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Education Mon Dec 29 2008
Chicago Educators, Policy Watchers: Duncan a Bad Choice
President-elect Obama's choice of his pick-up basketball buddy and Daley apparatchik Arne Duncan as the highest education official of the world's only superpower was met with either yawns or vague plaudits by "liberal" commentators who think a free market model of competition in education will lead to greater equality. But Chicago's teachers, who have faced years of school closures, meaningless benchmarks, and an all-consuming focus on testing, are not letting Duncan enjoy his honeymoon. An organization of teachers, the Caucus of Rank and File Educators, has raised a ruckus about Duncan's destructive "turnaround" and Renaissance 2010 policies. And the negative reviews keep coming in:
Meanwhile, new charter schools face far less regulation and less accountability during their first few years. The charter school experience either provides a curriculum that should be the envy of the world or teach-to-the-test discipline with a bland curriculum. The test-till-you-drop method, utilizing the "research-based" models designed solely to improve test scores, appeals to the CEOs running charter school administrative companies (complete with their "chain" of schools, such as Alliance, Nobel, or ACT), Department of Education officials, and businesses providing capital.
The best charter schools, staffed by teachers envisioning a radically different kind of experience of childhood, resemble the education every child deserves but few receive: child-centered, stimulating, and explorative, with relevant materials and teaching strategies flexible enough to reach all learners.The policies touted as educational "reform" by the New Democrats apply the same neoliberal theories responsible for NAFTA, the WTO, and GATT with the same results: the inequalities become greater while those in positions of power receive even greater rewards. A two-tired education system lurks in the distance, the result of neoliberal efforts to create equality. The gradual privatization and outsourcing of public schools represents a shift towards the voucher system, the ideal school system envisioned by Milton Friedman and present-day neoconservatives.
