Dismantling Public Schools: Training First World Kids For A Third World Life, As Inequality Grows

[appalachiablue]

Last edited Tue Feb 12, 2019, 03:53 AM - Edit history (3)

"The Corporate Plan to Groom U.S. Kids for Servitude by Wiping Out Public Schools," by Lynn Parramore, Institute for New Economic Thinking, *April 6, 2018. EXCERPTS.

- Training First-World Children For A Third- World Life: Gordon Lafer, Associate Professor at the Labor Education and Research Center at the University of Oregon, and Peter Temin, Professor Emeritus of Economics at MIT, help illuminate why this is happening, who is behind it, and what’s at stake as the educational system that once united Americans and prepared them for a life of social and economic mobility is wiped out of existence.

- The Plan: Lower People’s Expectations: When Lafer began to study the tsunami of corporate-backed legislation that swept the country in early 2011 in the wake of Citizens United—the 2010 Supreme Court decision that gave corporations the green light to spend unlimited sums to influence the political system—he wasn’t yet clear what was happening.
In state after state, a pattern was emerging of highly coordinated campaigns to smash unions, shrink taxes for the wealthy, and cut public services. Headlines blamed globalization and technology for the squeeze on the majority of the population, but Lafer began to see something far more deliberate working behind the scenes: a hidden force that was well-funded, laser-focused, and astonishingly effective.



Lafer pored over the activities of business lobbying groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) – funded by giant corporations including Walmart, Amazon.com, and Bank of America—that produces “model legislation” in areas its conservative members use to promote privatization. He studied the Koch network, a constellation of groups affiliated with billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch. (Koch Industries is the country’s second-largest private company with business including crude oil supply and refining and chemical production).

Again and again, he found that corporate-backed lobbyists were able to subvert the clear preferences of the public and their elected representatives in both parties. The policy campaign that netted the most laws passed, featured the most big players, and boasted the most effective organizations was public education. *For these U.S. corporations, undermining the public school system was the Holy Grail. Lafer concluded that by lobbying to make changes like increasing class sizes, pushing for online instruction, lowering accreditation requirements for teachers, replacing public schools with privately-run charters, getting rid of publicly elected school boards and a host of other tactics, Big Business was aiming to dismantle public education.

The grand plan was even more ambitious. These titans of business wished to completely change the way Americans and their children viewed their life potential. Lobbyists and associations perfected cover stories to keep the public from knowing their real objectives. Step one was to raise fears about an American educational crisis that did not, in fact, exist.
- The Motivation: Keep the Masses Down as Inequality Rises: The goal is redirecting public resources to unregulated, privately owned and operated schools.. - The New Reality: Two Americas, Not One: Economist Peter Temin, former head of MIT’s economics department and INET grantee, has written a book, *The Vanishing Middle Class, that explains how conditions in the US are becoming more like a third-world country for the bulk of the people. The corporate-driven war on public schools is not just about money, but also about a vision of society...

Read More, "The Corporate Plan to Groom U.S. Kids for Servitude By Wiping Out Public Schools," Lynn Parramore, 2018.
https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/the-corporate-plan-to-groom-u-s-kids-for-servitude-by-wiping-out-public-schools?fbclid=IwAR34MkxZ5mcE_gv6EipOlYAguSxuRo7cIXwpdCE3ZGr7hbGFeIEAxFGRgkg

"The Vanishing Middle Class, Prejudice and Power in a Dual Economy," by Peter Temin, MIT Economist. Why the US has developed an economy divided between rich and poor with few families in the middle. https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/vanishing-middle-class

The US Is Regressing To A Developing Nation For Many,
https://mavenroundtable.io/theintellectualist/news/study-by-mit-economist-u-s-has-regressed-to-a-third-world-nation-for-most-of-its-citizens-Sb5A5HZ1rUiXavZapos30g/

+ "Millionaire-Driven Education Reform Has Failed. Here's What Works," by Lynn Parramore, *Jan. 31, 2019. Journalist Andrea Gabor’s new book heralds a “quiet revolution” in education you didn’t know was happening. Some far-sighted educators, active citizens, & imaginative thinkers have been swimming against the tide of the top-down, millionaire-driven reform movement with approaches to learning that are not only much more democratic, but remarkably effective & better attuned to the needs of 21st c. students.
https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/millionaire-driven-education-reform-has-failed-heres-what-works

>Guest Lynn Parramore: "How Corporations Groom Kids For Servitude," The Zero Hour, host RJ Eskow, 2018. Excellent +++

Lynn Parramore, https://www.ineteconomics.org/research/experts/lynnparramore

RJ Eskow, https://ourfuture.org/author/richardeskow

[lunasun]

1. K+R excellent read and links Thank you for the post .

[Doreen]

2. I remember years ago

when I was in Walmart and I saw this paper pinned to the wall to explain texting language. I remember thinking that Walmart must be trying to dumb people down and not really learn to read or write so that they will have more workers relying on them for a job because they do not qualify for anything else. I have been suspicious of Walmart wanting to destroy education since I worked for them in 1998.

They also tell you that they will work with you on hours so that you may attend school. Yeah, right, If you consider having to work the latest shift when you have to be up at six to be at school in another city, Be at work the moment you get back from school, or having your hours bounced around so much that you barely get to go to school but are unable to do homework unless you stay up in to the wee hours of the morning.

[appalachiablue]

8. Walmart has been huge in the school privatization business

for years, so your thinking was probably right on.

[BigmanPigman]

3. I noticed it back in 1995 when I began subbing.

When I finally got a contract it became obviously clear that this was where public schools were heading. I am so glad I am no longer teaching and I do not have kids myself. I wouldn't want to add this to the dismal future of the US citizens.

[notdarkyet]

4. Thanks.

[Solly Mack]

5. K&R

[world wide wally]

6. This all began with a manufactured crisis by Ronald Reagan when he Commissioned

"A Nation At Risk". I thought then, as I still think, that it has all been an effort to get private schools subsidized through government. This is equivalent to another tax cut for the wealthy who send their kids to private schools anyway but giving them a handout to do so.

[appalachiablue]

7. Disaster capitalism and voodoo education. Years ago, RR's

Educ. Secy. Bill Bennett insisted that students were 'consumers' to stunned Lou Dobbs who said 'no they were citizens.'



1983, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Nation_at_Risk