Think globally, privatize locally: public education is under attack around the world

[Hannah Bell]

From NYC To Namibia, Public Education Is Under Attack by Free-Market Ideologues

New York City’s public-school system has endured repeated budget cuts in recent years. And now the state Assembly is considering a $492 million “compromise” cut in school funding for the city in the coming year, while Mayor Michael Bloomberg is threatening to lay off 6,400 teachers...So, how can people who are charged with protecting our public schools, such as Mayor Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, who say that they care about kids and that school reform is the main social-justice issue of our time, carry out policies that injure the kids they say they want to protect?

The answers to these questions require looking beyond Bloomberg and Klein’s professed beliefs and intentions to the policies themselves, which form a coherent package which has been implemented in countries across much of the world during the past 30 years.

Known outside the United States as neoliberalism’s project in education, this package of “market-friendly” reforms includes privatization of schools and services; charter schools, public-school closings, fragmentation of the school system’s administrative apparatus; budget cuts, high-stakes standardized testing and the destruction of the teacher unions as a significant player in education...

When I speak to audiences of teachers and teacher unionists about my research about this package of reforms, already implemented by the World Bank in Africa, Asia and South America, invariably someone argues that I’m portraying a conspiracy. Not at all. A conspiracy is secret. This project is quite public, if you look for information about it in the right places. One place you would have found these reforms touted a decade ago was on Wall Street. A Merrill Lynch report issued in April 1999 titled “Investing in the Growing Education and Training Industry” informed potential investors that “A new mindset is necessary, one that views families as customers, schools as ‘retail outlets’ where educational services are received, and the school board as a customer service department that hears and addresses parental concerns...”


http://www.indypendent.org/2010/05/13/education-under-attack/

[Joanne98]

1. The education "industry" Fuckers!

[Hannah Bell]

2. They have in mind internationally franchised schools for the masses, listed on the stock exchange.

walmart ed inc. --

private schools for the rich, & "topped-up" charters that the dwindling middle would compete to pay for partly with private funds to try to make sure junior doesn't spend his life cleaning toilets.

[Hannah Bell]

4. k

[Catshrink]

3. Thanks for posting this.

They've managed to change the mindset of Arne and his boss.

[Starry Messenger]

5. "A conspiracy is a secret"

Truer words. This is all out in the open.

[Starry Messenger]

6. Hell, it's so out in the open it's on the web.

I found this last night--power point slides about charter schools in Chile:

http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EDUCATION/Resources/278200-1121703274255/1439264-1178054414297/gregoryelacqua.ppt

Here's an astroturf "Education" blog raving about the successes under Pinochet:

http://educationnext.org/scaling-up-in-chile/

[Hannah Bell]

7. christ wept.

[Starry Messenger]

11. Welcome to America's education policy.

:( Some days all I can do is put my head in my hands.

edit: If that link to the powerpoint doesn't work, this is the link I found it in--I never know if the googlecache links will work.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:F3tQnBwzv4sJ:siteresources.worldbank.org/EDUCATION/Resources/278200-1121703274255/1439264-1178054414297/gregoryelacqua.ppt+charter+schools+chile&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a


It's called Diapositiva 1: The Effectiveness of Networks and Independent Private Schools in Chile’s National Voucher Program

If this other link doesn't work and you want a copy just PM me. I saved it and can see if I can put it in a format everyone can read. It's from a talk in Washington DC.

[leftstreet]

8. omg

that second link

:puke:

[Hannah Bell]

9. chile is quite the little laboratory for neo-lib policies, isn't it? they get all this stuff before

it's even on the radar here.

i wonder why?

touting the capitalist franchise model of schooling, as anyone with half a brain could predict from what's going on here in the US. the denials of the "charter schools are public schools" contingent to the contrary.

[G_j]

10. K&R