No Matt Damon isn't a whiny hypocrite (at least not on education reform and public schools)

[dsc]

Much is apparently being made of this interview http://www.theroot.com/blogs/blogging-beltway/matt-damons-attacks-obama-hypocritical

The son of an education activist, Damon has been one of the most prominent Hollywood supporters of teachers unions, and public schools in general. As the keynote speaker at a Washington, D.C., rally, Damon said, "I attended public schools, and I would not trade that education and experience for anything." This is a familiar talking point of Damon's, particularly when he is criticizing the Obama administration's education policies and charter school proponents, many of whom argue that charter schools are the only viable educational alternative for children in poor neighborhoods.

But last week Damon begrudgingly admitted that he sends his own children to private schools, a fact that he had not publicly acknowledged before.

Damon said of the seeming contradiction between what he says and what his family actually does: "Ultimately we don't have a choice. I mean, I pay for a private education and I'm trying to get the one that most matches the public education that I had, but that kind of progressive education no longer exists in the public system. It's unfair."

quote from link, bolding mine.

Now lets unpack his statement, shall we. He says that public schools used to teach in a certain way (progressive education) and now no longer do, so he has to send his kids to a private school to get progressive education. And why does he have to do this? Because education reformers have radically changed education since Damon got his progressive education. He isn't sending his kids to private schools because unionized teachers are evil, or because they are lazy, or because public sector pensions have become bloated. He is sending them to private schools because there his kids won't be forced to take endless high stake tests that they will have their entire education catered toward passing. So if his kid wants to take an acting class, he might actually have one to take (acting isn't on the test). The real hypocrites of education reform are those who want to force public school kids to take endless tests and have their education revolve about them, while they send their kids to private schools where there are no such tests. Michelle Rhee comes to mind in this regard.

[Marr]

1. +1, Absolutely.

[Euphoria]

6. +2, Definitely

[Demeter]

33. +3 And if you can't afford it, there's the Unschooling Movement

Which contrasts with the Home Schooling right-wing indoctrination gambit.

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

2. If you aren't marching in lockstep with them

Under the bus you go.

Just imagine how successful you would be if you were a business who ignored all your customer's feedback.

But apparently that somehow is a successful model in politics

[ProSense]

3. "but that kind of progressive education no longer exists in the public system"

The public school system sucks?

[dsc]

4. It is in many respects getting worse and worse every day

In my state it will soon very much suck if we keep on the trend we are going. When you fire loads of teachers, take gobs of money away, force the teachers who are left to teach to a test, and on top of that take the cream of the crop of parents and put their kids in vouchers paid for christian mandrassas, then the public schools will start to suck. NC is doing all of the above, some of it, with the active encouragement of the Obama administration.

[ProSense]

5. "parents and put their kids in vouchers paid for christian mandrassas"

You think suggesting that the public school system sucks will prevent Republicans from making the case for vouchers?

[dsc]

7. No but we have them here now

and it is at least in part thanks to education reformers that we do. My tax money will be paying for the tuition of kids going to schools that advocate for the death of gays. The fact is if we let education reform continue unabated, then there will be no public schools worthy of the name.

[ProSense]

12. How does

"No but we have them here now and it is at least in part thanks to education reformers that we do. My tax money will be paying for the tuition of kids going to schools that advocate for the death of gays. The fact is if we let education reform continue unabated, then there will be no public schools worthy of the name."

...basically saying that you're putting your kids into private schools because public schools suck ("progressive education no longer exists in the public system&quot help the case for public schools?

[dsc]

13. I don't think he should be forced to send his kids to bad schools that he is trying to change

because he favors changing them. That would be rather like saying Obama supporters who funded humungous 501 c3 for him were hypocrites if they wanted to change the rules to ban them. If Matt Damon had, had his way, the schools would be a place he could send his kids. Because of people who believe differently from him, and who have the power to force public schools to become other than they are, the public schools are not what they should be. He therefore sends his kids, I am presuming on his own dime, to a different set of schools.

[ProSense]

14. That doesn't answer my question. n/t

[dsc]

15. I think his publicly advocating for change

is how he hopes to accomplish the change.

[Smarmie Doofus]

16. He's saying that they didn't suck before school "reform" but that they increasingly suck now.

There is nothing complicated to the argument and he's being quite clear.

He is correct, btw, and so is Damon.

[ProSense]

18. Gee,

He's saying that they didn't suck before school "reform" but that they increasingly suck now. There is nothing complicated to the argument and he's being quite clear.

... thanks for clearing that up. Now, to my questions:

How does basically saying that you're putting your kids into private schools because public schools suck ("progressive education no longer exists in the public system&quot help the case for public schools?

You think suggesting that the public school system sucks will prevent Republicans from making the case for vouchers?

Do you think other parents who can do so pull their kids out of public schools?

[dsc]

22. I believe in calling a mess a mess

and education reform has caused a mess in our public schools. Someone needs to hold the intervention. If we continue on this road, and all signs show us doing so without an intervention, our public schools will be thoroughly destroyed in the name of reform. If saying how bad the schools are makes them worse in the short run then so be it. Just like if saying to an addict you are an addict makes the addict pissed off in the short term, so be it. It is the long run which ends up mattering and the schools need an intervention for there to be a long run.

[deurbano]

26. Nothing will stop the Republicans from making the case for vouchers.

This is just Jeb Bush stirring the pot... probably to distract from the recent bad news on Florida's educational "reform" front.

[sulphurdunn]

24. I don't think he sends

his kids to private schools to help public schools, nor do I think he intended that message.

[progressoid]

32. Anyone who puts their children in private school is by default slamming public education.

Well, except the President

and Vice-President

and the Clintons

and the Gores

and...

oh shit.

[earthside]

19. Reactionary, conservative education.

Let's be blunt about it: the Bush-Paige-Spellings-Obama-Duncan education regimen is conservative and reactionary.

It is not about learning, it is about training.
It is not about acquiring knowledge, it is about testing.
It is not about thinking, it is about rigid compliance to 'standards'.

I am in my late 50s and went to a public school in Wyoming -- nothing 'liberal' about that state, even back in those days. Yet, I would say that I received a 'progressive' education in public school.

Back then teachers controlled their own classrooms, and I am not talking about just discipline -- they were free to teach, they were free to explore, they were free to investigate different paths to get us to enjoy learning. Grades meant something -- we took one 'standardized' test a year -- sometimes we did art for a whole morning, sometimes we did history for a whole afternoon ... most of us learned how to find information, how to argue, how to think. I am still in touch with many of my grade school and high school compatriots and I'll tell you, even out of Wyoming most of them are well educated and, yup, progressive-minded.

The last fifteen to twenty years in public education is a different story.

Indeed, my children have not been so fortunate as I. Public education today under Bush-Obama is anti-children, anti-parent and anti-teacher. It is very pro-administrator, pro-politician, and pro-corporate. I am so glad they are out of the public school system now -- it was stifling, it was suffocating, it was bureaucratic. If I hadn't made valiant efforts at home to instill the joy of learning in my kids, they would have come out of the public schools hating 'learning'.

Public education today rests on the premise that administrators, politicians and billionaires know better than children, parents and teachers what is best for your kids.

Yes. The public school system sucks.
And you can blame Bush's 'No Child Left Behind' and Obama's 'Race to the Top' for the corporatization of the public education system in the nation.

[kag]

34. You are so correct earthside!

And I totally get Damon's stance.

My own kids went to a great public elementary school. When it came time for middle school, however, we began having problems the first week. My son, who is borderline aspergers, had difficulty early on being able to communicate with teachers and with other students. But the only remedy available to the school was to put him in special ed. My husband and I knew that that was the wrong solution, so we yanked him out after three weeks.

We knew of a private school that was completely secular and had a program that appeared ready-made for our son and his "issues". He's very smart, socially awkward, and somewhat opinionated (in a good way). We told his public school principal that we were strong supporters of public education, and would continue to be, but we had to do what was best for our son. He totally understood, and asked us to consider returning once he was in high school (we live in a very small town that has a combined middle/senior high).

Well, lo and behold, he did great in middle school as did his sister after him, and come high school we indeed brought him back to the public school. He's a senior now and is thriving. Wants to go to Berkeley, and has a shot at it.

I don't think there is anything hypocritical about sending your kids to private school if you have the means, and if you can still use your resources to support the public schools as well. Even when my kids were in private school I would write letters to the local paper in support of the public school teachers and their union.

The bottom line is that everyone does what is best for their own children.

[Blanks]

35. If they were free to teach and explore etc...

They were free to sit on their ass. This is why the system is failing. The schools with resources get the teachers who want to teach and explore, the schools with no resources get teachers who want to make the kids be quiet in lunch line.

[abelenkpe]

25. Do you currently have school age children attending public schools? nt

[Bluenorthwest]

36. And what of others who send their kids to private schools? The Obama kids go to private and

elite schools, the President also attended private schools. So did I, public then private. Sidwell Friends School is Private School. So if sending one's kids to private school is bad, bad, bad what is the trip with the Obama family? Is that also a backhanded slam at public schools? Or is it 'different' fro them? If so, please specify how it is 'different'. Thanks.
www.sidwell.edu

[BeyondGeography]

8. Matt's cool, and so was the surveillance technology in The Departed and Syriana

Everyone's gotta make a deal.

[Baitball Blogger]

9. Let's recognize something here.

Public schools in Florida are intentionally imploded from within. Administrators are micromanaging every aspect of the curriculum that the teachers teach. In Florida, especially, they have a knack of picking programs that California has already proven to not work and then prove it again.

He's not completely wrong. I'm pro-public schools, but the teachers are not allowed to do their job.

[Autumn]

10. I went to my Granddaughters school last fall. I was shocked to find out

that the teacher gives them a work sheet, they put in in a plastic sleeve and use a dry erase marker to do their work. The teacher collect the sheets after looking at the students work and saves them for another class. No work books, they use a white board. It seems to me a first grader who is learning would benefit from actually having a completed work sheet, or a book to bring home to say, this is what we are learning.

My Daughter is actually considering an on line school this year.

[justiceischeap]

11. And I imagine having Matt Damon as your dad kinda makes it hard to go to public school

too.

Random kid: "What's your dad do for a living?"
Damon's kid: "He's an actor."
Random kid: "Have I heard of him?"
Damon's kid: "Don't know."
Random kid: "What's his name?"
Damon's kid: "Matt Damon."
Random kid: "Liar!"

[Smarmie Doofus]

17. True. But not really the point. n/t

[mountain grammy]

20. Another reason: because he can!

I love public schools and will support them with my last breath and dime. I don't want to live in a country of stupid people, and, yet, that's where we're headed. Kids are taught fake history, no civics, and critical thinking is suppressed.
A friend gave me a picture of Karl Marx painted on silk that an old boyfriend of hers had brought back from Vietnam. I'm not a Marxist, but the picture is cool so it's hanging on a wall. A 25 years old friend asks "whose that?" I say "Karl Marx" he says "whose that?" He graduated from HS with my daughter (who does know who Marx is.) I graduated from high school knowing who Marx is. I guess when he hears someone calling Obama a Marxist, he thinks Groucho.

[Bunnahabhain]

23. What should guide the conversation on public education is

what we think the purpose of the system is. I always felt the purpose of public education was to, by and large, turn out productive and useful members of society. Obviously, a certain amount of indoctrination is required for this. I think one of the crucial ways the public school system has gone askew is that the right got the left on the defensive about indoctrination in public schools (it was stupid to ever deny indoctrination was taking place) and then the right went and created a mechanism to use tax dollars to create schools that openly indoctrinated their beliefs, and by calling them "charter schools," fended off any attempts of a successful PR campaign to alert the general public that this was tax payer funded brain washing because the right successfully created a distinction between your average public school and a "charted school," which because it's using tax dollars, is just a public in my mind as PS 103.

[Capt. Obvious]

27. He went to a great public school

[deurbano]

28. "Jeb Bush’s Witless Attack on Matt Damon"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/08/09/jeb-bushs-witless-attack-on-matt-damon/

By Valerie Strauss, Published: August 9

<<...Here’s the background:

Damon opposes the corporate-influenced brand of school reform that Bush pioneered when he was governor of Florida, from 1999-2007. He doesn’t run around talking about it all the time, but he did appear in 2011 at a rally in Washington D.C., where he discussed his own public school education in which teachers and students had the freedom to be creative. In his well-received speech, he contrasted that experience with public schools in today’s era of standardized test-based reform, in which classrooms have been turned into test prep factories and teachers have been unfairly demonized for the problems of urban education. (Teachers now, can be assessed by the test scores of students they don’t have and subjects they don’t teach. No kidding. Read about it here.)

Damon just moved to Los Angeles, which is in the thick of corporate-based school reform, and recently said he and his wife decided to send their children to private schools. And why not? Why would he put his children into schools that have turned the joy of learning into a test-focused grind and that can’t give his children the public school education he had? Why should anybody?

It is not the case that Damon was talking about how corporate-based school reform was making public schools better, and then decided the schools still weren’t great enough for his own children. Who would do that?

Jeb Bush pioneered corporate-influenced school reform when he was governor of Florida from 1999-2007, and since then through two foundations he runs, becoming a national voice on the subject. A number of states have followed his program, which included using standardized tests for high-stakes assessment decisions, including an A-F school grading system that, incidentally, has become so corrupted that even Republicans in the state have recently denounced it. Bush also pushed a “choice” agenda which included charter schools run by for-profit companies, vouchers that used public money to pay for private school tuition, and more.

Now Bush, who pushed his reform agenda to transform the Florida public education system in the name for kids everywhere in the state, managed to send his own sons to Florida private schools, Gulliver Preparatory School in Miami and Bolles School in Jacksonville.

Hmmm. Did Bush forget where his children went? Did Bush not actually write the tweet? Was Bush trying to change the subject from Bennett’s downfall, the result of revelations that, when he was Indiana schools chief last year, Bennett had manipulated the Bush-inspired A-F school grading system to help a charter school he had praised that was run by a Republican donor? (Incidentally, that A-F school grading system that Bush started in Florida has become so degraded that even Republicans in the state say it has no validity.)...>>

[alarimer]

29. I agree with him.

The "reformers" have ruined public schools. Between the testing and the privatization, it's no longer what it used to be.

[blackspade]

30. The destruction of our public school system has been

under way since Reagan and has been a core issue for Rethugs.
An educated and thoughtful public is engaged in the political process which is anathema to the republican party.
I received a pretty good public education during the 70s and 80s but I have noted that since the late 80s the erosion of the public school system has had a detrimental effect on younger folks' knowledge and analytical skills.
The latest 'reforms' and voucher policies are just the latest round in an effort.

I have no grudge against Damon for sending his kids to a private school that he pays for.
He is not taking money away from the system like vouchers and charter schools further undermining public school viability.
He has been a great advocate for returning public schools to their original purpose: to educate the future leaders of this nation.

[JoeyT]

31. Shorter:

The same people whining about him sending his kids to a private school are the very ones that fucked up public schools enough to make it necessary.