What Happened to Public Education on Election Night?

[HiPointDem]

Barack Obama’s K-12 “reform” policies have brought misery to public schools across the country: more standardized testing, faulty evaluations for teachers based on student test scores, more public schools shut down rather than improved, more privately managed and for-profit charter schools soaking up tax dollars but providing little improvement, more money wasted on unproven computer-based instruction, and more opportunities for private foundations to steer public policy.

Obama’s agenda has also fortified a crazy-quilt political coalition on education that stretches from centrist ed-reform functionaries to conservatives aiming to undermine unions...to right-wingers seeking tax dollars for religious charters...Mitt Romney’s education program was worse in only one significant way: Romney also supported vouchers that allow parents to take their per-child public-education funding to private schools, including religious schools.

After the November 6 elections, public school supporters speculated about (hoped for) a change in direction in Obama’s second term. Unfortunately, there’s no reason to expect a shift... Rumors that Obama might replace Duncan with ultra-extreme reformer Michelle Rhee caused some panic but needn’t have. Obama and Duncan are a team. Duncan announced his desire to stay for a second term in September 2012. Just ten days after the election, in prepared remarks to the Council of Chief State School Officers, he stated that his department’s second-term job would be “to support the bold and transformational reforms at the state and local level that so many of you have pursued during the last four years.” There was also talk that Obama-Duncan might focus more on preschool and higher education, both less controversial than their K-12 agenda. But even if this does pan out, Race to the Top has given the administration’s suite of ill-conceived reforms a life of its own. As seen on election night and as indicated in Duncan’s speech, the main action has moved to the state and local arenas.

The rescue of public education must come from the grassroots, from a coalition led by parents and teachers. Such a movement has been taking shape gradually and gained visibility during the 2012 election cycle. The number of education-related campaigns has increased as ed reformers try to entrench their policies in law. In addition to the familiar battles over school funding, there are votes on charter schools, the content of teacher contracts, vouchers, and union rights (the four largest unions in the United States represent teachers and other public sector workers). Disregarded in the past, elections for school boards and superintendents have become major battles. This year’s education votes were high-profile within individual states, fiercely fought, and outlandishly expensive; some attracted national attention. Public education supporters won some impressive victories and suffered several bitter disappointments.

Here is a review of some pivotal votes, who supported what, and why...

http://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/what-happened-to-public-education-on-election-night

[AnotherMcIntosh]

1. They know exactly what they are doing. They are harvesting public assets.

[limpyhobbler]

2. I hear next to nothing about this issue.

There are just so many fronts in the war on people, it's hard to keep track anymore.

[HiPointDem]

3. shock & awe -- you're supposed to just give up & hide under the bed

[limpyhobbler]

5. The 1% have jumped the shark. This show stopped being funny a long time ago.

[HiPointDem]

6. i wonder sometimes if they're doing it on purpose to bring chaos & revolution & restructure

the globe? the new corporate world order, you know?

it's kind of weird how hard they're pushing, *everywhere,* for policies which are going to turn the populace against governments.

i went to my credit union today and a chance remark started the teller off on a story about how her husband has been underemployed at his (blue collar) job since 2008, whereas before he was making good money and lots of OT, the kids' daycare eats up so much of their paychecks, all the other potential caregivers are working for jobs with no retirement so will probably be working until they die, etc.

i wouldn't have expected that there.

[limpyhobbler]

8. I think they have just gone round the bend.

People with real power live in a totally separate isolated world. They never have to interact with us so it's like we only exist on TV or something.

If they hear 40,000 people have been made homeless by a storm in New York City, to them that's the same as if they hear 40,000 people have been made homeless in China, or Africa.

They have no connection to reality.

[HiPointDem]

9. +1.

[woo me with science]

4. K&R We are bought and sold.

[TheKentuckian]

7. The less churchy version of Walmart education was selected.