The Chicago school reform fraud

[IndianaGreen]

The Chicago school reform fraud

Lee Sustar looks at the model for the Obama administration's plan to remake public education for the interests of big business.

April 5, 2010

IT'S HARD to keep up with blitzkrieg attack on teachers and public education.

A few of the latest headlines: A proposal in the Florida legislature to eliminate teacher tenure and tie pay to test scores. The closure of half the schools in Kansas City. The rapid-fire passage of legislation in many states to qualify for additional federal education funding by opening the door to charter schools and tying teacher pay to test scores. The proliferation of nonunion charter schools run by outfits backed by billionaires like Bill Gates. Sweeping layoffs and budget cuts imposed on teachers' union locals and schools, from California to Washington, D.C.

Then there was notorious Newsweek headline "Why We Must Fire Bad Teachers." And just in case the message wasn't clear enough, the president of the United States himself endorsed the firing of all the teachers at Central Falls High School in Rhode Island.

It's this litany of privatization, cutbacks and union busting that President Barack Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan call "school reform"--and it's accelerating.

After forcing states to compete for a piece of $4.3 billion in additional federal money under the Race to the Top program, Obama and Duncan are now revamping George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation, long criticized for its focus on test sores rather than learning.

But the Duncan-Obama plan would retain the NCLB obsession with testing and add a new punitive edge: The lowest-performing 5 percent of schools in each district would have to be "transformed"--that is, with the teachers fired and replaced.

http://socialistworker.org/2010/04/05/chicago-school-reform-fraud

[radical noodle]

1. Follow the money

:grr: