The fellas who brought you war without end and the collapse of the financial sector have turned their attention to another low hanging fruit in our common yard: education. You’ll recognize some of the names. You’d best understand the financial gains that drive their proposals for “innovation.”
They’re focusing on another public function from which they can leech vitality and life and a lot of public dollars. Make no mistake, these “reformists” see a fattened cash cow. And Virginia’s agents for change, state Senator Bill Stanley (R-20th) and Delegate Tag Greason (R-32nd), have spent exactly zero days as school district employees. Their common experience surrounds real or imagined sex offenses. Quite the dynamic duo; pimping for privatization and the rape of the commons.
The template for this offensive is thoroughly dissected by Bruce Baker in his Dismantling Public Accountability & Transparency in the Name of Accountability & Transparency? In part:
- Expansion of charter schools, coupled with multiple charter authorizers (including private entities) and minimized charter regulation
- Adoption of tuition tax credit programs providing individuals and corporations the option to forgo paying a portion of taxes by contributing that amount to … privately governed/managed schools.
- Parent trigger policies that permit a simple majority of parents … to mandate that the local board of education displace the entire staff of the school … turning over governance and management of school’s operations (and physical/capital assets?) to a private management company …
The bills patroned by Stanley (SB 1207) and Greason (HB 1999) facilitate the means to the death penalty envisioned by the third strategy, providing the cover to shutter public schools. It is a “grading system” for school performance. It is right out of the playbook of the Foundation for Excellence in Education and a group Jeb Bush set up called Chiefs for Change working with public officials in states to write education laws that could benefit some of its corporate funders. …working with public officials in states: Stanley and Greason are evidently dancing to the tune of interests outside Virginia. Neither of them invented this on his own.
This is all in the trend of carrion “entrepreneurship” for dull normals and entitled heirs. For twenty years the uninventive have blamed regulation for their inability to succeed. Their only hope is to steal the public trust. The campaign has centered on demonizing government and regulations. All on the principle of the “free market” sorting out any issues extant.
Except, that supporting two school districts within a jurisdiction is like running a public water and sewer system while subsidizing another because some residents don’t like fluoride.
- Those who can, innovate
- Those who can’t, imitate
- Those who can do neither, covet the public dime
There is no magic bullet for the challenges affecting America’s education system. Its woes, as anyone who has ever actually taught knows, aren’t from the lack of standards or because the teachers or administrators aren’t capable. And if these reprobates who want to dismantle public education in order that they may profit would be honest, they’ll tell you they really don’t want the failing schools and will preserve the option to jettison troubled students.
So here’s a proposal: If a school fails under the Stanley/Greason grading system, level the playing field. Offer the failed school up lock stock and barrel to these private sector geniuses and let’s see how they perform under the same conditions as their public counterparts. That’s just it; they don’t want the job the public schools are required to do. They want a publicly funded niche. Absolutely contemptible as are their surrogates.
Sign up for the Blue Virginia weekly newsletter
