Progressive Reading List on Education, Privatization, and Race

These articles would be great for LAUSD Vice President Yolie Flores Aguilar. Too bad she doesn't seem to read anything other than memos from 350 South Figueroa St.

Herbert Kohl - Good Stuff: An Open Letter to Arne Duncan

Obama's Public Education Policy: Privatization, Charters, Mass Firings, Neighborhood Destabilization
From Dixon's brilliant piece:

"Privatization is the goal. The targets of school privatization are not supposedly underperforming students and teachers. The target is democracy itself. Private interests are just that – private. Turning public schools over to private interests frustrates even the possibility of democracy. Charter school apologists often claim that greater parental involvement is a hallmark of their model. But to the extent that it is true at all, it's involvement of a select group of parents, and not open to those of the entire community. Charter schools undermine what is left of community."

The Selling of School Reform

The Wall Street Journal published an obsequious piece entitled "Obama's Charter Stimulus." The piece is chock full of lies about charters outperforming traditional public schools. It goes on to call the backward, reactionary, and teach to the test methodologies preferred by the Secretary of Education reforms. Small wonder the mouthpiece of business and the employing class is unequivocally pro-charter!