The absolute last thing the ruling elite want are educated, critically thinking citizens. It's teaching the slaves to read. What the ruling elite wants are obedient workers, able to read well enough to operate the machinery, but still remain stupid enough not notice longer hours, shittier wages and working conditions, pensions that disappear when you go to collect them, and a corporate government that threw them overboard thirty-plus years ago. As George Carlin said, it's called the American Dream for a reason: you have to be asleep to believe it.

Yes, a soup of education styles to be imported here quite shortly, namely china's dictatorial schools, and the gatesesque free-market engineering schools he set up in india to import engs at bargain wages for the high-tech US labor mkt.

Apparently, the impediments that once existed to validate the reality that all this "free-market will save us" as utter folly have simply been washed away by katrina, the twin towers, finl corruption, and a gluttonous expansion into the perpetual wor and empire.

I totally disagree with your article! Guardian of civic values, democratic politics and public culture...Ha! Bloated bureaucratic lifers, and the destructive role that unions have had in teaching TRUE values to our kids...that is my impression of the past few decades of public education. Shame on you. NOBODY, no institution, should be allowed to fail year-on-year and yet be allowed to maintain their formulas and non-competitive culture. The real world is a meritocracy. Recently, innovators and free thinkers have challenged the long-held "myths" that education was this untouchable system of protected employees---and proven that you CAN make dramatic improvements in the spirit, effort, and performance of the poorest school districts in the nation. I am liberal, believe that racism persists, and that we need to keep trying to raise up our lowest classes in society. The NAACP though is as bad as the teacher's unions, fighting old wars and failing to take responsibility for a cycle of failure. Good for the Mayor. Break Glass America! Flip open all these "fixed games" that drive our nation to weaker footing on the world stage. If you fail (adults), then you step aside and let new ideas and new people take charge.

Run schools like a business. hahaha Will there be the Dollar/99c Schools, the Dented Can Schools, the Cheap Goods for the Middle Class Schools, the Rodeo Drive Schools? Of course, all of them operating with public tax dollars given to private businesses.

A sham, a scam, a shame.

Public schools are only one of the important social institutions that are imperiled by the current downsizing of the public sector. Unfortunately, Professor Giroux's amazing riff on the perceived rationale and purpose for this appointment appear to be motivated solely by the fact of Ms. Black's appointment, her lack of specific experience in managing education, and his concern for reinvigorating our schools as places where young people can be nurtured. Certainly a bureacracy as large as the New York City Schools require skilled management at the helm, and appointment of such a person does not in and of itself result in the dire consequences the Professor fears. Please provide some context for those of us unfamiliar with the recent history of New York City education under her predecessor's leadership. Do the facts of Mr. Bloomberg's history support such a ghoulish scenario?

Re: Tom Looney:
.Ha! Bloated bureaucratic lifers, and the destructive role that unions have had in teaching TRUE values to our kids...
======================
You want a vision of what the "free market" will do to public education? Then look at our profit based health care system. A voracious mafia-like scheme with for profit insurance companies skimming 20% off the top....with a whopping 45 million completely cut out of the system.

This is all a scheme for the Right to destroy a hated and formidable enemy: The NEA and AFT.

Educators are always having to dance to the whims of administration while trying to implement the best instructional strategies - whims that are usually in opposition of best practices. Why hasn't administration been scrutinized throughout this down-with-public-education campaign? I'm not referring primarily to principals, though many are just trying to climb the ladder on the backs of beleaguered teachers. Take a closer look at your superintendents and their subordinates, if you can. Spin City at its finest. It's not about the kids, folks.
Of course, this is generalization, but I've been there, done that, as the saying goes.
The public sector better wise up and speak up or their children's right to a free education will soon be for the haves and screw the have nots.

Sat, 11/13/2010 - 13:49 — Anonymous (not verified)

"1) Imprison the rich.
2) Liquidate their assets."

I hate to break the news to you, but, once you accomplish Step #1, Step #2 becomes impossible, as there are no buyers for those assets (liquidating assets means to sell them in order to raise cash).

But, thank you for providing an example of how our schools turn out people with no critical thinking skills.

Looney is just that. I've been a teacher in private and public schools for twenty plus year. Teachers did have more academic freedom in the past. Now it's all about having 'aligned' curriculum, teaching to so-called 'standards' so that kids can pass multiple-choice standardized tests. I still make my students write, and ask what they think and know. I only have a few more years, and hope I can make it to retirement. Then I'll have to worry if my retirement money isn't taken away to fund some other state system, like prisons! By the way, thank you Truth Out for having articles that I can copy and hand out to my students to read!

Sat, 11/13/2010 - 13:49 — Anonymous (not verified)

Certainly a jest?

It's true that for a few years back in the 1960s?-70s? there was a phrase "Eat the rich", but for three decades now the Middle Class was eaten instead, with disastrous results. No, cannibalism is not a good thing.

Anon@05:12 says, "This is all a scheme for the Right to destroy a hated and formidable enemy: The NEA and AFT."

Considering that the modern Right is the heir of the John Birch Society, which considered the Department of Education a Communist plot equaled in its insidiousness only by the Communist takeover of the State Department and the fiendish fluoridation of our water, I'm amazed this even needs to be explicitly stated.

Anonymous @11/13/2010 - 15:51 hit the nail on the head, though he then drove it into the board and split it.

The people running the schools are the problem, not the teachers or their unions. Only it's not that they aren't business savvy enough. It's that their focus is on the money (i.e. budget) and not the standards that reflect actual education and; current standards amount to teaching monkeys to hit the button and make the peanut come out (the peanut being a good paying job). The people in charge of the educational system need to be those who understand that it's purpose is to educate, which in it's bases Latin form means "to lead out." I have a kid in high school, and their standardization system has gotten even stupider than it used to be; spend all your time caring they can pass a multiple choice test instead of actually teaching them to think and reason for themselves. The teachers my son has do their best to truly educate while meeting the districts requirements, but there's a limit to what time and resources they have.

Putting someone who focuses on profits and 'growth' in charge is, as was stated previously, what destroyed the Health Care system in this country. And if you're talking about someone running anything within Hearst's organization; you're talking about someone part of an oppressive regime that's been undermining social justice in this country for decades (this is WRH's domain we're talking about).

No one calls the rich the enemy; what we do call the enemy are corrupt corporations who care more about making money than anyone they work for or serve. Stop claiming that any of us (except fringe idiots like "eat the rich" guy) are calling people with money the problem. It's people who use their money against the best interest of the country; they're the problem.

While I recognize the great need to update Americans' academic knowledge and worldview, such great belief in business and free market as universal solutions calls to mind a song I once sung as a youth....with a few words changed...and with apologies to Lesley Gore....

Sunshine, lollipops and rainbows,
Everything that's wonderful is what I feel when we use free market,
Brighter than a lucky penny,
With big business here the rain cloud disappears, dear,
And I feel so fine just to know that we are free market.

My life is sunshine, lollipops and rainbows,
That's how this refrain goes, so come on, join in everybody!
....

Yes, join in everybody! Enter the Utopian free market world where everything is sunshine, lollipops and rainbows!

This kind of thing happens everywhere a majority of the Board of Education is appointed by mayors. It is pure despotism worst. These are almost always large cities, and they always end of turning the public school systems in these places into cash cows for politicians. These are insults to democracy and to the children who attend their public schools.
Thanks for an excellent Truth out article,
Jesse Turner the guy walking to DC, and the
Creator of the facebook group "Children are more than test scores"

Since 1970, the inflation-adjusted per-pupil cost of 12 years of public schooling has gone from $40,000 to $150,000, yet kids are not better educated (literacy rates, numeracy rates, etc. have not gone up). Money is not the issue, and budgets should be cut. The problem is the explosive rise in the number of administrators and other non-teachers on school payrolls. Dump them. Dump the Department of Education, which requires most of them.

Sat, 11/13/2010 - 17:24 — Anonymous (not verified)

14:41 here.

"14:41 — Anonymous - And I thank you too, for providing an example of how some peoples belief systems that perpetuate myths like the "earth is flat" or the "sun revolves around the earth" actually interfere with proven scientific critical analysis methods that our teachers throughout human history have regularly been persecuted and demonized for teaching."

WTF are you talking about? In what way am I interfering with "proven scientific critical analysis methods" of any sort? What myth(s) am a perpetuating?

"Since I hate to break the news to you, but, the statement you cite implies that for one, the world consists of the US only..."

A) So, we're getting screwed because a small handful of Americans own the bulk of the country's wealth, but we would be doing great if a small handful of foreigners owned the bulk of the country's wealth?

B) Good luck finding foreign buyers, as anybody with a brain would realize that if they bought the assets, they would be the targets of the next round of asset seizures.

"...and two, the blatant misunderstanding and mischaracterization of value and monetization economies."

Please explain it to me, then.

To M. Looney:
Meritoracy - my shiny metal ass! If the real world were a meritocracy Bush would NEVER have been president; Limbaugh would not be a gazillionaire, and teachers would be wealthy.

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