I find it disturbing how quickly basic facts are flushed down the memory hole.
Yes, Betsy Devos is the extreme example of the type of privatizer destroying public education, but the Democrats – with Obama at the helm – opened the door.
Don’t believe me?
Take a look at Obama’s Digital Promise Initiative, whose purpose was to break open the education market for companies to sell personalized learning products to school districts. Why employ actual teachers, when computers and software can do the job.
How about the ESSA’s inclusion of “innovative assessments” – which edutech predators like iNACOL can’t wait to leverage into more online learning software and continuous testing in the classroom.
The ESSA also gave the charter lobby everything they wanted, and then some.
How can financially stressed public schools, always under the threat of being labeled “failures” based on test scores, compete with flush and unaccountable charter schools? Answer: They can’t.
I believe facts still matter and will fight alongside anyone who wants to protect our public schools, but I refuse to be a cog in anyone’s machine.
I won’t be participating in the partisan blame game, where public education plays the pawn. I’m over the constant maneuvering to score political points – while our schools burn to the ground, but neither of this country’s two cynical political parties seem to smell the smoke.
I’m also convinced it’s impossible to fight and win using the same structure that makes neoliberalism so destructive.
So don’t ask me to become a faceless member of your public education defending non-profit. Paying dues and then walking away isn’t enough for me now.
I’m also sick of powerful, god-like leaders sitting atop hierarchies which rob members of their voice, conscience, and agency.
How can we claim to care about democracy when we refuse to practice it?
If we are truly fighting against the commodification of public education, why would it be acceptable to treat members of our own groups as objects – either as an unintelligent mass that needs to be lead to the truth by an “enlightened” leadership or – at the most cynical – a captive audience to be manipulated for personal gain and advancement by the vanguard of a revolutionary dictatorship.
How can we claim to care about the unique gifts of every child and at the same time be afraid of our own individuality and power?
Barbara Deming – deep thinker, feminist, and champion of nonviolent social change – had this to say about the power of individuals:
If greater gains have not been won by nonviolent action it is because most of those trying it have, quite as Oglesby charges, expected too much from “the powerful”; and so, I would add, they have stopped short of really exercising their peculiar powers – those powers one discovers when one refuses any longer simply to do another’s will. They have stopped far too short not only of widespread nonviolent disruption but of that form of noncooperation which is assertive, constructive – that confronts those who are “running everything” with independent activity, particularly independent economic activity. There is leverage for change here that has scarcely begun to be applied.
If the solution was easy; we’d already have done it.
These are trying times. What used to work has failed us.
We’re scared. The question is what to do with this fear? I see two choices:
We can allow this fear to push us into a panic-stricken frenzy; forever reacting to the latest crisis, allowing those we oppose to set the agenda.
Fear also has a way of justifying tactics which compromise our integrity and over time robs us of our humanity.
Or
We can pause, go deep, and really consider Barbara Deming’s challenge to come up with a new “form of noncooperation which is assertive, constructive – that confronts those who are ‘running everything’ with independent activity…”
In it for the long haul.
Fighting back against ed-reform is going to take a lifetime. Undoing the damage and creating schools which foster face-t0-face democracy, will take even longer.
This is good news. We have the time to get it right.
Since the United States was built on the double fault line of genocide and racism, this is an opportunity to begin to right those wrongs; build on the lesson that ignoring past oppression guarantees more oppression in the future.
Flattening hierarchy, promoting individual agency, and increasing the public good means no one or any group gets tossed aside in the name of expediency.
There’s time to do our homework, to dig down and learn what has worked in the past and the powerful insights mixing in with the failures.
This is an opening to deeply learn our history. Get to know the labor radicals, socialists, populists, anarchists, and all the other colorful rebels of the past.
It’s also an opportunity to face and understand the ugly facts buried in the past: Manifest Destiny and genocide, lynching, eugenics, and the human/environmental carnage brought about by the industrial revolution and perpetuated by modern capitalism.
The architects of ed-reform have given us one clue to their system’s weakness: They love the idea of highly processed children, who will grow up to be widget-like adults.
Why?
Because beaten-down children, all taught from the same script, have the potential to create the most compliant worker class the world has even seen; afraid of authority, accepting of the master’s world view, and willing settle for anything.
Bootlicking is the career our business pleasing politicians are really getting our children ready for.
If there’s going to be any hope for a sane and equitable future, we desperately need to encourage and develop the independent, divergent thinkers among us. These are the individuals who will be the first to shake things up.
Want to be a rebel? Start buying books and reading. If you want to be a revolutionary, organize a reading group.
Crisis of courage.
Unfortunately, teaching, as a profession, is on a different timeline.
I believe due to the recent alignment of technology and federal law, the United States is now on an accelerated track to diminish and ultimately eliminate the role of teacher as a professional career.
Instead, the idea of the teacher will be re-purposed. First, as digital facilitators. Later, the human component will be replaced all together with digital mentors and tutors.
Teachers, at this point, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain by standing up and fighting back against the push to destroy our public schools.
The only thing missing is the courage to do so.
Final thoughts.
The small bit of success I’ve experience as an activist has occurred by refusing to play the game and forcing my opponent to engage using my parameters and rules. Other critical elements have been: fearless friends, humor, and the willingness to let others join in and put their own spin on the action.
I believe all of us already have what’s needed to make change possible: a conscience and the ability to act. All we need is the courage to use these gifts.
-Carolyn Leith
