Thoughts on "Are Money and Profit Behind the Charter School Fever?"

"In one generation, we have completely reversed our idea of what a teacher should be from a humanizing mentor to someone who coaches kids through their first bureaucracy — Sean Leys (Social Justice Educator)

Yvette Carnell's Are Money and Profit Behind the Charter School Fever? piece on the Huffington Post was both excellent in content, honesty, and was a breath of fresh air given the site's constant pro-privatization stance. Remember, this is the same Huffington Post that prints charter charlatan Ben Austin's mendacity without fact checking and then censors all comments contrary to his lies. We all know what Austin thinks about parents that don't fit his idealized notions.

Carnell does a masterful job at pointing out the deep-seated greed of those in the charter-voucher school sector, and the real underlying motives of the cynical propaganda piece by Davis Guggenheim. Carnell calls out Oprah's one sided CMO/EMO charter-voucher school infomercial.

She even has the courage to call out fraud and millionaire Geoffrey Canada:

...aided by Geoffrey Canada of the Harlem Children's Zone, one of charter school's biggest advocates, who hustles American Express credit cards in television ads. The advertisement only highlights charter school's connection to free market principles. [1]

Carnell's short, but brilliant piece opened an interesting dialog. I had the following comments:

This marriage of discredited free market principals and charter-voucher schools is so intertwined, charters indoctrinate students with market ideology. While rich kids are taught critical thinking skills, inner city children are taught to "work hard and be nice." As Freire said, "Problem posing education does not and cannot serve the interests of the oppressor." It's no wonder the Broad, Gates, Ducan, Guggenheim, and Walton cabal are pushing charters so hard.

For example Green Dot Public [sic] Schools' original Alain Leroy Locke Charter High School petition contained language requiring students "demonstrate a belief in the value of capitalism." This was until Professor Ralph Shaffer wrote LAUSD demanding the disgusting language be addressed. Rather reluctantly LAUSD asked corporate behemoth Green Dot to remove their propagandistic and indoctrinatory language. After much resistance (AIG bailout recipient Eli Broad is their secondary funder) Green Dots' Daniel Chang, wrote a high handed screed to LAUSD and Prof. Shaffer with an official letter petitioning for the corporate charter capitalism love-fest language to be changed. Green Dot Public [sic] Schools' original Alain Leroy Locke Charter High School petition

Even more offensive are the extreme right wing reactionaries running American Indian Model Schools in Oakland. This school, which takes public funds, forces students to take a pledge to capitalism including the phrase "productive members in a free-market capitalist society." Time to regulate what charters are teaching

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NOTES
[1] Emphasis mine.