SIROTA: The bait and switch of school "reform" (teachers are the bad guys & WALL ST. the good?!)

[yurbud]

Sirota nailed it. If anyone stops and thinks about it, could any idea be as absurd as portraying hedge fund managers, real estate moguls, software companies, and RUPERT MURDOCH as selfless, altruistic, and more concerned about kids than public school teachers who sign up for the job knowing that the wealthy have pinned a ''kick me'' sign on their ass and have their jobs in their crosshairs?

The real problem with killing this education reform snake oil is they have done a good job keeping their profit motive off the MSM. Anytime a teachers' union rep or anyone else talks about this with the press or broadcast media, their first, last, and only words out of their mouths on this should be that the advocates of reform have a profit motive, and give some examples of them cashing in.

Otherwise, you'll soon be dropping your kids of at Amway Elementary, McDonald's Middle School, and Home Depot High.

David Sirota
Monday, Sep 12, 2011 13:39 ET
The bait and switch of school "reform"
Behind the new corporate agenda for education lurks the old politics of profit and self-interest

Like most education reporters today, Brill frames the issue in simplistic, binary terms. On one side are self-interested teachers unions who supposedly oppose fundamental changes to schools, not because they care about students, but because they fear for their own job security and wages, irrespective of kids. In this mythology, they are pitted against an alliance of extraordinarily wealthy corporate elites who, unlike the allegedly greedy unions, are said to act solely out of the goodness of their hearts. We are told that this "reform" alliance of everyone from Rupert Murdoch to the Walton family to leading hedge funders spends huge amounts of money pushing for radical changes to public schools because they suddenly decided that they care about destitute children, and now want to see all kids get a great education.

The dominant narrative, in other words, explains the fight for the future of education as a battle between the evil forces of myopic selfishness (teachers) and the altruistic benevolence of noblesse oblige (Wall Street). Such subjective framing has resulted in reporters, pundits and politicians typically casting the "reformers'" arguments as free of self-interest, and therefore more objective and credible than teachers' counterarguments.

***

As the Texas Observer recently reported in its exposé of one school-focused mega-corporation, "in the past two decades, an education-reform movement has swept the country, pushing for more standardized testing and accountability and for more alternatives to the traditional classroom -- most of it supplied by private companies."

A straightforward example of how this part of the profit-making scheme works arose just a few months ago in New York City. There, Rupert Murdoch dumped $1 million into a corporate "reform" movement pushing to both implement more standardized testing and divert money for education fundamentals (hiring teachers, buying textbooks, maintaining school buildings, etc.) into testing-assessment technology. At the same time, Murdoch was buying an educational technology company called Wireless Generation, which had just signed a lucrative contract with New York City's school system (a sweetheart deal inked by New York City school official Joel Klein, who immediately went to work for Murdoch.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2011/09/12/reformmoney/index.html

[Smarmie Doofus]

1. Best opening paragraph in an OP this month:

>>>Sirota nailed it. If anyone stops and thinks about it, could any idea be as absurd as portraying hedge fund managers, real estate moguls, software companies, and RUPERT MURDOCH as selfless, altruistic, and more concerned about kids than public school teachers who sign up for the job knowing that the wealthy have pinned a ''kick me'' sign on their ass and have their jobs in their crosshairs?>>>


Deeeeeee-vine.

Such wordsmith-ery should penetrate even the thickest of skulls.

Let's see.

[vi5]

2. The real problem yet again.....

IS THAT THE FUCKING DEMOCRATS HAVE ACCEPTED REPUBLICAN FRAMING ON THE ISSUE!!!!!!!!!!

Yet again we have a group of Democrats, particularly ones in leadership positions who rather than calling bullshit and saying "No! The Republican framing of this issue is WRONG, WRONG, WRONG and we won't stand for it. We stand with and behind teachers, public schools, and the teachers union!!!!" they go "Well, yes we agree that there is a problem and maybe there's room for us to discuss this and meet in the middle" only to get pulled to the far right on it.

And our wonderful president and his cronies Arne Duncan and Michele Rhea are just putting pedal to the medal in their rush to out-Republican the Republicans on this whole issu.

[COLGATE4]

6. The Democrats have ALWAYS accepted the Rethug framing

of every major issue during Obama's adminisration without so much as a whimper. "Death Taxes". "Death Panels" "Obamacare" "School Choice" "States Rights", etc., etc. etc, ad nauseam. They have their psy-ops wordsmiths like Frank Luntz, Shamity, Pig Boy and company shouting the framing out 24/7 thru the megaphone of Fux cable and RW Hate Radio, while what we have is Democrats like Rham Emanuel telling us to STFU. No wonder the public is confused.

[yurbud]

11. if people end up liking health care reform, the right will regret making up ''Obamacare''

I have a feeling Obama already gets a satisfied chuckle out of that.

It could end up being like calling World War II ''FDR's War'' (and I'm not all that enthusiastic about the way health care reform turned out).

[yurbud]

10. I realized I hadn't included at when it was too late to edit. There is a problem, but

letting the people who created it by destroying our tax base dictate the solution is not the way to fix it.

[vi5]

12. But the problem is not the unions...

..and that's what "our side" has accepted as the framing of this issue. Rather than pointing out that unions are the only thing standing in the way of them making the actual problem worse.

The problem is poverty. The problem is the lack of parental involvement and/or accountability that such poverty engenders and allows.

But then that would force our side to stand up for working people and against the wealthy corporate interests. Which they refuse to do.

[yurbud]

16. it is not that the pols have been convinced of anything except that the rich can grease their palms

better than unions can.

When you dig into the details of just about any policy, you quickly realize that most pols are sociopaths who don't give a rats ass if the legislation they pass helps or hurts or even kills anyone in particular other than whoever paid them to pass it and who will reward them with a job or at least some insider tips when they leave office.

[Bozita]

3. Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives...

Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all. - John Maynard Keynes

[yurbud]

9. keynes gives liberalism a good name.

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. So wonderful to see this posted here

Thank you.

There has to be an end to this crap. I am so sick of being everyone's favorite whipping post.

[Dawson Leery]

5. k/r

[applegrove]

7. I realized the corporations were in a massive bait and switch when

the GOP were angry with democrats emotional and democratic responce to Paul Wellstones funeral. I knew at that time that the corporatists would one day claim that human emotion is wasted on people...human emotion should be used only in ads on the tv. :sarcasm:

Give em a chance and they'll make that so. They already put ads on the tv regarding people's fear of losing jobs.

[yurbud]

8. they will patent emotions and you'll have to pay royalties when you have one

[applegrove]

13. I'm sure they've dreamed of it all ready.

[saras]

14. Where are the parents?

Are there really that many American parents who are willing to send their children to corporate indoctrination instead of school?

[yurbud]

17. sadly, charters can have one advantage that makes involved parent favor them:

Charters don't have to accept disruptive kids or special ed ones, so for average or better students, they can be a safe haven, which makes it surprising that charters don't outscore regular public schools more since public schools are handicapped with having to educate everyone who shows up.

[Bozita]

15. The "Shock Doctrine" comes to your neighborhood classroom - David Sirota, Salon

This fits nicely with the article in the OP.


TUESDAY, SEP 6, 2011 14:01 ET
The "Shock Doctrine" comes to your neighborhood classroom
Corporate reformers use the fiscal crisis and campaign contributions to hype an unproven school agenda
BY DAVID SIROTA


"Let's hope the fiscal crisis doesn't get better too soon. It'll slow down reform." -- Tom Watkins, a consultant, summarizes the corporate education reform movement's current strategy to the Sunday New York Times.

The Shock Doctrine, as articulated by journalist Naomi Klein, describes the process by which corporate interests use catastrophes as instruments to maximize their profit. Sometimes the events they use are natural (earthquakes), sometimes they are human-created (the 9/11 attacks) and sometimes they are a bit of both (hurricanes made stronger by human-intensified global climate change). Regardless of the particular cataclysm, though, the Shock Doctrine suggests that in the aftermath of a calamity, there is always corporate method in the smoldering madness - a method based in Disaster Capitalism.

Though Klein's book provides much evidence of the Shock Doctrine, the Capitalists rarely come out and acknowledge their strategy. That's why Watkins' outburst of candor, buried in this front-page New York Times article yesterday, is so important: It shows that the recession and its corresponding shock to school budgets is being used by corporations to maximize revenues, all under the gauzy banner of "reform."

Some background: The Times piece follows a recent Education Week report showing that as U.S. school systems are laying off teachers, letting schoolhouses crumble, and increasing class sizes, high-tech firms are hitting the public-subsidy jackpot thanks to corporate "reformers'" successful push for more "data-driven" standardized tests (more on that in a second) and more technology in the classrooms. Essentially, as the overall spending pie for public schools is shrinking, the piece of the pie for high-tech companies -- who make big campaign contributions to education policymakers -- is getting much bigger, while the piece of the pie for traditional education (teachers, school infrastructure, text books, etc.) is getting smaller.

more...
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/feature/2011/09/06/shockreform