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You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Thursday Morning Open Thread: The Way We Live Now, #473

Thursday Morning Open Thread: The Way We Live Now, #473

by Anne Laurie|  June 4, 20155:26 am| 82 Comments

This post is in: C.R.E.A.M., Education, Open Threads, Post-racial America, Assholes, Ever Get The Feeling You've Been Cheated?, Our Awesome Meritocracy

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Conflict of interest standards are for the little journalists –> https://t.co/hvR8F8pkbD

— Billmon (@billmon1) June 4, 2015

>@tomfriedman uses Baltimore Uprising as excuse to run a commercial for his wife’s charter school. @AdamJohnsonNYC http://t.co/ekWfTAPvZt

— FAIR (@FAIRmediawatch) June 3, 2015

The Moustache of Understanding is never one to let go a bad old idea, and it looks like his rummaging through the dustbin of such turned up 1994 Newt Gingrich‘s least popular proposal. From Adam Johnson’s FAIR article:

… The piece reaches peak whitesplaining when pro-charter school Secretary of Education Arne Duncan chimes in and parrots the pernicious trope that the Baltimore Uprising was the result of “absent fathers”:

I asked Education Secretary Arne Duncan what he thought generally about the public boarding school model, which is expensive. He said, “Some kids need six hours a day, some nine, some 12 to 13,” but some clearly would benefit from a more “24/7” school/community environment. “I went to Baltimore and talked to teachers after the riots,” Duncan added. “The number of kids living with no family member is stunning. But who is there 24/7? The gangs. At a certain point, you need love and structure, and either traditional societal institutions provide that or somebody else does. We get outcompeted by the gangs, who are there every day on those corners.” So quality public boarding schools need to be “part of a portfolio of options for kids.”

The not-so-subtle implication here: Absent black parents caused the “riots.” Not legitimate outrage. Not the brutal killing of a black youth. Not the subsequent lack of an investigation. Not the decades of rampant police abuse. But absent fathers and the catch-all of gangs. This is the type of centrist racist dog-whistling one would expect from the man who once said Hurricane Katrina was “good for New Orleans” because it led to more charter schools.

If only more kids could be funneled into the boarding schools of benevolent billionaires—who, incidentally, get massive tax breaks for running these programs—all would be well with the black community…

Our awesome “meritocracy”, where guys like Tom Friedman and Arne Duncan are well compensated for explaining that all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds!

*********
Apart from keeping a sharp eye out for civic improvers bearing gifts, what’s on the agenda for the day?

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Reader Interactions

82Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    June 4, 2015 at 5:32 am

    parrots the pernicious trope that the Baltimore Uprising was the result of “absent fathers”:

    I don’t see that in the Duncan quote. All he says is that he talked to teachers in Baltimore after the riots.

  2. 2.

    Baud

    June 4, 2015 at 5:38 am

    who once said Hurricane Katrina was “good for New Orleans” because it led to more charter schools.

    That’s also misleading. The quote is from the headline of the linked article, not Duncan. Duncan’s quote was limited to the education system in New Orleans. That might be wrong and offensive also, but he didn’t say that the hurricane was good for the city.

  3. 3.

    Baud

    June 4, 2015 at 5:40 am

    FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.

    Really disappointing. I hope this is an anomaly.

  4. 4.

    ThresherK

    June 4, 2015 at 5:55 am

    From the FAIR article: The point of these lottery spectacles is to paint the image of demand: If something is this “selective,” it must therefore be valuable. Like Friedman’s column, they’re neoliberal agitprop designed to tug at our heartstrings while promoting a radical right-wing privatization agenda.

    These lotteries remind me of a sci-fi archetype: One fallout shelter and too many people. Most of the best ones were written before I was born.

    Well, that, mixed with a bit of “La Foundacion Eva Peron”: Write your dream on a ticket and throw it in the air and you may win.

    Can’t anyone involved with them not realize what they look like?

  5. 5.

    heckblazer

    June 4, 2015 at 5:59 am

    Maybe there’d be fewer black kids without fathers if we’d stop locking up so many black men? Just a thought.

  6. 6.

    Poopyman

    June 4, 2015 at 6:00 am

    Adam Johnson is a freelance journalist; formerly he was a founder of the hardware startup Brightbox. You can follow him on Twitterat @AdamJohnsonNYC.

    Not to pile on to Baud’s comments [1], but I’m just left wondering what being founder of a company that provides public charging stations has to do with journalism? Google is full of Adam Johnsons, but the most I found on his CV is from Bloomberg:

    Mr. Adam Johnson co-founded Brightbox, Inc. in 2012 and serves as its Chief Operating Officer. Mr. Johnson is a former freelance writer and corporate copywriter for several venture-backed software startups, and bartender at some of New York’s most upscale clubs. Before moving to New York in 2007, he was an Aspiring Writer and short-film producer in Austin, where he attended the University of Texas, focusing on Film Production.

    It just seems that an org like Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting should use actual reporters.

    [1] Notintendedtobeafactualstatement

  7. 7.

    Poopyman

    June 4, 2015 at 6:03 am

    Just to be clear, I’m happy to see anyone take Friedman’s arguments apart, and I find charter schools to be completely abhorrent. But as Baud points out, he’s sloppy in his facts and that costs him credibility.

  8. 8.

    David Koch

    June 4, 2015 at 6:52 am

    Elizabeth Warren called for ending the public school system as we know it and replace it with vouchers, school choice, and charters in her book “The Two Income Trap”

    Warren and Tyagi recommend a universal public-school voucher system in which parents could send their kids to any public school: “An all-voucher system would be a shock to the educational system, but the shakeout might be just what the system needs.”

    Yes, that would be a shock. It would also be reckless.

    Do we burn her at the stake too?

  9. 9.

    FlipYrWhig

    June 4, 2015 at 6:54 am

    I also feel like the quotations from Duncan aren’t very close to “absent fathers caused the riots.” He’s talking about persistent social problems in cities. That “1.5 million missing black men” bit that ricocheted around the web, blogosphere and social media a few weeks back made a similar point, no? And wasn’t condemned for advancing racist tropes, was it?

  10. 10.

    Kay

    June 4, 2015 at 6:59 am

    @Baud:

    Duncan walked it back because it was an idioic thing to say. They laid off 7000 (mostly African American) local teachers and replaced them young charter school recruits from out of state. Some of the teachers were not actually in their homes when the notice was given. They returned from evacuation to find that the ed reform crew had terminated them. They interviewed a group of AA charter school graduates in New Orleans because it’s the ten year anniversary. They remember when all the AA teachers disappeared.

    Duncan says a lot of dumb things. When the pushback to the insane amount of standardized testing took off in NY, he dismissed it as “white suburban moms” who were “afraid”.

    He was wrong, of course. Something like 15 states have cut back standardized testing since the pushback started. They actually passed a law in Texas targeting testing lobbyists, specifically. They joke that it’s the first time in history Texas politicians have passed a law saying they don’t want money from lobbyists. That’s how toxic the issue had become for state lawmakers, and the US Secretary of Education was still issuing patronizing scoldings to “moms” 5 years after the pushback started.

    He’s clueless.

    Him parroting Friedman is not new. Duncan quotes Friedman constantly. In return, Friedman promotes Duncan.

  11. 11.

    WereBear

    June 4, 2015 at 7:03 am

    @Poopyman: It just seems that an org like Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting should use actual reporters.

    A degree in journalism is no guarantee of quality. Though heaven knows enough actual journalists are wearing retail uniforms these days. If they are fortunate enough to even have a job.

  12. 12.

    Kay

    June 4, 2015 at 7:10 am

    @David Koch:

    To any public school. It’s open enrollment, not privatization. Ohio has a limited form of open enrollment now. We’ve had it for a decade.

  13. 13.

    Kay

    June 4, 2015 at 7:20 am

    Here’s the US Secretary of Education finally figuring out that there’s too much standardized testing (which he promoted, under his ridiculous “Value Added Measure” and Race to the Top) five years after every state legislature in the country was responding to the pushback.

    He should spend less time attending round table discussions with Tom Friedman and Bill Gates and more time in public schools.

    When he comes to Ohio he delivers droning, scolding lectures on how income inequality is due to workers not “upskilling”. I think they finally figured out he’s not real popular when Obama’s education polling dropped to 38% so they replaced him with the Secretary of Labor, who has the advantage of not being a moron who parrots mindless business seminar slogans.

  14. 14.

    different-church-lady

    June 4, 2015 at 7:21 am

    @WereBear: Me, I’m glad journalism has been democratized to the point where even non-journalists are allowed to practice lousy journalism.

  15. 15.

    Baud

    June 4, 2015 at 7:24 am

    @Kay:

    You’ve convinced me that Arne’s a dolt, and I’m not going to defend him. But it’s wrong to misquote even a dolt and it detracts from legitimate critisim of Duncan’s views.

    ETA: especially if one’s schtick is accuracy in media.

  16. 16.

    Baud

    June 4, 2015 at 7:27 am

    @Kay:

    That was an old Bill Clinton proposal IIRC.

  17. 17.

    Elizabelle

    June 4, 2015 at 7:31 am

    Good morning, all. Can hear the rain outside in NoVA. Love rain and a good cup of coffee in the a.m.

  18. 18.

    raven

    June 4, 2015 at 7:33 am

    Ratner “I think the country is war weary”. Miss PittyPat “The don’t vote for me”. “OUR SOLDIERS AREN”T TIRED OFF FIGHTING”

  19. 19.

    Kay

    June 4, 2015 at 7:36 am

    @Baud:

    “The evidence” on New Orleans is mixed, so Duncan is spinning again. The data-driven crowd does a lot of cherry-picking of data. They got a huge infusion of federal money after Katrina. It runs out this year. Let’s see if the ed reform “movement” (of which Duncan is a proud member) supports charter schools any better than they support public schools. They’re lousy advocates for public education. 30 states are funding schools at lower levels than they did prior to the recession. We went backward under their “leadership”, which is kind of amusing, because there are (now) thousands of paid ed reform “advocates” working for hundreds of orgs. It’s fashionable in Tom Friedman circles. One would think with all those paid advocates public schools we wouldn’t be losing funding every year.

    The best thing that ever happened to NO schools was firing 7000 majority AA teachers and replacing them with what are essentially temps? You know what the best thing that ever happened to New Orleans schools actually was? The massive amount of funding they poured in after Katrina, but Duncan can’t tell that “hard truth” because it would piss off the ed reform “movement” which is grounded in blaming teachers.

  20. 20.

    raven

    June 4, 2015 at 7:36 am

    OK Joe, ask this punk about the Status of Forces Agreement.

  21. 21.

    Kay

    June 4, 2015 at 7:44 am

    @Baud:

    It works here the way a lot of smart people predicted it would work. Parents leave the lower income district and open enroll in the higher income districts. The only people who can do it are the parents who can drive 25 miles twice a day, so it’s self-selecting for more financially secure/ more motivated parents. My district is a “receiving” district which means we get more than we lose. The problem is that makes the struggling districts worse off- they end up with the most needy kids and less money. Schools have fixed costs. They can’t close a building when they lose 50 kids.

    Warren should stick to finance regulation. Systems are complicated and schools in a given area are a system, whether they’re open enrollment or not.

  22. 22.

    Baud

    June 4, 2015 at 7:45 am

    @raven:

    Ask him what country he wants to invade most.

  23. 23.

    OzarkHillbilly

    June 4, 2015 at 7:48 am

    @Kay: Up in STL the Normandy school district (N county, majority black) was declared failing (it was) and kids were allowed to transfer out to other schools, and Normandy had to foot the bill. Now, to me (simpleton that I am) if the idea is to turn a school district around and make it better for the kids who for any # of legitimate reasons stay there, wouldn’t taking money away be counterproductive? As in, drive the school district into bankruptcy?

    It is not about better schools, it’s about separating the winners from the losers and making a profit in the process.

  24. 24.

    Baud

    June 4, 2015 at 7:48 am

    @Kay:

    As I recall, public school choice was Clinton’s response to the GOP push for vouchers that could be used for religious schools. Speaking of Louisiana, didn’t they implement that sort of voucher system for religious schools?

  25. 25.

    MattF

    June 4, 2015 at 7:58 am

    Friedman is just awful. He was a good reporter, back in the day, but is now the paradigm case for rising to your level of incompetence.

  26. 26.

    Kay

    June 4, 2015 at 7:58 am

    @Baud:

    Bill Clinton actually backed off replacing public schools with charter schools last year. He said the original idea had gotten lost. The problem is they have these huge states where they opened the door and didn’t regulate and it’s a mess- it’s a big swathe of the country- OH, MI, PA, FL, AZ. It could no longer be ignored because the local reporting was devastating. It eventually trickled up to the Tom Friedman “sector” :)

    I don’t think Hillary will be robustly promoting ed reform in Ohio. We’ve had it for 17 years. There’s a track record. The Dem governor in PA was elected on public ed. That was the top issue. He’s making good on his promise, too.

  27. 27.

    Baud

    June 4, 2015 at 8:10 am

    @Kay:

    Hopefully, the tide is turning. It seems like everything these days is just a get-rich-quick scheme.

  28. 28.

    Kay

    June 4, 2015 at 8:11 am

    @Baud:

    Vouchers were inevitable after charters, IMO. Once you decouple “public” from “school” there’s really no logical reason to oppose vouchers, other than church/state conflicts, and as you know that line has gotten so blurry it’s almost gone, partly as a result of Clinton-era “faith-based partnerships” where they contract out social services to religious orgs.

    In some ways vouchers might be an improvement if we’re going full-on privatization. Religious schools are at least non-profits. 80% of MI charters are for-profits.

    I think liberals got rolled on public ed. They’re almost indistinguishable from Barry Goldwater at this point. There’s no “liberal” ideas remaining in “ed reform”. They call themselves “agnostics” – the theory is it doesn’t matter if schools are public as long as they’re “great!”

    If you have “agnostics” on one side and raving conservative ideologues on the other, the agnostics lose every time and they have lost every time. Cuomo is now pushing vouchers.

    Vouchers haven’t been popular in Ohio because the truth is private schools have as much variance on quality as public schools, and people in Ohio know that. The Catholic school here underperfoms the public system. They pay teachers much less and the turnover is horrendous. The OH dept of ed had to do a marketing blitz to sell the vouchers they had. Parents weren’t taking them. “Private” doesn’t mean “better”.

  29. 29.

    Nicole

    June 4, 2015 at 8:20 am

    Kay, thank you for continuing to keep the charter boondoggle a topic here.

    The Daily News published an article last year pointing out that none of Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy 8th grade graduates (32, down from an initial kindergarten class of over 70) were accepted into any of the elite NYC public high schools, which requires passing a different kind of test than the standardized testing they spend most of their time preparing for. Not one passed the elite high school admission test. Success Academy’s response, rather than being, “Houston, we have a problem” is to just open up Success Academy high schools. AUGH!

    Not only are many of these charter schools a huge suck of public money, they’re also failing their kids.

    http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/gonzalez-success-charter-students-fail-top-city-schools-article-1.1833960

  30. 30.

    Kay

    June 4, 2015 at 8:20 am

    @Baud:

    I could not be more disappointed with Democrats on public ed. It’s a deal-breaker for me. I’ll leave over this if it doesn’t turn around. We will deeply regret privatizing public schools. I think some of it is the arrogance that liberals sometimes have, where they delude themselves into thinking they’re running the show and this will be controlled and put in on their terms. We saw it with financial dereg under Clinton. It won’t. Conservatives have dreamed of privatizing public schools for 60 years. All they needed was Democrats to go along and then there’s no opposition.

  31. 31.

    Baud

    June 4, 2015 at 8:22 am

    @Kay:

    “Private” doesn’t mean “better”

    It does for the owners!

    Hopefully, liberals can congeal around some framework that works. It’s impossible to fight something with nothing.

  32. 32.

    MomSense

    June 4, 2015 at 8:24 am

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    There is a tremendous desire to pretend that society is not shortchanging kids in the least and that the problem is just one of accountability by those horribly overpaid teachers and their whiny unions. So the threat of defunding is the deterrence the system needs to get these slacker teachers and kids on the right track.

    Also, too the MBAification of education. As soon as they brought consultants, who spoke only McKinseytongue, in to my old school system I knew we were in for big problems.

  33. 33.

    Baud

    June 4, 2015 at 8:27 am

    @Kay:

    For-profit colleges seem to have taken a hit lately.

  34. 34.

    Kay

    June 4, 2015 at 8:28 am

    @Nicole:

    I think the “backfilling” issue is a real sore point for them. Can you imagine public schools declaring they won’t accept students who come in after 3rd grade?

    My public school could get “100!” grad rates too if we “lost” the bottom third of students btwn 7th and 12th grade.

    I mean, come on. This is so deceptive. 100% of 65% remaining is not “100%”. Are they inumerate? Do they need tutoring in “percents”? Duncan has been corrected on this bullshit about 50 times and he’s STILL doing it.

  35. 35.

    weaselone

    June 4, 2015 at 8:28 am

    @Kay:
    Profit vs. Nonprofit status status makes little difference in the case of many charters. Nonprofit charters can just pay fees to for profit management firms with remarkably similar names. Naturally, hiring this management firm is a competitive process. It’s just a coincidence that the needs of the charter perfectly align with the management company.

  36. 36.

    WereBear

    June 4, 2015 at 8:30 am

    @MomSense: It’s very much the conservative mindset, where “the beatings will continue until morale improves.”

  37. 37.

    MomSense

    June 4, 2015 at 8:32 am

    @WereBear:

    Totally. If you hear a management consultant say “stakeholders” they are not talking about all the different people who are invested or interested in the organization. They are actually talking about people holding stakes and killing programs.

  38. 38.

    debbie

    June 4, 2015 at 8:36 am

    @Kay:

    Has anything turned out better because it was privatized? I can’t think of a single one.

  39. 39.

    debbie

    June 4, 2015 at 8:38 am

    @MomSense:

    Also, too the MBAification of education.

    The MBAification of anything has ended up destroying it. I can still remember the day an MBA walked into the publishing house where I worked. Beginning of the end.

  40. 40.

    Kay

    June 4, 2015 at 8:40 am

    @Baud:

    They do have something. They just elected what was a slate of public ed supporters in Philadelphia. They were outspent 7-1 by ed reform groups and they still won. PA now has a public ed governor and new public ed electeds in Philadelphia.

    Pittsburgh sort of never went along, which is interesting to me because Toledo never did either. There’s a kind of rust belt attachment to public schools that is really resilient. Toledo was flooded with charters and the public school enrollment is up, not down. It was supposed to go the other way.

    I think it’s the most interesting “debate” in politics right now because it has everything- what does “public” mean? are foundations too powerful? where are Democrats on labor issues? what about the huge role of race and the history there? Is income inequality really the fault of public schools?

  41. 41.

    Elizabelle

    June 4, 2015 at 8:40 am

    @debbie:

    Has anything turned out better because it was privatized? I can’t think of a single one.

    There’s a topic for a thread. Great question.

  42. 42.

    Kay

    June 4, 2015 at 8:46 am

    @debbie:

    I just remember so vividly when libertarians were pointing to Chile as the model for privatizing schools. It’s a disaster. They’ve had giant public protests for the last 5 years. Why in the hell would the US do this?

    I know we’ll regret it. I feel like I;m waiting for “no one could have predicted” and then it will be the same sorry parade of think tankers saying “we were well-intentioned!”

    It has not escaped my notice that a lot of the “ed reform liberals” in media also supported Iraq. I noticed that. It’s almost 1:1.

  43. 43.

    MomSense

    June 4, 2015 at 8:46 am

    @debbie:

    Has anything turned out better because it was privatized? I can’t think of a single one.

    Nope. The goal is not to make something better. The goal is to give the fruits of generations of public investment to a private entity (often a political donor) and let them reap the rewards of all that public investment.

  44. 44.

    MomSense

    June 4, 2015 at 8:48 am

    @debbie:

    You cannot put joy or art or passion on a spreadsheet and because it cannot be measured or maximized or whatever the fuck they want to do with it–it gets cut.

  45. 45.

    VidaLoca

    June 4, 2015 at 8:49 am

    @Kay: Were going to have to go to war to protect what’s left of the Milwaukee Public Schools beginning this summer. The Republicans in the Legislature have enacted legislation (through the budget process, in order to avoid using conventional legislative channels) that would remodel MPS on the New Orleans model. And critical to their ability to do so has been the active collaboration of the Milwaukee County Executive.

    They’re going to literally set up a second school district in the city, to be run by the County Executive’s chosen delegate. Who will be paid to administer the schools they select for privatization, with funds donated by private foundations. They are going after the newest buildings in the system — it’s a property grab under the guise of fixing “failing” schools that have been allowed to fail thanks to a history of defunding streching back to the early 1990’s.

    The County Executive is a Democrat. And he’s working with the active support of the Mayor, who is also a Democrat and two-times failed candidate for Governor.

    These people are simply scabs. No other word for it.

  46. 46.

    Elizabelle

    June 4, 2015 at 8:50 am

    @MomSense: Stakeholders and shareholders over all.

    And they don’t have the same interests as workers, parents, and citizens.

    It’s time to have a huge fight over that. Yesterday’s NYTimes article on the Disney tech department pink slips is still the top emailed article.

    The NYTimes article: Pink Slips at Disney. But First, Training Foreign Replacements.
    http://nyti.ms/1M4Plu5

    I hope those 1600+ reader commenters are serious about boycotting Disney and contacting their congresscritters. It’s getting late to be making a stand against MBAs strip mining the economy.

    We don’t have to do it this way, and more sensible countries don’t. Why must it be shareholder profits over all?

  47. 47.

    debbie

    June 4, 2015 at 8:53 am

    @Kay:

    I’m sure you’ve noticed how the charters have been resisting any kind of accountability. Recently, a spokesman pointed out how it would be impossible to determine attendance rates because a kid could step away from his computer at any time.

    This makes it all the more infuriating when they try and peddle their trickle down B.S.

  48. 48.

    debbie

    June 4, 2015 at 8:54 am

    He’s been Zimmermanized!

    http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/03/us/cleveland-police-officer-michael-brelo-twin-brother-fight/

  49. 49.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    June 4, 2015 at 8:55 am

    @Kay:

    It’s interesting that “charter” schools can mean totally different things in different states. In CA, a charter school is basically a very specialized public school that serves a small community, like immigrant families whose first language is Mayan instead of Spanish. They remain under the umbrella of the public school system and have to meet the same standards.

    Of course, CA has very powerful teachers unions who were able to influence the bills while they were being written. Funny how that works.

  50. 50.

    Elizabelle

    June 4, 2015 at 8:55 am

    @Kay:

    It has not escaped my notice that a lot of the “ed reform liberals” in media also supported Iraq. I noticed that. It’s almost 1:1.

    Interesting. It’s also past time to have a “come to reason” moment on Iraq.

    These are folks without good critical reasoning skills, or dupes, or both. Are they not?

    It’s the same specious magical thinking.

  51. 51.

    Nicole

    June 4, 2015 at 8:55 am

    @Kay: And even with retaining only the kids who could fit the mold of a Success Academy student they appear to be giving these kids an education revolving around how to take one specific kind of test, and not much else. I may be remembering this wrong, but one of the blogs I read mentioned limiting the amount of time public schools in NY can teach to the test, but that charter schools would be exempt. Because Eva Moskowitz’s model depends on spending an inordinate amount of time preparing for a test and not actual teaching. As long as standardized test scores are the metric used to evaluate, Success Academy looks great. But as the results for the kids who made it to 8th grade at Success Academy and took the tests for the elite high schools indicated, they aren’t being taught how to transfer that knowledge to anything else.

    I feel like the wealthy want someone to reassure them that really, poverty isn’t the problem, because god forbid progressive taxation take away some of the vast amounts of money they hoard. Eva Moskowitz and her ilk are very happy to get rich themselves peddling this bullshit.

    Full disclosure: I live around the corner from a large public school building that is being taken over by 2 charters. One of them has a large percentage of kids with learning and behavioral challenges, and, not surprisingly, has low test scores (but really does seem to try to do the best it can to provide opportunity for these kids). The other is a Success Academy. And now the public portion of the school, K-5, has fewer than 100 kids in it.

  52. 52.

    rikyrah

    June 4, 2015 at 8:57 am

    … The piece reaches peak whitesplaining when pro-charter school Secretary of Education Arne Duncan chimes in and parrots the pernicious trope that the Baltimore Uprising was the result of “absent fathers”:

    peak whitesplaining…….

    LOL

    so true.

  53. 53.

    rikyrah

    June 4, 2015 at 8:58 am

    Charter schools are a phucking scam.

  54. 54.

    MomSense

    June 4, 2015 at 8:59 am

    @Elizabelle:

    Ironically the NYT did this same thing about 10 years ago or so except they actually sent the department they were cutting to India to train the new workers there.

    Why must it be shareholder profits over all?

    It’s a really good question. I don’t know. I think we have to figure out the psychology behind this because often strip mining is celebrated by people for whom it should be terrifying.

  55. 55.

    boatboy_srq

    June 4, 2015 at 9:01 am

    @Elizabelle: Rain: lovely on the (covered) porch with fresh java, horrible to commute in. At least no accidents (unlike last night, where a Fairfax sheriff nearly caused another by pulling into a median to “assist”). At least Metro is running on time.

    @Kay: The United States wouldn’t. Individual states, though, handed sacks of lobbyist cash and run by wingnuts determined to make Those People’s lives difficult on principle, seem perfectly happy to scr3w kids (and the unionized teachers educating them). May just be the news I get, but I haven’t seen a charter school do any better than a public one, and I’ve yet to see one do as well as the public equivalent for as little as public ed gets.

  56. 56.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    June 4, 2015 at 9:06 am

    @Elizabelle:

    As I mentioned yesterday, because of the way the company is set up, a targeted boycott of the Parks would be much more effective than a general “boycott Disney!” They look very closely at how the divisions are doing relative to one another and the heads of those divisions gain or lose power overall based on that. A general boycott probably would not deliver the message as well as a targeted one would.

  57. 57.

    Elizabelle

    June 4, 2015 at 9:09 am

    @boatboy_srq: Stay dry, bud.

  58. 58.

    Elizabelle

    June 4, 2015 at 9:13 am

    @Mnemosyne (iPhone): Hello in Florida! Did you nap a bit en route? Best to you and your family, esp your brother.

    I hope — and think — that Disney will notice a fallout at its parks. The article got a lot of play.

    Please keep us posted.

  59. 59.

    Cervantes

    June 4, 2015 at 9:13 am

    @debbie:

    Has anything turned out better because it was privatized?

    Good question.

    Many places to look for answers (or useful discussion), but here are two:

    A book, The Org, by Ray Fisman and Tim Sullivan, which you can find here: http://www.powells.com/biblio/9780446571593

    It should help set expectations.

    And an on-going project run by the Partnership for Working Families, called In the Public Interest, found here: http://www.inthepublicinterest.org

    Take a look.

  60. 60.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    June 4, 2015 at 9:15 am

    @Elizabelle:

    Thanks! I’m actually sitting at O’Hare waiting for my connection to Florida. I can’t say I slept a whole lot on the plane, but I was definitely much more comfortable than I would have been in a coach seat.

  61. 61.

    Elizabelle

    June 4, 2015 at 9:27 am

    @Cervantes: Thank you. Good suggestions.

    Ordered the Fisman book through the library; bookmarked the Public Interest site.

  62. 62.

    Roger Moore

    June 4, 2015 at 9:29 am

    @MomSense:

    There is a tremendous desire to pretend that society is not shortchanging kids in the least and that the problem is just one of accountability by those horribly overpaid teachers and their whiny unions.

    You could say essentially the same thing about most of our big societal problems. We’re constantly looking for quick, easy fixes that won’t inconvenience anyone or require comfortable middle class whites to consider that they’re part of the problem. Nobody wants to admit that the single biggest step we could take to improve our schools is to fund them adequately, because that would cost money.

    Poverty programs are another great example. We keep pretending that poverty is a result of social disfunction that can be corrected by teaching poor people the right values rather than systematically underpaying people at the bottom of the ladder. We are struggling with the question of raising the minimum wage, which would do more to alleviate poverty than anything else, because people don’t want to pay $0.25 more for a Big Mac.

  63. 63.

    Kay

    June 4, 2015 at 9:29 am

    @boatboy_srq:

    It’s been good for me because it forced me to weasel my way onto a local school committee. It’s interesting that ed reformers (including Arne Duncan) are obsessed with teachers unions because over ten months on that committee where we have discussed and debated everything from project based learning to truancy, not one parent has mentioned labor unions as a concern. This is an average OH district. Rust belt rural, 50% free and reduced lunch. We haven’t discussed the pressing need to obliterate teachers unions at all. One would think a parent would bring it up.

  64. 64.

    Booger

    June 4, 2015 at 9:36 am

    @MomSense: …while retaining all the risk on the public side. Wankers.

  65. 65.

    Nicole

    June 4, 2015 at 9:36 am

    Here’s a NYT piece from 2011 on Success Academy’s eagerness to push students out of the school and into public ones if they feel the kids don’t fit the Success Academy mold.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/11/nyregion/charter-school-sends-message-thrive-or-transfer.html

    I’ve toured PS75, the public school mentioned, and I do think the kid got off better by being put into PS75 as it’s a very desirable public school (it was in my top 5 choices for kindergarten for my kid when I submitted). But part of what made it desirable to me was the principal who flatly told us parents the school’s test scores were never going to be all that high because testing is not the school’s priority. I love the last line of the article.

  66. 66.

    Kay

    June 4, 2015 at 9:37 am

    @boatboy_srq:

    It isn’t “the individual states” at all. The ed reform “movement” is national. They have national lobbying groups and orgs and they push state legislation that is identical state to state.

    In Ohio the lawmakers had to remove the canned caption they mistakenly left on their ed reform bill. It was like “your state HERE”

    It’s the same in every state, which contradicts the idea it’s “innovative!”

  67. 67.

    kc

    June 4, 2015 at 9:38 am

    That piece lost me at “whitesplaining.”

  68. 68.

    kc

    June 4, 2015 at 9:41 am

    @Nicole:

    Kay, thank you for continuing to keep the charter boondoggle a topic here.

    I second that.

  69. 69.

    boatboy_srq

    June 4, 2015 at 9:44 am

    @Kay: Right. But it isn’t the US Dept of Ed that’s buying what they’re selling. It’s individual states and school districts. Greed recognizes no political boundary, but the objects on which it operates are localized. So you’re right that the movement behind it is widespread and well-organized; the bodies actually enacting the proposed laws and policies are not. And given how marginal the competence of state legislators can often be, it’s difficult to combat.

  70. 70.

    boatboy_srq

    June 4, 2015 at 9:47 am

    @Kay: Parents rarely “bring up” the Great Evil that teachers’ unions present. That seems the exclusive role of ALEC and other anti-union lobbying organizations.

  71. 71.

    Kay

    June 4, 2015 at 9:52 am

    @boatboy_srq:

    We’ll have to agree to disagree on “buying what they’re selling”.

    The Obama Administration 100% “buys this”. . One of the conditions of Race to the Top money was ranking teachers by test scores and lifting caps on opening charter schools. When people complain that they are No Child Left Behind on steroids, those people are right. They didn’t just “buy” it. They doubled down.

    Duncan lobbied for increased federal funding to build charter schools, and he got it. It passed the Senate and it will fly thru the House. They couldn’t be bothered to re-authorize NCLB in Congress (and mitigate some of the bad parts) for six years, but they got charter school funding done!

  72. 72.

    Tan Don

    June 4, 2015 at 10:09 am

    The problem is economics. The poor are always the first to feel the bite. Income inequality has hurt the middle class badly, but the poor far, far worse. People in the inner cities have no hope of advancement, combined with the militarization of police, have made the inner cities tinder boxes, and I wonder how bad it might get this summer when the temperature goes up?

    We need to keep asking where’s our raise? How much is too much? A million isn’t what it used to be, is it, but it’s a whole lot better than $7.25 an hour.

  73. 73.

    MomSense

    June 4, 2015 at 10:25 am

    @Roger Moore:

    Poverty programs are another great example. We keep pretending that poverty is a result of social disfunction that can be corrected by teaching poor people the right values rather than systematically underpaying people at the bottom of the ladder. We are struggling with the question of raising the minimum wage, which would do more to alleviate poverty than anything else, because people don’t want to pay $0.25 more for a Big Mac.

    I’m not even sure we would have to pay $.25 more for a Big Mac. I’d like to know what the CEO and top management tier take home in compensation.

  74. 74.

    debbie

    June 4, 2015 at 10:30 am

    @Cervantes:

    Thanks. Looking at the drop-downs for privatization by sector, apparently everything is in the process of privatization. No one of influence seems upset over what’s going on in Ohio’s prisons, for example.

  75. 75.

    Cervantes

    June 4, 2015 at 10:37 am

    @debbie:

    Yes, lots to probe there.

    Be sure not to miss the weekly “privatization scans.”

  76. 76.

    rikyrah

    June 4, 2015 at 10:50 am

    @Kay:

    Kay,

    you continue to be on point with this.

  77. 77.

    rikyrah

    June 4, 2015 at 10:55 am

    @Kay:

    I could not be more disappointed with Democrats on public ed. It’s a deal-breaker for me. I’ll leave over this if it doesn’t turn around. We will deeply regret privatizing public schools. I think some of it is the arrogance that liberals sometimes have, where they delude themselves into thinking they’re running the show and this will be controlled and put in on their terms. We saw it with financial dereg under Clinton. It won’t. Conservatives have dreamed of privatizing public schools for 60 years. All they needed was Democrats to go along and then there’s no opposition.

    tell the truth.

    continue to tell the truth.

  78. 78.

    rikyrah

    June 4, 2015 at 11:01 am

    @Kay:

    I think the “backfilling” issue is a real sore point for them. Can you imagine public schools declaring they won’t accept students who come in after 3rd grade?

    part of the scam, Kay.

    SCAM!

  79. 79.

    rikyrah

    June 4, 2015 at 11:07 am

    @Nicole:

    I feel like the wealthy want someone to reassure them that really, poverty isn’t the problem, because god forbid progressive taxation take away some of the vast amounts of money they hoard. Eva Moskowitz and her ilk are very happy to get rich themselves peddling this bullshit.

    ALL SORTS of truth in this thread.

  80. 80.

    shell

    June 4, 2015 at 11:10 am

    There’s more than a whiff of bullshit on this whole ‘Boston terrorist targeted Pam Geller.’ story. A bit too convenient to play into her vicim diva role.

  81. 81.

    tybee

    June 4, 2015 at 12:43 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    yup. i lost a job some years back to the same shit.
    except i walked out. they wanted the replacement, they were welcome to train the little shit.

  82. 82.

    Theodore Wirth

    June 4, 2015 at 5:28 pm

    This shite makes me ill.

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