Sometimes it's easy to feel Howard Blume and other Los Angeles Times staffers have moved from 202 W. 1st St. to 350 South Figueroa St. This suspicion is heightened with the publishing of today's editorial Rewriting the Three Rs. When I read the piece I wondered if those Rs were Reaction, Redaction, and Robbery, since the editorial is nothing more than a fluff piece arguing against public education and for neo-liberal privatization. While there are several concepts floated in the article which we could argue with, there was one glaring one that I saw as having to be addressed. I wrote a lengthy response to the editorial, only to notice afterwards there was a 650 character limit imposed on comments. Hence the abbreviated version which immediately follows, and then initial response I wrote to the editorial.
This editorial states "Given a level playing field, UTLA's best strategy for creating union jobs at these schools would be to submit unbeatable proposals for running them," while omitting EMO/CMO/corporate charters receive massive additional funding from privatizers. The Waltons, Gates, Broads, and right wing ideologues recognizing charters as a way to eliminate affirmative action, crush unions, and to advance their voucher ideas provide huge grants to charter operators like Green Dot. Some "level playing field." The editorial then goes on to insinuate that parents, teachers, and communities would somehow be able to compete with such forces.
My original response surpassed their character limit
When this editorial states "Given a level playing field, UTLA's best strategy for creating union jobs at these schools would be to submit unbeatable proposals for running them," it's omitting a major fact about EMOs, CMOs, and corporate charters--namely they receive massive additional funding from deep pocketed right wing foundations and so called philanthropists. The Waltons, Gates, Broads, and other right wing ideologues recognizing charters as a way to eliminate affirmative action, crush unions, and to advance their voucher ideas provide astronomical amounts of cash to select charter operators. Witness corporate charter darling Green Dot, which recently received multi-million dollar grants from Eli Broad and the Gates Foundation. Some "level playing field."
Omitting this fact and calling the resolution anything other than a corporate bailout is disingenuous at best, and downright deceptive at worse. At least the article is honest enough to mention the massive advantage Barr, Petruzi, and Austin's money making "juggernaut" has over what it terms "small but visionary competitors." However, the editorial then goes on to insinuate that parents, teachers, and communities would somehow be able to compete with such forces.
The same business buzzword bingo of "competition," "innovation," "choice," and others which litter Vice President Flores Aguilar's resolution were the same rationales used to dismantle the Glass-Steagall Act. We were told competition would both reform and revolutionize the housing market. Except for Goldman Sachs and few others, we know how that turned out. There's nothing progressive about applying these concepts to education, and we can expect the same outcome.
We see the sense of urgency with which privatizers including LAUSD VP Flores Aguilar and DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee are trying to push through these reactionary and backward measures. Could this coincide with all the press pointing to evidence of hyper-inflated, exaggerated, and outright doctored figures surrounding the record of the Secretary of Education and his alleged "innovations" in Chicago Public Schools? With the truth beginning to surface about how these ideas actually work in practice, especially their tendency to exacerbate segregation, corporate sponsors of this Orwellian-named "Public School Choice: A New Way at LAUSD" resolution see this as an important window of opportunity that will quickly loose any public support if people were to investigate it.
I may add more to this post and add some links quite soon.
Unfortunately, it's not overly paranoid or suspicious to wonder if the journalists hyping charters so breathlessly have their future careers firmly in mind. The news business is crumbling, and they're well aware that the charter-school biz is rolling in money. Former education reporters for both the Oakland Tribune and the San Francisco Examiner now make their living as executives in the charter school world. The mainstream reporters who HAVE taken a hard look at charter schools have undoubtedly cut that career path off for themselves.
ReplyDeleteIt's sad, but these are desperate times in the newsroom and it's probably understandable.