Will Michigan be the first to privatize public education?

Ever since Rick Snyder soft-talked his way into the governorship in Michigan, throwing the doors wide open for his biggest donors, the Mackinac Center, ALEC and the Koch Brothers (All for One and One for All against the Rest of Us), I've grown used to reading the craziest stuff imaginable about my beautiful state.

I mean, it's been special.

That bunch almost got away with the wholesale takeover of entire communities, using the ruse of a revised, blatantly unconstitutional Emergency Manager law, but--many, many thanks to the voters (and, of course, to the efforts of Chris Savage at Eclectablog and his direct line to the great Rachel Maddow)--it looks like at least this one attack on our democracy may be defeated.  And at the polls, yet.  Woo Hoo! (Okay, it's not over yet.  They're fighting it, because, you know, screw the constitution.)

But, true to form, Snyder, the Republican majority legislature, and the Tyrannical Triad (All for One and One for All. . .) have already turned their misguided attentions to the other Big Thing on their agenda:  public education.  They want it gone.  For good.  Not just relegated to second banana in favor of schools-for-nothing-but-profit, but out of there.

They're meeting today to discuss the pros and pros of doing away with our educational system, and it's not likely any of us who are horrified at the thought of privatizing our venerable, free, fair system of ensuring an adequate education for every breathing kid in America will have any impact, no matter what we say or do. 

The superintendent of Bloomfield Hills Schools, Rob Glass, grew alarmed enough at this latest assault to send a letter home to the parents, advising them of the proposed takeover attempt.  Bloomfield Hills houses a fair share of one-to-ten-percenters and is the home town of one Mitt Romney.  Cranbrook Academy, the tony private prep school where Mitt and Anne Romney met as students, is in Bloomfield Hills.  But the school superintendent is, thankfully, a public school advocate--a hero for all children--who may just have put his job on the line by exposing the upcoming actions of the governor and his cohorts. 

Read his entire letter to the parents here.  He says, in part (my highlights):

I’ve never considered myself a conspiracy theorist—until now. This package of bills is the latest in a yearlong barrage of ideologically-driven bills designed to weaken and defund locally-controlled public education, handing scarce taxpayer dollars over to for-profit entities operating under a different set of rules. I believe this is fundamentally wrong. State School Superintendent Mike Flanagan and State Board of Education President John Austin and others have also expressed various concerns, as has the Detroit Free Press.
We embrace change, innovation and personalization.We’re passionate about providing choices and options for students. We compete strongly in the educational marketplace. We must never stop improving. This is not a laissez faire plea to defend the status quo. This is about making sure this tidal wave of untested legislation does not sweep away the valued programs our local community has proudly built into its cherished school system.

Chris Savage at Eclectablog, who cadged quotes (he readily admits) from Brainwrap at Daily Kos, who also published Rob Glass's letter, has more on this. Click here, please, and give it the attention it deserves.  Even if you're not from Michigan.  This is a battle we'll all have to fight before it's over.

 Hard core privateers from the far right have taken over the Republican party and Michigan is Ground Zero for their operations. They won't let up until they've taken it all.  Hundreds of thousands of voters across our beautiful state hit the Republican button and cast their votes for them.  They won and are cruising along on what they see as a mandate because their voters either didn't know or didn't care.  Either excuse is irresponsible and reprehensible.

Trying to do away with public education is nothing new.  It's been going on since public education became the right thing to do in a democracy, but this is the first time in my memory that an end to all that looks possible.

I didn't vote for greedy private interests but my grandchildren and their grandchildren and every other kid depending on free public education will have to pay the price, all because those who did vote for them gave no more thought to it than they would a vote for an "American Idol".  That's not just crazy, it's insane.

Addendum:  Please click onto and sign this petition: (Stop the Takeover of Education in Michigan)

The Test of a Great Teacher (This is not a test.)

As a former student who froze at test-taking time, no matter how hard I studied and no matter how sure I was that I would ace it this time (but never did), I was horrified when "No Child Left Behind," a plan linking school funding with student testing, became the law of the land. 

I no doubt learned at least a few things in school, but nobody would ever have guessed it at the time, so lousy was I at test taking.  As a result of my inevitable brain freeze on the very days when I needed it the most, my grades were awful and I spent years feeling dumber than dirt.  (There were 140 students in my high school graduating class and when I found that my grades put me in the exact middle, I was ecstatic.  Really.)
  
There are people--my grandson might even be one of them--who probably see testing as surefire proof that kids are learning what they're supposed to learn.  He was the exact opposite of his grandmother:  He was a gifted student who loved the challenge of tests and actually looked forward to them.  He was the kind of kid who, just for fun, would ask his grandfather to make up math problems for him to solve.  I never saw him sweat over tests.  There's something unnatural about that.  Every normal human being (except maybe "Jeopardy" contestants) hates tests.

I worked with Psych interns and residents at the University of Michigan long ago in the Way Back, around the time the University began to understand that brain-blockage at test time was a serious problem.  They recognized that many of their finest hands-on students were falling behind because of a fear of tests, so they began to offer classes in test-taking.  But here's the odd thing:  Hardly anybody, even in Psych, wanted to admit they fell short in the test-taking department, so they wouldn't enroll.  One intern did, and he was furious when the news that he was taking the class leaked out.

There is a stigma attached to failing tests of any kind.  The word "loser" hangs over the results, and if it happens often enough, the one taking the tests can't help but be marked by those failures.  But that's not to say there is no place for tests.  There's nothing wrong with testing to gauge how well a student grasps lessons (she says now), but when the emphasis is on tests and not on learning, it skews the entire process.

And now, when public schools are under constant attack by the Right, there's something more insidious going on:  Now, if test scores fall short, it's not just the fault of the students, it's the fault of the teachers and ultimately the schools. Whatever else gets done in the classroom becomes increasingly meaningless if a student can't answer questions on a test. "No Child Left Behind" has become a vehicle for downgrading public schools and the teachers who serve them in order to promote privately operated schools funded with taxpayer money, often formulated by the states to do nothing more than side-step the demands of the teachers' unions. It's the perfect weapon.  It's near impossible to teach to the test and still produce students who can broaden their learning skills outside of the classroom.  So kids fail, teachers fail, and schools--public schools with open enrollment where all can attend--fail.  And those who have been waiting for public education to keel over and die gain yet another foothold.

Rebecca Mieliwocki, 2012 Teacher of the Year

 So when Rebecca Mieliwocki, 2012 Teacher of the Year, said this in her speech before the NEA last week, I sat up and listened:

When great teachers are asked to focus on test scores and push them to the forefront of our priority list we give kids a warped and weird education that honors neither the depth nor breadth of human knowledge, but it is an absolute turning of our backs on the uniqueness of each individual child we teach and I refuse to do that.

She went on to try and bolster the waning spirits of teachers who find themselves ready targets in the battle over public education.

It's so striking to me that in our ferocious and noble zeal to not leave even one child behind we may have accidentally left all the teachers behind instead.  If we want a transformation in education, if we truly want innovation and reform, we have got to stop talking about testing and start talking more about developing, supporting and celebrating teachers.  Teachers are the architects of the change we've been waiting for.

At that, she got a standing ovation, but remember--she was in a room full of teachers.  Outside that room there await multitudes who think every word coming out of her mouth is hogwash.  Teachers are the new pariahs.  They want to get rich off our kids and want us to pay for it.  They only go into teaching so they can get three months off in the summer.  They're dumb. They're socialists.  And they insist on belonging to unions.


In any profession there are good and bad players. Teaching is no exception.  But teaching as a whole doesn't deserve the reputation it's been getting, and our kids don't deserve the residual backlash. There's nothing subversive about developing, supporting and celebrating teachers.  There is something subversive about turning education into yet another private enterprise.

 So hooray for public schools and warrior-teachers like Rebecca Mieliwocki.  Teaching our kids to think, to create, to be caring, to be bold can only come about when teachers themselves are allowed to be thoughtful, creative, caring and bold.

They know and I know and you know that can't be taught with a test.

 

The Battle for Public Schools - Kids? What kids?

On C-Span's Washington Journal, the question this morning was "Should Public Schools receive a bailout?"  The majority of the callers said no.   I don't know where these people live--offshore, maybe--but My God.  I've lived a good long time, as my creaking joints are so keen on reminding me, but how long do I have to go on being amazed and chagrined that even now, even in the 21st century, forces from the dark side are still working on getting us out of the edjamacation business?

(By the way, what's the matter with C-Span?  Am I the only one who's noticing a definite Republican bent to their questions, their newspaper choices, and their programming?  The C in C-Span stands for Conservative these days.  Their idea of Fair and Balanced is moving suspiciously closer to the Fox's lair. That's a pity.)

These days we're looking, talking and acting more and more like some comic's version of a third world country, but so far we've kept the mercenaries at bay when it comes to our most sacrosanct obligation--basic education for all.  The Right Wing in our country have been beating their gums for eons now about the need to turn public schools over to private interests, but so far we've been able to brush them off like the nasty little gnats they are.

They can't rightly come out and admit that their idea of absolute nirvana is a wholly-privatized, for-profit, non-regulated society, so they latch onto the one guaranteed button-pusher:  taxes.  They use the threat of more taxes going to unworthy (read "socialist") causes as their reasons for denying every kid a chance at the American dream.  They know their audience well.  Dreams are for suckers when it comes to doling out their tax dollars.  Who wants to pay more taxes for anything?  Not we.  Cut the funding!  Kill the unions!  Minimum wage for teachers!  Pack those kids into the classrooms!  No free lunches!  Leave no child behind except yours!

 Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, wrote a piece that found its way into the Wall Street Journal, (yes, truly) in which she makes the plea for more government funding.

According to a survey of more than 80% of school districts by the American Association of School Administrators, 275,000 teachers and other school staff will receive pink slips. It's not that these schools will educate fewer children, or that students won't need the personnel and programs that will be cut. But the cuts could rob an entire generation of students of the well-rounded education they need and deserve. Class sizes will swell, and students will lose important classes and programs, such as art, music, physical education, Advanced Placement classes, and counseling and intervention programs for those who need the most help.

Nowhere does she use the word "bailout", but the headline shreiks it.   It's a convenient word--it suggests we taxpayers have a choice.  Should we or shouldn't we keep funding our schools?  Will we or won't we bail them out?

Bail them out from what?  Ourselves?  Our neglect?  Our contempt?   What a sorry state we're in if the best we can do for our schools is to threaten to put them on the auction block if they don't behave. 

The funding for public schools should never be in question.  If you want a voice in how schools use taxpayer funds, fine--do it from within, at the local level. Work hard to make the schools better.  Give the kids a chance. Our education system is being bullied and battered, and in the end it's the kids who take the blows. (Ironic, isn't it, that it's the Family Values mob doing the bullying?  And, as with all bullies, they're not about to pick on somebody their own size. )

Ramona