hall meetings, and fundraisers that yield a few thousand, or even just a few hundred dollars in campaign funds. As a result of their interest, it’s increasingly common for pro-charter school board candidates to outspend their opponents six to one, in races that are fast becoming the new front in the battle to privatize public education...”http://www.salon.com/2013/12/05/wall_street_is_designing_the_future_of_public_education_as_a_money_making_machine/

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How School Privatizers Buy ElectionsRuth Conniff, The Progressive, 5/8/13“A fundamental struggle for democracy is going on behind the scenes in statehouses around the country, as a handful of wealthy individuals and foundations pour money into efforts to privatize the public schools. The implications are huge. But the school privatizers, and their lobbyists in the states, have so muddied the waters that the public does not get a clear picture of what is at stake. “So it was fascinating when investigative reporter Dan Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ripped the veil off a secretive organization and its hidden political activities by publishing a copy of the American Federation for Children's "2012 Election Impact Report." “The report, which was clearly meant only for members and donors, outlines how the American Federation of Children pours millions of dollars into state races around the country to back candidates who support school vouchers and other measures that siphon public money into private schools.AFC and its affiliates "spent more than $7 million in 2012 to elect candidates in states across the country," the report declares. "We engage in elections," the group explains, "because the political process is the first step to enacting meaningful education reform.”...“In #1-ranked Wisconsin, AFC reported total political spending of $2,392,000. That number is about 7 times higher than what the group reported to elections officials...“The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign filed a complaint with state election officials, noting that the group only reported spending $344,500 in 2012 to the state elections board. "This group tells election officials one thing, but it tells its own members a completely different story," says Mike McCabe, director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. “The difference is the undisclosed money AFC sank into TV ads...”http://www.progressive.org/how-school-privatizers-buy-elections

Privatizing Public Education: The Neoliberal Model Lois Weiner, Reimagine! (project of Race, Poverty and the Environment), 2012“...In both industrialized and developing nations, neoliberal reforms are promoted as rationalizing and equalizing delivery of social services. Even the World Bank demands curricular and structural changes in education when it provides loans as outlined in its draft “World Development Report 2004: Making Services Work for Poor People,” which describes education’s purpose solely in terms of preparing workers for jobs in a global economy where capitalism can move jobs wherever it wishes—that is, to countries where profits trump working conditions and salaries. The draft was later modified in negotiations with governments and non-governmental organizations, but the original is a declaration of war, especially on public education and independent teachers unions...”“...Teachers in the Global North have avoided the full force of neoliberalism’s assault on education for decades. It is only in the past few years that they have started to realize that their profession and the ideals that brought them into classrooms may be destroyed....”http://www.reimaginerpe.org/19-1/weiner

A Smart ALEC Threatens Public EducationJulie Underwood and Julie F. Mead, Phi Delta Kappan, Marchr 2012Coordinated efforts to introduce model legislation aimed at defunding and dismantling public schools is the signature work of (the Koch brothers, et al-funded American Legislative Exchange Council).http://pdk.sagepub.com/content/93/6/51.abstract http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/03/01/kappan_underwood.html

Got Dough? How Billionaires Rule Our Schools Joanne Barkan, Dissident, Winter 2011“The cost of K–12 public schooling in the United States comes to well over $500 billion per year. So, how much influence could anyone in the private sector exert by controlling just a few billion dollars of that immense sum?

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“Decisive influence, it turns out. A few billion dollars in private foundation money, strategically invested every year for a decade, has sufficed to define the national debate on education; sustain a crusade for a set of mostly ill-conceived reforms; and determine public policy at the local, state, and national levels. In the domain of venture philanthropy—where donors decide what social transformation they want to engineer and then design and fund projects to implement their vision—investing in education yields great bang for the buck.“Hundreds of private philanthropies together spend almost $4 billion annually to support or transform K–12 education, most of it directed to schools that serve low-income children (only religious organizations receive more money). “But three funders—the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Eli and Edythe Broad (rhymes with road) Foundation, and the Walton Family Foundation—working in sync, command the field. Whatever nuances differentiate the motivations of the Big Three, their market-based goals for overhauling public education coincide: choice, competition, deregulation, accountability, and data-based decision-making. And they fund the same vehicles to achieve their goals: charter schools, high-stakes standardized testing for students, merit pay for teachers whose students improve their test scores, firing teachers and closing schools when scores don’t rise adequately, and longitudinal data collection on the performance of every student and teacher...”https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/got-dough-how-billionaires-rule-our-schools

The bait and switch of school “reform”: Behind the new corporate agenda for education lurks the old politics of profit and self-interestDavid Sirota, Salon, 9/12/11“...Corporate education “reformers'” self-interest, by contrast, means advocating for policies that help private corporations profit off of public schools, diverting public attention from an anti-poverty economic agenda, and busting unions that prevent total oligarchical control of America’s political system. In short, it’s about the profit,..”http://www.salon.com/2011/09/12/reformmoney/

Neo-liberalism: The Leveraging of Charter Schools with Public and Private FundsDanny Weil, Dissident Voice, 11/24/09“...Private philanthropy has been aggressively recruited in the struggle to fund charters, for deep pockets must rocket the movement into institutional permanency and what better way to do this than to go to the pirates of industry who are flush with the surplus labor of their workers and an eager eye on investment opportunities. “For example, in New Orleans where charters are a national experiment and springboard for efforts in Washington D.C., Los Angeles and New York, three philanthropic groups will give $17.5 million to “public schools” in New Orleans. It is the largest donation by private groups since the school system was reorganized after Hurricane Katrina. The grants, from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Doris and Donald Fisher Fund and the Broad Foundation, will be given over a three year period. They will go to three nonprofits, New Schools for New Orleans, New Leaders for New Schools and Teach for America-Greater New Orleans. New Schools for New Orleans will get $10 million, mainly to support and bolster charter schools. New Leaders for New Schools will get $1 million to train and support 40 principals. Teach for America, the reserve labor army for the charterists (the pair recent college graduates and professionals with urban or rural schools deemed in need for two years) will get $6.5 million to attract teachers for the city. “This is how they cement their real agenda of destroying public education in favor of their own tightfisted educational reform efforts that go under names such as Diverse Provider Strategy, Portfolio Schools, Charter Management Organizations and the like.http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/11/neo-liberalism-the-leveraging-of-charter-schools-with-public-and-private-funds/

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Privatizing Primer

Peter Greene, Curmudgification / Huffington Post, Updated Jun 23, 2016

Every once in a while I try to take the many complicated and twisty threads, back up, and tie them into a bigger picture. Think of this as the kind of post you can share with people who don’t read blogs about education every single day (no kidding — there are such people, and they’re too busy doing the work to spend time reading about doing the work).

There are many threads to the reformy movement in education, but perhaps the most predominant one is the push for privatization. Many folks look at education and they just see a gigantic pile of money that has previously gone untouched. To them, education is a multi-billion dollar industry that nobody is making real profit from.

Many of the aspects and features of what I’m about to lay out appeal to other sorts of folks for other sorts of reasons, but here is how they fit into the agenda of privatizers.

Step One: Create Failure

Use metrics for measuring school success that will guarantee failure (that’s where Common Core testing fits in). For instance, base the measure of school and teacher success on bad standardized tests that don’t actually measure academic achievement as well as they measure poverty. These tests will also narrow the definition of success so that fewer students will fit through the eye of the needle (a brilliant musician who tests poorly in math and English will be counted as a failure). Norm these tests around a curve, so that somebody will always be on the failing end.

The testing will create the appearance of failure, but policy can also create actual failure by stripping resources from schools. Every voucher and charter system drains money away from public schools; in some states (e.g. Pennsylvania) there are even caps on raising taxes so that local districts couldn’t replace the shortfall even if they wanted to.

Concentrate these efforts on non-white, non-wealthy districts, which are both the most vulnerable and the least “protected” because their community has little political clout.

Use stack ranking so that whatever your metric, somebody is always in the bottom X percent of the spread (5 percent has been a popular number).

If it seems as if your state has instituted policies that will force schools to fail, this is why. If there are no failing schools, there’s no crisis, and if there’s no crisis, there’s no trigger for step two.

Step Two: Consolidate Power

Once there’s a crisis from the proliferation of failing schools, it’s time to step in.

You may hear the terms “turnaround” or “rescue” or even “takeover,” but the basic process is the same — the end of local control. Currently rising in popularity is the Achievement School

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District model, based on the Recovery School District of New Orleans and most fully attempted in Tennessee.

The basic principle is simple. These schools are failing, therefor the state must take them over. The state will put somebody, or a board of somebody’s, in charge of the district, and the new boss will answer only to someone in the state capitol. The local school board is out. The new school boss will be given the power to do whatever is necessary.

Step Three: Cash In

“Whatever is necessary” will never turn out to mean “invest in public schools.” Because, remember, they are failing.

Charter schools will be set up to compete with the public school (further stripping it of resources). Or charter schools will be brought in to replace the public schools, or to take them over. The system may be called a school choice system, but it will be the schools that get to choose, so that they can select those students who are profitable. The students who are too expensive to work with (aka not good revenue generators) or who can’t be made to generate “successful” numbers will be left in the public schools.

Note: It makes no difference whether the charters bill themselves as for-profit or non-profit. They are always profitable. Non-profits know many tricks for still turning a profit (eg, hiring themselves to run the school, or leasing the building back form themselves). A non-profit charter is just a for-profit charter with a money-laundering department.

These schools may operate under their own set of rules which do away with teacher job protections or school code requirements for seniority considerations. The majority of special rules are designed to allow school operators to control costs so that their school-flavored business can remain profitable.

Epilogue: The Long Term

You may wonder how this is sustainable. It isn’t, and it isn’t meant to be. Charters routinely drop out of the business, move on, dissolve and reform under new names, getting out of Dodge before they have to offer proof of success. This churn and burn is a feature, not a bug, and it is supposed to foster excellence. To date, there is no evidence that it does so.

But in the long term, we get a two-tier system. One is composed of private, profit-generating school-like businesses that will serve some of the students. The other is a vestigal public system, under-funded and under-served, but still serving as “proof” that public schools are failure factories and so we must have a state-run system.

Discussion: But Is This a Bad Thing?

“I realize,” you say, “that for some people turning schools into profit-generating businesses is automatically repulsive to some folks, but if they get the job done, isn’t this a win?”

Here’s the short form for why I think the privatization of education is a bad thing.

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First, all the numbers show that charters are, as a group, no more “successful” than public schools. Furthermore, what success they have is often simply the result of being careful and selective about their student body. How they do this is a whole other discussion, but the short answer is 1) they mostly don’t do any better than public schools and 2) public schools could also “improve” if they were allowed to get rid of problem students. In other words, we’re not talking about a new way to do public school — we’re talking about a new definition of what a public school is supposed to be.

Second, the privatization machine involves the end of local control. It is the end of any democratic control and accountability in a fundamental community institution. This is doubly troubling because so far, the people who are having democracy stripped away are mostly black, brown, or poor.

Third, turning education into a business means that business concerns will take precedence over student concerns. The purpose of a public school is to educate students. The purpose of a business is to make money. That does not make a business evil, but look around the rest of the world and ask your self if businesses make money primarily by devoting themselves to creating the most excellent products. Operators of a school-flavored business will always have interests that are in conflict with the interests of their students. That cannot be good for education.

We are looking at a movement to change schools from a public good, a service provided by communities for their members, into a profit-generating business. Maybe that’s a change we want as a society, and maybe a public discussion about such a transformation would lead us to that conclusion. I hope not, but maybe it’s so. But we’re not having that discussion. Instead, some folks are making changes in policy and regulation to create that transformation without anybody having a chance to object. That is not okay; it’s a discussion we need to have whether some folks want us to have it or not.

http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2015/06/privatization-primer.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-greene/privatizing-primer_b_7648338.html

Follow Peter Greene on Twitter: www.twitter.com/palan57 Peter Greene: Teacher and writer; blogger, curmudgucation.blogspot.com https://twitter.com/palan57

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