Listen to This #11

IDIOCRACY IN ACTION

In 2009, Don McLeroy, then Chairman of the Texas State Board of Education, said, "Somebody's got to stand up to experts that...I don't know why they're doing it..."

Stand up to experts...because they have "expertise." Why on Earth would we listen to people who are trained in a particular field and who, through research and study, have learned more than the rest of us?

McLeroy was railing against scientists who had the gall to suggest that they knew more about science than he did. And McLeroy's attitude, which has been drifting through America for centuries, is on the rise again, and is responsible, at least in part, for the election of President Donald ("I love the poorly educated") Trump.

Jim Wright says we've traded our moon ships for the Creation Museum. Carl Sagan was prescient in his 1996 interview.

The Later Days of a Better Nation, Part IV

From Jim Wright

Somewhere in the last half a century, we Americans traded Apollo moon ships for the Creation Museum and the ugly truth of the matter is that Donald Trump is a reflection of who we’ve become as a nation.

Trump is the utterly predictable result of decades of an increasingly dumber and dumber electorate. A deliberately dumber electorate, Idiocracy in action, a society that dismisses intelligence and education and experience as “elitism” while howling in drunken mirth at Honey Boo Boo and lighting their farts on fire.

...Trump is the result of a nation that glories in ignorance, manipulated by conspiracy theory and a primal fear of the dark, that embraces monkey violence and cowers from the unknown future with bluster and bared teeth and a gun clenched in one fist, instead of looking forward with quiet courage, head up, feet wide, braced and ready with curiosity and confident they are prepared to handle anything that might come along.

Trump is the result of a nation that traded the moon for the Creation Museum.

Carl Sagan's last interview with Charlie Rose (Full Interview)

From Carl Sagan

In his last interview (go to 3:55 for this quote), Carl Sagan warned (1996),

Science is more than a body of knowledge. It is a way of thinking; a way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility.

If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then, we are up for grabs for the next charlatan (political or religious) who comes ambling along.

The charlatans are here...it's time to step up.

EXPERIENCE MATTERS

Senator from Louisiana spends summer recess substitute teaching in home state

Speaking of experts...who are America's education experts? The media and general public apparently believes that the answer to that question is "billionaires" and "textbook publishers." Here's a politician who disagrees. This Louisiana Senator has discovered that education is not just "telling them what they need to know."

From Senator John Kennedy (R-Louisiana)

Every single person who makes policy for elementary and secondary education needs to substitute teach once a year.

Teaching the heart as well as the mind: Caring, kind adults can make all the difference

Instead of damaging the teaching profession with punitive laws which lower salaries, reduce teachers' control over their classrooms, and allow anyone with 5 weeks (or less) of training to stand up in front of students, we ought to be improving the working conditions of teachers in order to attract those people who are willing to devote their lives to preparing the nation's future.

From Phyllis Bush in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette

Those who want to fix teachers and kids seem to forget that all of the testing and all of the online learning and all of the latest technology and all of the moronic plans of those who have no idea about what is instructionally or developmentally appropriate have little to do with children.

NO MONEY WITHOUT SUPPORT

A Message to the Democratic National Committee

How would Democrats respond if the two largest teachers unions asked for something in return for their political support? Diane Ravitch has the answer we should all give when asked to donate to a political campaign.

From Diane Ravitch

Not a dime until you support public schools and oppose privatization.

OPPORTUNITY

Lily Eskelsen García: Education is not Uber

In my last post, I wrote,

Would a wealthy family send their child to a public school without a library? Would you be able to find a white suburban school without a playground or gymnasium? How about a music program?

Why do we expect poor families to accept poor facilities and understaffed schools?

From Lily Eskelsen García

Anyone could do this without a federal grant. Go in to the best public schools in your state...Go in. Walk around and see what they've got there to help those kids: gifted programs, athletics, arts. They've got a library. They've got a librarian...and they've got the staff and they've got the programs. Kids have access and opportunity.

TESTING

Retiring Monroe Schools superintendent blasts education officials

We're still wasting millions of dollars annually on useless tests...

From Phil Cagwin in the Journal-News (Ohio)

“There also seems to be the expectation that our teachers should focus more on the common core standards and test results than on our children. Our teachers are not threatened by accountability, but when they are expected to teach to tests that have no value to instruction, and that change constantly, it seems such a waste of valuable time for quality student and teacher interaction, not to mention the millions of taxpayer dollars that funnel to the test making and scoring companies,” said Cagwin.

MONEY TALKS

Betsy DeVos: Trump's illiberal ally seen as most dangerous education chief ever

DeVos is what happens when money runs the country instead of the people.

From David Smith, in The Guardian

What DeVos – a 59-year-old entrepreneur, philanthropist and former chair of the Michigan Republican party – lacks in expertise or charisma, she makes up for in money...

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2017 Medley #25

Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Preschool,
Teachers Subsidizing School Programs,
ALEC, DeVos, Charters,
Can We all Agree on This?

DEVELOPMENTALLY APPROPRIATE PRACTICE

Preschool Reading Instruction and Developmentally Appropriate Practice. Can You Have Both?

In our test-crazed society, where we have elevated the flawed process of standardized testing to the point where it has become the end-all of education, we have also lost our understanding of the learning process. Learning to read doesn't mean worksheets, bubble tests, and disconnected lessons on phonics and word analysis. It means building the understanding of the written word beginning in infancy: right to left, top to bottom, the understanding of story, and dozens of other concepts built by talking to children, allowing them to play with books, and reading aloud.

Developmentally appropriate literacy instruction doesn't mean teaching 4 and 5 year olds test prep!

To take learning standards appropriate for 8-year-olds and push them down to kindergarteners at large would be inappropriate, not advanced. At the same time, the idea that literacy should simply wait until children are suited to conventional reading standards is equally flawed.

A TEACHER SUBSIDIZES THE STATE

Kansas City Teacher Darryl Chamberlin Creates Youth Orchestra With his Own Money

Would a wealthy family send their child to a public school without a library? Would you be able to find a white suburban school without a playground or gymnasium? How about a music program?

Here is yet another teacher subsidizing a state which, as is often the case, inadequately funds schools for children of color. This is an exceptional story, yet this is the sort of thing teachers do all the time.

Darryl Chamberlain was determined to create a youth orchestra come hell or high water. In these uncertain times, where public school budget cuts are impacting African American students perhaps more than ever before, Chamberlain, a history teacher in Kansas City, Missouri, began thinking out of the box.

Chamberlain wants to change young lives through music but he had limited resources. So with the money he received playing piano in local churches, Chamberlain bought 70 used instruments, some from pawn shops, and cleaned them up for the students in his class.The result: The A-Flat Orchestra.

THE WAR AGAINST PUBLIC EDUCATION: ALEC

ALEC’s Attack on Public Education: A Report from the Frontlines

DeVos's selfishness is a perfect fit for a selfish America.

...DeVos’s philosophy was illuminated most by her quote of another former Education Secretary—Margaret Thatcher. The quote: “But who is society? There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first.”

DeVos, like most of the people at ALEC, dismisses the collective good in favor of the individual benefit. Our public education system was designed to collectively educate the masses, in hopes that democracy would thrive. Her priority, and ALEC’s agenda, are otherwise.

THE WAR AGAINST PUBLIC EDUCATION: DEVOS

A Very Serious Thank You Letter to Betsy DeVos

Here is a blogger who reminds us of the good that Betsy DeVos has done...

...you have single-handedly placed public education and its importance back into the national dialogue. And the longer you stay in your office and continue your nebulous approach to privatizing public education, you will convince more people that the need to support public schooling really is important.

PRIVATIZATION: CHARTERS

Charter School Lobby Panics as NAACP Rejects For-Profit Schools

How upset are the privatizers by the NAACP's critique of privatization in the form of charter schools? Schools should be for children, not for profit.

...the report, titled “Quality Education for All: One School at a Time,” basically says nothing more revolutionary than that all public schools should be transparent and accountable.

That includes charter schools.

“Public schools must be public,” the report states. “They must serve all children equitably and well. To the extent that they are part of our public education system, charter schools must be designed to serve these ends.”

TWISTING THE PAST

No Man’s Land

Jim Wright, and his Stonekettle Station blog, are always good for thought-provoking, insightful comments. This piece takes issue with the "slavery apologists" who, in order to relieve the cognitive dissonance of approving of Trump and the racist and anti-semitic fools who support him, find ways to say that "slavery wasn't really so bad."

Can we all agree that slavery was/is evil? Can we all agree that owning and selling human beings is wrong? Apparently not.

Wright's posts are usually very long - and this one is no exception - but it's well worth the time it takes to read.

Slavery, that’s evil. Horrible. Immoral. Wrong.

Agreed? I mean, we are all agreed on this, aren’t we?

I honestly thought that would be the one thing we Americans could all agree on.

Black, white, yellow, red, gay, straight, left, right, liberal, conservative, Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Christian, Muslim, Jew, atheist, Biggie, Tupac, whatever we identify as, I thought that would be the one thing we Americans could agree on without caveat.

Slavery sucks.

Slavery is bad.

Slavery is an evil blot on American history.

Slavery will always be our eternal shame as a nation. We can surely all agree on that, can’t we? 

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Cognitive Dissonance and other Random Thoughts

KUSHNER

I'd like to ask Jared Kushner, the grandson of holocaust survivors, how he handles the cognitive dissonance of a father-in-law who won't distance himself from nazis.

American Jews (ought to) feel some reaction to nazi and racist symbols. I remember vividly the anger in my Hebrew teacher's voice when he told us that "their symbol" represented "the death of six million Jews."

Jews can't stand idly by while people are being denied their human rights...not after what happened to us. We, among all people, should know that to deny one group their rights is to deny us all.

I'm a child of the generation of Jews who survived the nazi attempt at "the final solution." I'm glad my parents and grandparents aren't alive to see what's happening.

THE PRESIDENT

It’s Getting Harder To Ignore

Trump’s loyalists are America’s White Nationalists, Nazis and racists. We’re about to see just how many of these despicable people there are.

When the President Is Un-American

Whatever role foreign influence may have played and may still be playing, however, we don’t need to wonder whether an anti-American cabal, hostile to everything we stand for, determined to undermine everything that truly makes this country great, has seized power in Washington. It has: it’s called the Trump administration.

FOUNDING FATHERS

Racism and bigotry have been part of the American consciousness since its founding.

Except for the John, and John Quincy Adams, every one of the first 12 American presidents were slaveholders. Every. Single. One.

Forty-one of the fifty-six signers of the Declaration of Independence were slave holders at some time during their lives.

Jefferson, who owned slaves throughout his life, wrote,

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Humans have an amazing ability to compartmentalize their thoughts.

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS

For a long time it was socially unacceptable to be a public bigot...to show your face as a nazi or klansman. Now, that seems to be just another "political correctness" that Trump has ended.

Other things that used to be taboo because of political correctness...

• grab women by the genitals, because you're a star
• make fun of someone who is disabled
• tell your supporters to "knock the crap out of" someone who disagrees with you
• chant, "Jews will not replace us."

ADDENDUM

A Letter from the President of Congregation Beth Israel in Charlottesville

This is 2017 in the United States of America.

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Listen to This #10: Charlottesville

ANOTHER TERRORIST ATTACK

...this time by an American fascist.

People destroyed by terrorism – and here I include the perpetrators as well as the victims – are victims of one of the oldest problems faced by humans – tribalism.

Whether it's religious tribalism (the Crusades), nationalistic tribalism (Aryan "race" vs. the "other"), or idealogical tribalism (the Union vs. the Confederacy), it is a large and apparently permanent part of human society.

Tribalism is pervasive, and it controls a lot of our behavior, readily overriding reason.

In ancient times, when danger threatened, we would gather in our tribal group for safety...there is strength in numbers...and defend ourselves against the enemy – the other tribe(s). They were to blame for our hardships. They took our land, stole our livestock, and threatened our children. They were "different" and threatened "our way of life."

In the modern world, especially during difficult economic times, the tendency is to blame the "others" for our hardship. In 1932, in Berlin, it was the Jews. In 1950 it was the Soviet Communists. In 1964 it was the Chinese Communists. In 2000 it was the "radical islamists."

And it's always the "immigrants."

WE ARE ALL AFRICANS

Evolution teaches us that homo sapiens first arose in Africa...all of us, therefore, originate from Africa.

Every white person in America is a descendent of European immigrants (or is, herself, a European immigrant).

Yet, Conservative Republicans, without a hint of irony, argue for more stringent or more limited immigration. Indeed, the ancestors of many current administration members, including both the President and Vice-President, would have been turned away at the gate under their own proposed immigration rules. Other white Americans trace their ancestry back to European immigrants who violently and ruthlessly ejected or eliminated the native American population. In other words, no "white" Americans can claim ancient ancestry on this land. We're all immigrants.

The racists who marched in Charlottesville fight, they say, for the survival of the "white race" and "white civilization." Yet, biologically, we're all connected. All our ancestors migrated from Africa. Our DNA is the same. We are one species. Our genetic differences are unimportant.

It's tribalism. Primitive. Fear of "the other." Ignorance.

REACTIONS TO CHARLOTTESVILLE

What follows is a small sampling of the outrage, venting, and emotion-laden posts by both education and non-education bloggers.

Faced with the domestic terrorism at Charlottesville, Betsy DeVos fails another test

What should Betsy DeVos have said?

From Andre Perry at the Hechinger Report

[DeVos's] generic and woefully insufficient statement effectively sanitized the hate that Nazis, Klan members and so called “alt-right” demonstrators put on full display as they shouted Nazi slogans such as “Sieg Heil” and waved Confederate flags, while carrying military gear. DeVos, the nation’s top teacher (clearly symbolic), failed the basic test of providing leadership to teachers, education officials, as well as counselors on how educate students out of bigotry, white supremacy and violence.

The Battle of Charlottesville

From Diane Ravitch's Blog

H.G. Wells long ago wrote that “civilization is more and more a race between education and catastrophe.” On a day like today, it seems that catastrophe is leading the race.

Addressing Mental Illness in Children During Trying Times

In this post, Nancy Bailey doesn't deal with the specifics of the Charlottesville violence...however, she brings up important questions and thoughts about how we, as teachers, deal with children's mental health issues.

From Nancy Bailey at Nancy Bailey's Education Website

Until there is a school shooting, a suicide, a bullying incident, or a student is arrested for outlandish behavior, and these days that can include very young exasperated children in kindergarten, school officials do little to address the real mental health needs of children. When they do, it is usually in a punitive manner. The incarceration rate of youth is high and the draconian zero tolerance laws leave students with mental health issues lost in a world that cares little about them.

Both Sides

From Doug Masson at A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

...it’s no surprise that these guys (and it seems to be almost entirely male) had an event that came to violence. White supremacists like to talk tough and invoke violent metaphors. Judging from the things you see out of the broad overlap between “Men’s Rights” activists and white supremacists, you see a toxic view of masculinity that regards nonviolent responses to challenges as emasculating. Their beliefs and fragile egos make them almost uniquely unable to co-exist with other ideas or turn the other cheek when confronted.

Consciously Ignorant

From Rob Miller at A View From the Edge

Let’s not try to fool each other. Racism is alive and well in America. To say otherwise would be ignorant of reality. Sometimes it is subtle and unintentional like the examples cited above. Other times it reveals itself as a group of white men parading swastikas, burning torches, and making Nazi hand symbols. Anyhow it reveals itself, it is a stain on our nation.

Far-right protesters gather at University of Virginia

from Charlottesville Mayor Mike Signer

Everyone has a right under the First Amendment to express their opinion peaceably, so here's mine: not only as the Mayor of Charlottesville, but as a UVA faculty member and alumnus, I am beyond disgusted by this unsanctioned and despicable display of visual intimidation on a college campus

Thoughts on Yesterday’s Fascist Rally at UVa

Ed Brayton suggests we read Richard Hofstadter...I concur.

From Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars

This is the inevitable result of the ignorant, populist nationalism that is promoted by Bannon, Gorka, Miller and Trump. When you tap that vein, this is what comes flowing out. Right-wing populism is inextricably tied to fascism, not just in Germany but here too. Every time it has broken out in America, the result has been the mass deaths of racial minorities. Read Richard Hofstadter.

Richard Hofstadter Explains Trump and the Populist Right

...and then he gives us a specific.

In the early 60s, Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Hofstadter traced the tribalism that wended its way through American history. The enemy was always there, he said. Brayton explains...

Immigrants in particular are always a target. Each new wave of immigration brings about a reaction of nativism, bigotry and xenophobia. Irish, Polish, German, Chinese, now Mexican and Latino, or Muslim, all make convenient scapegoats. Demagogues skillfully push the buttons of fear in the minds of those given to such emotions, something that study after study shows maps almost exactly with conservative political ideology. This is just the latest incarnation.

At best, it results in bigotry and violence — at best. At worst, it results in passing laws that allow certain groups to be murdered with impunity and in official state violence, as against Native Americans, Mormons (at one time in at least two states, it was actually legal to kill Mormons), the Chinese and others. It results in throwing people in prison for being anti-war or for protesting for equality and justice, something the constitution was supposed to protect against.

Brayton includes a link to Hofstadter's 1964 piece, The Paranoid Style in American Politics...a must read.

Dear White Supremacists: There Will Be No Race War

Faced with an uprising of hate and fear Steven Singer (gadflyonthewallblog) writes a blog poem to white supremacists. Here's an extended quote...

The face of America is changing. And it’s increasingly brown.

It’s got curly hair and unexpected features. It’s fed by different foods and nourished by different beliefs and customs. And it’s often called by a name that doesn’t derive from Europe.

People are starting to speak up. They’re starting to call you out.

And you don’t like it.

More than that you’re scared. Terrified.

It’s all going to end. The lie you told yourself about being special.

So you huddle together with others just like you, shivering and crying and blowing snot onto each others shoulders pretending that it’s a rally for white pride. It’s really just the world’s biggest pity party for boys too scared to be men and own up.

Addressing Charlottesville In Class If School Met Tomorrow

How did you greet your class this Monday morning? How do you talk to children, of any age, about the divisions in our society? How do you handle hate, bigotry, and prejudice in your classroom?

It's no longer possible to close your classroom door and ignore racism in America – if it ever was. Pretending it doesn't exist doesn't help your students.

From Caffeinated Rage

...I would not field any comments or invite discussion until I had the class do one thing.

On a piece of paper that I would not take up or force them to read in front of the class (unless they wanted to), I would ask them to define the word “HATRED” – its connotations, denotations, and actions associated with it.

Then we would start class.

The People We Are Supposed to Be

NEA's Lily Eskelsen Garcia on talking to children about race – resources included...

Do not shy away from talking about this terrible topic with the young, I beg you. There is, perhaps, nothing harder than a conversation on race. But do it, because how we feel about race; how we react to racism informs how we feel about and react to all other forms of bias and prejudice. Children of all races, religions, all gender attractions and gender identities, of all cultures and social classes must have a safe space to speak and ask questions and wonder and think and be angry and be comforted.

Teaching about race, racism and police violence: Resources for educators and parents

This post from the Answer Sheet was published in July 2016. Need help with the topic of racism in your classroom?

Teaching Tolerance was founded in 1991 as a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center and is dedicated to reducing prejudice and supporting equitable school experiences for all children in America. It provides free educational materials, and its magazine is sent to nearly every school in the country.

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2017 Medley #24: "Government Schools"

The War Against 'Government Schools',
The Myth of Failing Schools

THE WAR AGAINST "GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS"

The War Against America's Public Schools by Gerald Bracey, published 2001. The war continues...

What the ‘Government Schools’ Critics Really Mean

In a New York Times op ed, Katherine Stewart reminds us that the phrase "government schools" carries a negative connotation. She then goes on to connect the phrase to radical market guru Milton Friedman, and before him, Jim Crow.

...in certain conservative circles, the phrase “government schools” has become as ubiquitous as it is contemptuous.

What most people probably hear in this is the unmistakable refrain of American libertarianism, for which all government is big and bad. The point of calling public schools “government schools” is to conjure the specter of pathologically inefficient, power-mad bureaucrats.

To Defend Public Schools, the Hard Left Puts On the Tin Foil Hat

David French, writing in the conservative National Review, responds to Stewart's article and says that the right calls public schools "government schools" because that's what they are.

Public schools are government schools...Too many Americans are stuck in a time warp, believing that the local school is somehow “their” school. They don’t understand that public education is increasingly centralized — teaching a uniform curriculum, teaching a particular, secular set of values, and following priorities set in Washington, not by their local school board. The phrase is helpful for breaking through idealism and getting parents to analyze and understand the gritty reality of modern public education. The phrase works.

Technically, French is correct. Public schools, like any public service, is, by definition, a branch of the "government." That's why governments at most levels have departments of education. That's why school boards are (or should be) elected. That's why teachers can't engage in religious proselytization while they are working and are "agents" of the government.

But it's the negative connotation Stewart wrote of that French promotes in his condescending attempt to support the privatization of public education. While disingenuously claiming that public schools are indeed government schools so the name doesn't mean anything negative, he goes on to use the phrase negatively. He claims that, since public school supporters can't defend the "failing" public schools, we take to name-calling to support our argument.

Even worse for the government-school loyalist, the fight takes place on unfavorable ground. Public schools are failing large segments of the public. They’ve been failing for decades. So rather than defend public schooling on its meager merits, all too many ideologues fall back on the old insults. “Racist!” they cry. “Theocrat!” they yell.

What could be more democratic than choice, he claims, falling back on the old argument that poor children ought to have the same "choices" that wealthy children have...without noting that...

• Vouchers do not pay the whole cost of private school tuition so many of the poorest children are still unable to attend them.

• It is often the schools which do the choosing while feeling perfectly comfortable in denying "choice" to students who are difficult or expensive to teach.

• Milton Friedman notwithstanding, competition doesn't work, and is, in fact, counterproductive when it comes to children's education (see also here, or even better read a random selection of these).

• Privatization has increased racial and economic segregation.

• Vouchers blur the line between the separation of church and state.

Ignoring these facts he begs us not to deny private school excellence over public school failure.

...Spend much time with America’s wealthier families, and it’s not uncommon to see parents with three kids in three different schools. They made choices based on each child’s unique needs. They give their children the best possible chance to succeed. Why deny these choices to poor kids? Should we punish them for their parents’ economic performance? Faced with the difficult task of defending a failing system and limiting parental choice, all too many defenders of government schools fall back on name-calling, conspiracy theories, and their own anti-Christian bigotries. But they can cite Rushdoony all they want. It doesn’t make him relevant. It doesn’t make public schools better. And it certainly doesn’t invalidate the good and decent effort to use greater competition to improve education for everyone — white and black alike.

Three kids in three different schools? What poor family would have the transportation resources for this situation, unless French wants vouchers to cover the cost of taxis, time off work to transport children, or extra cars for kids to transport themselves. Why not? Should we punish those children "for their parents' economic performance?"

Are public schools failing "large segments of the public?" Public schools struggle to effectively educate the shamefully high number of high-poverty students in America because they don't have the money or resources to support them in the way they need to be supported. There aren't enough counselors, nurses, and social workers in high-poverty schools. There aren't enough librarians, books or materials. There isn't enough science equipment. There aren't enough learning specialists. School buildings are in disrepair. And the budget proposed by the current administration in Washington will guarantee that there won't be enough after school programs. [For a good discussion of the needs of public school students see The Schools Chicago’s Students Deserve: Research-based Proposals To Strengthen Elementary And Secondary Education In The Chicago Public Schools by the Chicago Teachers Union.]

Public school advocates are not "faced with the difficult task of defending a failing system." Instead we're faced with the difficult task of responding to the misinformation, deflections, and lies coming from privatizers who deny that poverty has anything to do with low school achievement and that it's the politicians and policy makers who have failed to fully support public education. Policy makers ought to be held responsible by their constituents to provide full public school funding based on the needs of the community. Policy makers ought to be held responsible for relieving the pressures of our society's economic inequality, rather than blaming the victims who are relegated to understaffed, and under-resourced institutions.

And we're not faced with the task of defending a failing system. America's public schools are not failing.

Public schools, when statistics are corrected for demographics, perform better than private schools. The University of Chicago Press reviewers of The Public School Advantage: Why Public Schools Outperform Private Schools, by Christopher and Sarah Lubienski, write,

Private schools have higher scores not because they are better institutions but because their students largely come from more privileged backgrounds that offer greater educational support. After correcting for demographics, the Lubienskis go on to show that gains in student achievement at public schools are at least as great and often greater than those at private ones. Even more surprising, they show that the very mechanism that market-based reformers champion—autonomy—may be the crucial factor that prevents private schools from performing better. Alternatively, those practices that these reformers castigate, such as teacher certification and professional reforms of curriculum and instruction, turn out to have a significant effect on school improvement.

Instead of accusing public school advocates of "anti-Christian" bigotry because we refuse to approve of mixing public tax dollars with religious school education, French ought to get his facts straight.

The Right Wing in America Has Long Tried to Destroy 'Government Schools'

Another discussion of the "government schools" phrase. The people who are working to privatize public education hate government, and because public schools are government sponsored public services, they hate public education, too. This isn't new.

Do they also hate public libraries? public parks? and public water systems? Do they hate the government run military?

...these people are working with a completely different ethical system than the rest of us and a different philosophy, but it's a coherent one and they are pursuing their goals with very strategic, calculating tools.” That's also why the right is so focused on the teachers' unions. It’s not because they are only concerned about the quality of education and think that teachers are blocking that. First of all, this is a cause that hated public education—what they would call government schools; they don’t even want to say public education—before there were teachers' unions.

THE MYTH OF FAILING PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Challenging the myth that public schools are failing is one of the greatest obstacles facing public school advocates. Some selected responses to that myth...

What the numbers really tell us about America’s public schools

What I have suggested for ameliorating the low performance of low-income children, on all our assessments, are characteristics of schooling and the provision of health and other supports for children now present in wealthier communities. Perhaps, then, we should rely on John Dewey to help low-income students succeed, instead of putting our faith in vouchers, charters, test preparation, teacher accountability and the like. To paraphrase just a little, Dewey said:

“What the best and wisest … parents want for their children, that must we want for all the children of the community. Anything less is unlovely, and left unchecked, destroys our democracy.”

The Myth Behind Public School Failure

In the rush to privatize the country’s schools, corporations and politicians have decimated school budgets, replaced teaching with standardized testing, and placed the blame on teachers and students.

U.S. Public Schools Are NOT Failing. They’re Among the Best in the World

...why do we believe that American public schools are doing such a terrible job?

Because far right policymakers have convinced us all that it’s true.

It’s not.

Let me repeat that in no uncertain terms – America’s public schools are NOT failing. They are among the best in the world. Really!

The Myth of America's Failing Public Schools

The problem that DeVos and others don't understand, or just simply ignore, is poverty. American public schools accept everyone and test everyone. Not all countries do that. We don't weed out our poor and low-achieving students as they get older, so everyone gets tested...

The fact is that students who come from backgrounds of poverty don't achieve as well as students from wealthier backgrounds. And we, in the U.S. are (nearly) Number One in child poverty.

The Myth of Public School Failure

But when schools are doing better than ever before, the best way to encourage continued improvement is not a concerted attack on school governance and organization. A more effective approach would be praise for accomplishment, provision of additional resources to programs whose results justify support, and reforms on the margin to correct programs and curricula shown to be ineffective. 

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