On Education Part Ten: Should We Embrace the Charter School Movement?

This mini-series "On Education" is a compiled list of short essays concerning theoretical approaches to classroom pedagogy and their broader implications upon us as educators and our students.

Read Past Contributions:

Part One: Banking or Problem Posting Education?

Part Two: Selective Omission and What We Learn from Malcolm X's Schooling Experience

Part Three: Education, for Liberation or Domination?

Part Four: "Revolutionary Radicals," Consciousness, and the Privatization of Education

Part Five: Humanization through Liberal or Vocational Education? 
Part Six:  Articulating the World and the Implications of Literacy on Overcoming Limit-Situations

Part Seven: Slum Schools and Marginalizing the Marginalized

Part Eight: Middle Class Elitism and the Myth of the Super Teacher
Part Nine: Class and the Possibility to Transcend Race, Nationality, and Ethnic Identity 


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The essence of any private entity, insofar as it exists within a capitalist political economy, is to function around a profit motive. Public institutions, on the other hand, despite their often deteriorated democratic structures and top-heavy bureaucratic management, provide some semblance of public ownership and popular control. American capitalism, especially in the age of globalization, has pursued drastic privatization efforts in nearly every area imaginable. Thus, very few industries or economic sectors remain within the public domain. The education of children remains a final frontier in privatization, in the domination of the market over democratic control and public ownership. According to some corporate analysts, “the education industry represents the largest market opportunity since health-care services were privatized during the 1970’s,” (Kozol) and corporate America plans to impinge upon this sector, slyly or with force. Charter schools are the manifestation of this privatization effort within the educational realm; they function to subvert the public school system, allowing corporate America to latch its lengthy tentacles onto the levers of power in order to manipulate and control young peoples’ educational experience while garnering a profit.
 

Charters are, essentially, “any school that is funded publicly but governed by institutions outside the public school system” which allows for “any group of people [a company, a non-governmental organization, a university, etc.] who write a charter can become autonomous from a public school board and control the budget, curriculum, and select the students in a school” (Knopp, p.36). Essentially, this means that anybody or any company, regardless of their knowledge or educational background, can dictate the educational environment in which children are taught. Charter schools, until recently a relatively marginal form of education, have sprung up rapidly in the both United States and around the world:

Today more than one million children attend some four thousand charter schools nationally.10 The Chicago Teachers Union has shrunk by 10 percent since the onset of Renaissance 2010, a program to break away one hundred schools from the Chicago Public School District. In Los Angeles 7 percent of children in public school, 45,000 students, attend charter schools.11 And that number is growing rapidly: in California, charter schools grew by 13.2 percent in 2006/07, increasing to 617 schools.12 Joel Klein, chancellor of schools in the New York public school system, has announced his intention that all of New York’s schools should be charters.13 Thirty percent of the students in Dayton, Ohio, attend charter schools.14 About 30 percent of the children in Washington, D.C., attend these schools, and 9 percent in Arizona. Georgia has sixty charter schools, double what it had in 2005. Florida has 334, and Texas 237.15  (Knopp, p. 38).

Often funded by right-wing foundations and endowments, such as the annual $50 million provided by Wal-Mart’s Walton Family Foundation (Klonsky and Klonsky, p.93), even many prominent liberals, such as President Barack Obama, vigorously promote the charter school agenda. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funded a 2006 study which postulated that called for replacing public schools with charter schools, “eliminating nearly all the powers of local school boards” and replacing their powers with a rubber-stamp ability to approve charters, “eliminating teacher pensions and slashing health benefits,” and “forcing all 10th graders to take a high school exit examination based on 12th grade skills, and terminating the education of those who failed” (Miller and Gerson). The charter movement merges seamlessly with the dominant, neoliberal ideological tendencies of the past three decades:

Charter schools fit the needs of the establishment perfectly. Education is still compulsory and paid for by the state. Children are still controlled while their parents are at work, and thus this is still supported by our regressive tax structure. And charter schools are excellent teachers of free-market, “personal responsibility” ideology. The American Dream is promised to all those who strive to pull themselves up by the bootstraps (Knopp, p.39).

Charter schools, then, work within the long-established framework of undemocratic and alienating social efficiency theory of education. With this advent, the possibility of a Wal-Mart educated America may become a reality in the not so distance future.
 

The impacts of charter schools on the public education system are diverse and multifaceted. Undoubtedly, public education within the United States has historically suffered from a lack of funding, an unequal distribution of resources, a lack of democratic control by the community, sluggish bureaucracy, and top-down decision making. Some within the educational establishment, even well-intentioned teachers and parents attracted to rhetoric of choice and innovation, argue that charters can reinvigorate the local school environment and empower historically marginalized communities. Some progressive journals such as Rethinking Schools have already shown they are open to the idea that charters may present a benevolent development over the decrepit public system. In the book published by Rethinking Schools, Keeping the Promise? The Debate Over Charter Schools, authors explain that the “question facing the charter school movement is whether it will fulfill its founding promise of reform that empowers the powerless, or whether it will become a vehicle to further enrich the powerful and stratify our schools” (Dingerson et al., xv). This idealistic vision, however, has already been answered. 

Eventually, even smaller charters formed on the basis of providing a progressive, engaging educational environment, such charters organized around principles of social justice, are eventually pried open by corporate money as they struggle to garner more resources for their children. Kozol explains:

In rare occasions, a charter school created by teachers in the public system and in collaboration with activist parents in the community have had at least short-term success… [but] They tend very quickly—even when they’re started by teachers with the best intentions—to enter into collaboration with the private sector (Kozol).

Thus, charter schools represent an individual, reactionary solution to a prodigious societal problem; they do very little of what they promise and, furthermore, they effectively close the dialogue on articulating organized, collective solutions which could drastically improve the public educational system for all children. Charter schools present a myriad of problems for educators who wish to democratize schooling and provide fair, equitable educational institutions for all students. No only do they brazenly swing open the door to mass privatization, charters fail to perform better than other schools, choose the students able to attend which decreases student and parent control and excludes undesirable children, provide even less autonomy than public schools, and they serve as a virulent offensive against teachers unions.
 

The profit motive, which drives the business world, has increasingly manifested itself as the impetus behind school reform. Charter schools can be either non-profit or for-profit institutions. Currently, around one-quarter of all charter schools function for a profit. However, even non-profit schools face the constant need to expand, secure more funds, and provide the cheapest services possible which ensure the greatest return. Thus, while for-profits are less pervasive, the effects of running charter schools on the business model (since non-profits rely upon cost-cutting as well in order to expand) are applicable to both categories. Knopp explains, “there is always an incentive to do things on the cheap—poorly maintained physical plant and equipment, low pay for teachers and other staff, and larger class sizes mean bigger rates of return” (Knopp, p. 40-1). Even if a charter declares itself non-profit, administration salaries can be extremely high and charters are capable of siphoning off some public funds to keep as profit. This, however, does not even include the common practice of “contracting out” non-profit charters. Often, “for-profit corporations create nonprofit foundations to obtain the charters, and then hire themselves to run the schools” (Klonsky and Klonsky, p. 108). Thus, within the realm of private education corruption abounds and profiteering reigns. As is common within a capitalist framework, sly executives regularly maneuver around the limited laws which attempt to limit the denigrating effects of the market on the public sphere.
 

Another common claim is that charters will outperform the public sector in terms of testing and student achievement. Ignoring the fact that charters are still tied to the rigid state curriculum and fundamentally flawed and biased standardized testing, these schools generally fail to meet the claim of providing a superior educational experience. A variety of studies have concluded charter schools either perform at the same level of public institutions or, in many cases, do worse. Math and reading scores, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, were generally lower in independent charter schools than their counterparts in the public realm (“Exploding the Charter School Myth”) Similarly, a 2005 study carried out by the Economic Policy Institute and the Teachers’ College at Columbia University entitled Charter School Dustup: Examining the Evidence on Enrollment and Achievement, found that “socio-economically disadvantages Asian-origin and Latino students in charter schools had composite test scores (literacy, mathematics, science, and social studies) that were about 4 to 5 percent lower than their counterparts in public primary schools” (Conroy et al.). Knopp explains that “every state besides Arizona…found charter schools’ performance is no higher than that of public schools in every demographic category” (Knopp, p. 41). Like many other charter school assertions, the declaration of better grades does not match up with the hard statistics. This is not to say that charters cannot succeed, they can; however, it is usually when they are provided with extra money and more resources than public schools.
 

Even when charters can accurately maintain that they have better test scores, it is because they have the choice to cherry-pick what students they allow in the institution; thus, charters start with students who already have scored higher on standardized tests. The boards who run these schools “select for students with the most resourceful parents, the children who already have a head start in the race” (Knopp, p.42). Likewise, English language learners are often ostracized from these institutions since charters, “whether consciously or unconsciously, select for those students who are going to boost their test scores the most” (Knopp, p. 42). Many schools even “decry the ‘burdens’ of special education” and “frequently pronounce themselves not subject to IDEA [Individuals with Disabilities Education Act]” and do whatever they can to reject children with special needs (Stoneman). Lastly, charters can simply remove students, or parents, whom they dislike or struggle in the school. Parents and students lack the due process potentially available to them in the public school system.
 

Some charters utilize rhetoric of autonomy, grassroots control, and social justice to draw students traditionally marginalized by the public system. However, this façade of academic freedom does not truly exist since charters, like public schools, cannot evade the rigid standardization measurements put forth by the dominant testing agencies and state bureaucrats. In the same vein, charters remove parent and teacher control absolutely, as is clear in the case of Green Dot, the nonprofit organization that runs a dozen or so charters in Los Angeles, which explicitly exclaims “the Board maintains final authority over decisions regarding administrative decisions” (Knopp, p.42). Decisions over curriculum, clothing (such as uniforms), educational tactics, and methods of assessment all lie with the board who governs the schools, quite the opposite of the language of grassroots autonomy charters often evoke. Most charters even go so far as to not permit unions within their establishments. Leadership Academy in Los Angeles, which calls itself a social justice school, illuminates this concept lucidly:

[The Leadership Academy] encourages teachers to use lessons from movements for social change, and encourages students to attend antiwar demonstrations. The school recruits students who have been involved in community organizing and who are committed to progressive, antiracist pedagogy. The teachers learned a lesson in social justice, though, when they tried to win the right to representation and collective bargaining by affiliating to the California Teachers Association. Roger Lowenstein [the head of the academy] hired high-paid anti-union law firms to keep the union out… Lowenstein argued to the Public Employee Relations Board that it should have no role in overseeing the union election or investigating unfair labor practices because the Leadership Academy is “not a public school.” If he was referring to the decision-making process—rather than the source of funding, which is, of course, public—he is absolutely right. Teachers quickly found out that the school’s advocacy for struggle, protest, and collectively “speaking truth to power” rang hollow when it came to their right to organize themselves (Knopp, p. 43).

Thus, charters not only dictate the terms upon which children are educated, they present a direct attack upon teachers’ unions and the right to workplace organization. Within the larger, neoliberal context of the past three decades, this theme fits in rather flawlessly.
 

Charter schools do not represent a real solution to America’s endemic schooling predicament. Charters present a reactionary response to a failing educational system; they are tools of the rich who utilize them “used to dismantle the power of the teachers’ unions” while “siphoning public money into private hands” by “channeling tax money into the pockets of enterprising individuals” (Knopp, p.39). Despite the harmful effects of charters, they continue to creep into the public realm. In California, where tens of thousands of students attend overcrowded school buildings, legislation has been articulated that allows for charters to take over public space. In Chicago, Arnie Duncan has vehemently promoted charter schools, along with merit pay and massive militarization of the public school system, and closed many public schools and replaced them with private or military institutions (Ayers, “Child Soldiers” and Sharkey, “Military Out of Our Schools”). However, parents, teachers, students, and community members have actively fought back in various instances and, in same cases, won decisive victories of the charter schools. In California, after large-scale community protests, only sixteen of forty applications for co-location of charters in public space were accepted by the Los Angeles United School District (Knopp, p. 45). Similarly, in Puerto Rico teachers “struck for more than a week against the colonial government’s plans for education” which included the increased presence of charter schools on the island (Knopp, p.44). Therefore, it is apparent that a dedicated, organized campaign of education and activism is absolutely necessary to challenge the charter school movement. As recent victories show, collective effort can overpower corporate encroachment.
 

Teachers who truly desire autonomy, equality, and social justice must articulate a different platform for educational reform. First, they most argue that if the public school system was better funded, had more access to needed resources, was given more democratic control with curriculum, and not confined by culturally biased standardized tests which smother teacher creativity and stifle students ability to critically analyze and be engaged in school, then charter schools would not have any significant place in the discussion over reform. This abstraction, however, must be backed up with concrete action at the grassroots level.

Educators must involve themselves deeply within the struggle for more resources; an increase on corporate tax rates or a deflating of the military budget could provide the money so desperately needed to help fix the public system. An intense educational campaign must be waged against charters; this means teachers must be actively involved in their own unions and win over other educators to the idea. Educators should also welcome charter school teachers into teachers’ unions, but on the condition that they have all the fundamental rights of non-charter contracts. Lastly, teachers must fight every corporate incursion and charter friendly legislation that appears before them; “from the $3 billion testing industry accelerated under No Child Left Behind, to McGraw-Hill and its Reading First program pushed through by the Bush Administration,” every act corporate and military impingement in the public sphere must be challenged (Knopp, p.45-6). Without organized resistance, the America’s education will just be another example of the long line of privatization, from healthcare, to the prison industry, to the military. It is the place of educators, who honestly care for the quality of education provided to all students, to fight back against the newest wave of privatization and corporate infringement on the public domain.

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WORKS CITED

Conroy, M., Jacobsen, R., Mishel, L., and Rothstein, R., The Charter School Dustup: Examining Evidence on Enrollment and Achievement (Washington: Economic Policy Institute, 2005).
Editorial, (August 27, 2006). Retrieved April 19, 2009 from New York Times:
Klonsky, M., and Klonsky, S., Small Schools: Public School Reform Meets the Ownership Society (New York: Routledge, 2008).
Knopp, S., (Nov-Dec 2008). “Charter Schools and the Attack on Public Education.” International Socialist Review 62, pg. 36-47. Also available from International Socialist Review Online:
Kozol, J., (August 2007). “The Big Enchilada.” Retried April 19, 2009 from Harper’s Magazine
Kozol, J., (Jan-Feb 2006). “Separate and Unequal: America’s Apartheid Schools.” Interview in International Socialist Review 45. Retrieved April 19, 2009 from International Socialist Review Online:
Miller, S., and Gerson, J., “The Corporate Surge Against Public Schools.” Retrieved April 19, 2009 from Scribd:
Quinn, T., Meiners, E., Ayers, B., (January 8, 2008). “Child Soldiers.” Retrived April 19, 2009 from Bill Ayers:
Sharkey, J., (October 14, 2008). “Get the Military Out of Our Schools.” Retrieved April 19, 2009 from Socialist Worker:
Stoneman, C. (Fall 1988). “New Battlegrounds.” Retrieved April 19, 2009, from Rethinking Schools: 

On Education Part Seven: Slum Schools and Marginalizing the Marginalized

This mini-series "On Education" is a compiled list of short essays concerning theoretical approaches to classroom pedagogy and their broader implications upon us as educators and our students. I hope to continue it for a while, and, of course, any critical dialogue upon what is presented is more than welcome. I will try to space these out weekly.

Read Past Contributions:

Part One: Banking or Problem Posting Education?

Part Two: Selective Omission and What We Learn from Malcolm X's Schooling Experience

Part Three: Education, for Liberation or Domination?

Part Four: "Revolutionary Radicals," Consciousness, and the Privatization of Education

Part Five: Humanization through Liberal or Vocational Education? 
Part Six:  Articulating the World and the Implications of Literacy on Overcoming Limit-Situations

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The political, economic, and social context in which American education revolves extensively around the Cold War rancor between the United States and the Soviet Union; an atmosphere of fear, generated by the red scare and accusations of anti-Americanism, gripped the nation as the press, politicians, and corporate heads embellished the threat of Communism to the average American. It was within this historical context, where two world super powers and their respective ruling elites were colliding to achieve militaristic and economic dominance, that the conservative educational philosophy of James B. Conant would be lengthily developed and happily regurgitated by status quo-promoting school officials. Conant, an extreme advocate of meritocracy, would push for a national school reform where standardized testing, selective schooling, limited access to education, and vocational training for the majority would ensure “a stable American democracy” where “a government run by experts with only limited participation by the masses” would help to marginalize the more subversive, “diverse populations of students” that “had strengthened the position of radical elements on campus” (Tozer, 2009, p. 221).
 

Schools and universities, according to Conant, should function not as democratic institutions where students and faculty are actively engaged in the democratic process to foster a sustainable democratic culture but instead a meritocratic, intellectual ivory tower where a skilled elite would be cultivated with the purpose of running society. Despite the democratic rhetoric, Conant’s ideas would promote a vision of an extremely exclusive quasi-democratic state more akin to ancient Athens than to a real, participatory democracy where the majority had control over their lives and labor. Thus, Conant’s primary desire was not only to maintain and perpetuate the current class structure but to strengthen it; he hoped to accomplish this by training a highly skilled elite in advanced academic institutions while utilizing public schools to force feed a mind-numbing, ultra-nationalist, conformist, training-based educational regimen down the throats of the rest of the population.
 

A recurrent theme throughout Conant’s educational ideal is what, in his mind, he identified with freedom: bourgeois democracy and the capitalist state. Thus, any sort of dissident or radical who questioned the foundation upon which the capitalist order rested was pigeonholed into the caricature of a subversive, anti-American Communist. Despite the fact that many, though by no means all, progressives and radicals within the New Left dismissed the state-capitalist model of the Soviet Union as nothing more than a pretty façade of worker’s power covering an ugly, brutal regime, Conant and the rest of the public officials during this time period would consistently raise the specter of a Communist takeover and associate any sort of dissent with such a threat. As Conant explains:

Communism feeds upon discontented, frustrated, unemployed people… The young people are my chief concern, especially when they are pocketed together in large numbers within the confined of big city slums. What can words like ‘freedom,’ ‘liberty,’ and ‘equality of opportunity’ mean to these young people? With what kind of zeal and dedication can we expect them to withstand the relentless pressures of communism? How well prepared are they to face the struggle that shows no sign of abating? (Tozer, p. 219)

The kind of “zeal and dedication” Conant envisioned would be one of nationalistic furor and unquestioning obedience to the authority of the skilled minority which, ironically, was quite a similar theoretical approach to Soviet-style state capitalism. It would take a public school system that conditioned students and teachers to act, respond, and think in a specific way to commands from the educated elite to solidify this meritocratic ideal. The result of this sort of educational program does not require much pondering; the established elite and intellectual ruling clique would maintain their dominance over the majority and do with them, their labor, their resources, and their lives, what they pleased.
 

Conant knew that in every corner of American society there remained a wide gap between those who have it all and those who have nothing. Tozer explains that “At one extreme, the urban schools in low-income and poverty neighborhoods stressed vocational education and…the wealthy suburban schools educated almost all their students for college” (Tozer, p. 219). The policies Conant vehemently postulated would further inequality by promoting “segregation of Black students from White students in the college preparatory and advanced placement classes [he] so vigorously endorsed” (Tozer, p. 221). This, of course, was no concern to him; socioeconomic factors were not important enough to consider when analyzing the academic and intellectual ability of a student. Or, rather, Conant hoped to downplay their importance purposefully and designed a theoretical approach which would not only ignore reality but actively seek to displace it from consideration.
 

For educators, then, the absolute and unequivocal renunciation of Conant and his meritocratic vision is necessary. For democracy to flourish, the control of society cannot be restricted to an educated elite who acts on behalf of the people. The people must be intricately engaged and involved in their own lives and how society is organized through democratic participation. The example of Ernesto “Che” Guevara and Fidel Castro in Cuba can be utilized here for educators, especially those involved in the field of history. A small band of revolutionaries, aimed to dismantle the oppressive, U.S. backed dictatorship of General Batista in Cuba, fought a guerrilla war on behalf of the Cuban people in an attempt to liberate them from their oppressors. Unfortunately, despite popular support, the actual involvement of the people in the revolution was limited. As Paul D’Amato explains, “The revolution was wildly popular for its land, educational and economic reforms, but the Cuban masses neither carried out the revolution nor created the state that emerged from it” (D’Amato, 2008). Consequently, a relatively small, bureaucratic elite now maintains power in Cuba under the guise of a socialist democracy. Although Conant’s desires and ideal differ prodigiously from the hopes and dreams of the Cuban peasants, toiling workers, and guerrilla revolutionaries, the concept is transferable. Democracy must include full participation of the masses; without an education which allows for such a democratic culture to develop, however, this goal is largely unattainable.
 

In the classroom, this means that democratic participation by the students is absolutely essential in the learning process. A dictatorial, teacher-student dichotomy where the relationship is defined in strict terms of depositor and receiver, one simply giving information and one simply accepting it, is unacceptable for a democratic atmosphere to flourish. Rather, a relationship where the teacher engages the students by proposing problems and facilitating the development of solutions, meanwhile learning from and immersing him or herself in the lives of the students, provides the most fulfilling, democratic, and humanizing form of education imaginable. This, in contrast with the meritocratic, structured hierarchy of Conant, provides a glimpse into the possibilities for the future of education if students, teachers, and parents take up the struggle for autonomy and active engagement in the learning process. It will be more than simply requesting it from the established structural norms or hoping a few benevolent politicians implement it; indeed, it will only come through a dedicated struggle waged by those who truly desire the development of democracy. Thus, the radical elements developing with progressive ideas of how to significantly alter democracy must not be shunned or marginalized but creatively explored and tested. Educators cannot afford to simply understand the pedagogical aspects of working with students; they must also be prepared to accept and utilize the organizational principles required to fight back against oppressive working conditions and the bureaucratic school systems, lacking union organizations, and corporate impingement into the public arena. The fight is ours to win; we, as educators, just have to be willing to engage in it.

Works Cited

D’Amato, P. (2008) Tyrannies Ruling in the Name of Socialism. Socialist Worker, 679, August. Accessed March 20, 2009. Available: http://socialistworker.org/2008/08/28/in-the-name-of-socialism

Tozer, S., Violas, P., & Senese, G. (2009) School and Society: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. 6th ed. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill.

On Education Part Three: Education, for Liberation or Domination?

This mini-series "On Education" is a compiled list of short essays concerning theoretical approaches to classroom pedagogy and their broader implications upon us as educators and our students. I hope to continue it for a while, and, of course, any critical dialogue upon what is presented is more than welcome. I will try to space these out weekly.

Read Past Contributions:
Part One: Banking or Problem Posting Education?
Part Two: Selective Omission and What We Learn from Malcolm X's Schooling Experience

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This article explores the nexus of the educational framework developed by Horace Mann, an early nineteenth century American educational reformer and theorist. Borrowing from previous thoughts and methods of educational development, Mann reviewed various methods and merged them into a functional model based largely upon the authoritarian Prussian school system. One shall find that Mann’s educational approach was mostly an attempt to homogenize the ever-changing immigrant workforce and “provide [employers] with workers who were not only more productive but also docile, easily managed, and unlikely to resort to strikes or violence” (Tozer, 76). At a time when industrialization and urbanization were quickly impinging upon the exclusive agrarian society envisioned by Thomas Jefferson, it became essential that the ruling elites (composed of giant industrial owners, large-scale corporate executives, etc.) found a method in which to sterilize the working class and secure their position of power. Thus, Mann’s education process, a manifestation of elite desire to maintain power with striking similarities to the nationalistic, trade-specific, dehumanizing educational process in Prussia, is largely a pedagogy of oppression; the educational institutions which Mann argues for serve to reproduce the existing social structure and the dominant ideology.

One of the most striking examples is Mann’s attempt to apologize for the enormous wealth gap in society. His aims are rather explicit when he explains that education should “disarm the poor of their hostilities towards the rich” (Tozer, 77). This blatant example, despite some intertwining populist rhetoric, betrays his class loyalty. This is only reinforced when he explains, “The main idea set forth in the creeds of some political reformers, or revolutionizers, is, that some people are poor because others are rich” (Tozer, 77). By implying that a dialectical understanding of wealth is an inappropriate analysis, and that his conception of education alone will lift the poor out of the depths of poverty, Mann’s educational reforms can be viewed as little else than a attempt to skillfully manipulate the public to garner support for an educational process which fostered class oppression. In fact, a letter from a Lowell manufacturer, who had employed and exploited hundreds of workers, explicated upon this postulation:

“I have uniformly found the better educated as a class possessing a higher and better state of morals, more orderly and respectful in their deportment, and more ready to comply with the wholesome and necessary regulations…and in times of agitation…I have always looked to the most intelligent, best educated…for support” (Tozer, 76).

Thus, one sees that the primary goal of the educational process for school reformers such as Mann was to create a working class who provided little or no resistance to the oppressive conditions in which they labored. This played to the ears of the newly emerging ruling elite of industrializing America. No critique was permitted of an economic system where workers’ labor was exploited for as much surplus value as possible, starvation wages were predominant, child labor was common, and workplace rights were absent. Likewise, the idea that democracy should extend to the workplace was a dangerous idea to the elites in the early 19th century, much as it is today. Education, in Mann’s conception, serves to stifle democracy and its spread beyond the very limited political sphere.

The idea that society should reinforce the power structure and reproduce itself continues today. Modern school systems serve the interests of the dominant class. As Jean Anyon found upon studying various schools according to income, “students in different social-class backgrounds are rewarded for classroom behaviors that correspond to…different occupation-strata—the working classes for docility and obedience, the managerial classes for initiative and personal assertiveness” (Anyon, 1). It appears that Mann’s ideas are largely dominant in today’s educational atmosphere. Indeed, Anyon further explicates upon this point when she explains that working class schools use “mechanical, rote work that [is] given little explanation or connection to larger contexts” (Anyon, 4) and “Work is often evaluated not according to whether it is right or wrong but according to whether the children followed the right steps” (Anyon, 3). These examples highlight the fact that the majority of working class students are taught to become obedient workers who unquestioningly accept society and the current class structures which exist. In contrasts, elite schools train children to replace the ruling elite in society, so that the cycle continues, capitalism maintains itself, and the undemocratic workplace remains a permanent institution.

Undoubtedly, this model of education should be challenged by anyone concerned with truly democratizing society and the process of fully humanizing each individual. Indeed, even contemporary writers challenged Mann’s educational ideal. Orestes Brownson, whose own educational idea based upon democratic localism, flawed itself, was correct in pointing out the insidious nature of Mann’s proposals; his critique explained that the educational apparatus Mann envisioned was no more than “a branch of the general police” whose goal was to “[make] the rich secure in their possessions” (Tozer, 79). Unfortunately, history has shown that Brownson’s warnings were not considered seriously enough.

Today, educators are barraged with a wide gamut of bureaucratic measures intended to stifle critical thought and democratic practice. In fact, teachers themselves are supposed to be the “docile, easily managed” workers who are “disarmed…of their hostilities towards the rich” (Tozer, 76-77). Teachers unions, historically a vehicle for struggle against unfair working conditions and a lack of resources, have been largely stripped of their influence and are now run by a ruling group of conservative labor bureaucrats. Democracy and autonomy have been replaced with undemocratic centralization of power and unquestioning obedience. For educators, becoming promoters of educational liberation is vital; until teachers engage in the struggle to break free from the chains that bind them, however, this goal cannot be realized. Educators must look to the example of the 15,000 teachers who recently marched against budget cuts, class size increases, pay cuts and layoffs in LA. One could also look to the Puerto Rican teachers who cut ties with the bureaucratic SEIU and democratically organized their own teachers union to fight for better wages and schools. In order to promote the liberation of all people, educators must fight to liberate themselves; this means challenging Horace Mann’s conception of education and fighting for genuine democracy both inside and outside of the workplace.

Works Cited

Anyon, J. (1980) Social Class and the Hidden Cirriculum. Journal of Education, 162(1), Fall.

Tozer, S., Violas, P., & Senese, G. (2009) School and Society: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. 6th ed. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill.

A Debate on the Proposed Educational Reforms at UT

Below are three different articles. The first is a basic summation of the recent privatization attempts and the cutbacks at the University of Toledo in the face of this devastating economic crisis. The second is a response by an Anna Martinez in the PR office of Higher Ed Holdings, a company I criticized in the original piece. The third is my response to her, and to progressives who happen to think Higher Ed Holdings conception of education may be a good thing for cost-cutting in the face of budget cuts, etc. The first two originally appeared on SocialistWorker.org, the third did not (edit: it eventually did) and I have yet to receive a response from Martinez.

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July 16, 2009

The Business of Education
Derek Ide

In the spirit of charter school “reform” sweeping across our educational establishment, the college of education at the University of Toledo has been appointed a new, charismatic reformer as dean who will lead the charge. Who is this brave soul planning to lead our college “on a path to world class”? None other than former UT Trustee Tom Brady.

His credentials for running the college of education are impeccable. As former founder and corporate head of Plastic Technologies Inc., Brady is an “entrepreneurial candidate with leadership qualities” who can “figure out how to do things in different ways while being more cost-effective,” in the words Provost Rosemary Haggett.

When former dean Thomas Switzer declared his retirement at the end of the Spring semester, UT President Lloyd Jacobs articulated to Haggett that someone from “outside the educational establishment” with a “business orientation” should run the college of education. One may question why our college of education should be run like a business, but perhaps since I am only a student, and not a member of the board of Trustees, who lavish praise upon Jacobs, I don’t find my interests aligned with theirs.

Jacobs, a medical doctor, who makes over $390,000 per year, with a $450,000 five-year bonus for not seeking a position elsewhere, has continually cited economic hardship as a means of cutting into programs at the university. In 2007 Jacobs faced tumultuous protest by concerned students and faculty when he expressed the desire to implement cuts into the liberal arts programs, decrease the availability of classes in areas like history, and replace full-time instructors with cheaper part-time instructors. Instead, resources were to be funneled almost exclusively into areas of STEMM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Medicine), while other areas are left to deteriorate or become what many students recognize as “diploma mills.”

The administration has been active in pushing for this type of in-and-out, make as much money as you can style of education. On February 26 of this year, Inside Higher Ed reported that “administrators are exploring a partnership with a private company known for churning out quick and inexpensive degrees.” This company was “Higher Ed Holdings, a Texas-based company that would help deliver online masters-level education courses to students in exchange for a share of tuition revenues.” Anyone who plans to be an educator undoubtedly knows that you cannot teach someone to teach simply through an online course; likewise, the dialogue, discussion, and personal contacts so vital to our education that one (potentially) gets in the classroom is not, and cannot, be replicated through such a course.

Luckily, student and faculty protest against such measures, along with quick organization both inside and outside the classroom, forced them to back down. The Toledo Blade reported on March 3 that, “It was still early in the conversations and the fact that the company had to back out at this stage "reflects poorly on our university" because they could not have a reasonable dialogue about the proposal, Ms. Haggett wrote in an e-mail Tuesday to the college of education staff.” This is something we should be proud of.

Thus, Jacobs appointment of “entrepreneurial” Brady, who is obviously outside of the “educational establishment,” comes as no surprise. Brady fits the mold of wealthy, reactionary “school reformer.” As an article in the Independent Collegian explained, “Brady has been a strong advocate for charter schools and other alternative forms of education. He helped to found the Toledo Technology Academy and has been involved with the Toledo School for the Arts.” Students should be trained, according to Brady, to produce more “high-value commerce” and still has hopes to outsource our education with revenue-generating companies like that of Higher Ed Holdings. We can also expect the very few educational courses which foster democratic dialogue and question the dominant discourse (such as those that explore the theoretical contributions of Paulo Freire, John Dewey, W.E.B. DuBois, and others) to be cut.

Supposedly, Brady was approved only after “all final applicants were considered and interviewed.” These “other applicants were from both within and outside of the college and constituted a diverse group along gender and racial lines, according to Jacobs.” It just so happened that Brady, wealthy, white, corporate businessman is the one chosen. Faculty, staff, and students did not support, and were not given a choice, in who was to lead the college. This sort of basic, democratic choice should be expected if universities and our educational apparatus, as educational theorist John Dewey posited, were meant to foster a democratic culture and active engagement on behalf of the educators and learners. Democratic participation by the students is absolutely essential in the learning process.

Instead, top-down decisions are run at our university like in any other private tyranny, with no serious input by those who actually do the work. The Board of Trustees have final say and, until we remedy this sort of institutional roadblock to democratic control, we can expect to have these problems repeated.

Brady is supposed to act as an “interim” dean until July 31, 2010 when a nationwide search can find a permanent replacement. The feeling, however, is that Brady is meant to stay; Governor Strickland refused to allow Brady a leave of absence from the Board of Trustees, so he resigned, signaling to most of us that he meant to securing his new $176,000 position as our new dictator (or, “financial manager” according to Haggett).

Unfortunately, despite some spirited but often small protests against such measures, a sustained campaign has not coalesced to fight back. If we are the University of Toledo seriously care about the quality of our education, it is time that we collectively organize to challenge this top-down, corporate model. We do not want a wealthy CEO governing our college with no accountability; we want democratic control over how it is managed, and the faculty and students deserve that, at the very least. The fight is ours to win; we, as both current and future educators, have to be willing to engage in it.

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July 23, 2009

Helping Universities Be Competitive

DEREK IDE'S letter mentions Higher Ed Holdings several times, and in so doing, may give readers an erroneous impression about Higher Ed Holdings' impact on curriculum ("The business of education").

Here are the facts. Higher Ed Holdings supports faculty at state universities to help them convert their courses for online instruction. The quality of the curriculum depends entirely upon the individual universities and their professors who develop and teach it. When students enroll in online classes, they are enrolling in the university and they earn their degrees from the university.

Higher Ed Holdings does not grant degrees. Higher Ed Holdings' stated mission is to help state universities become more competitive and reach high-need underserved populations. Higher Ed Holdings provides services to respected universities around the country.

I would like to direct you to another article that appeared in Inside Higher Ed more recently entitled "The Evidence of Online Education" which states that "online learning has definite advantages over face-to-face instruction when it comes to teaching and learning." The article is based on the findings of a new meta-analysis report released in June by the U.S. Department of Education.

Another good resource is a report entitled "The College of 2020: Students," which appeared in Chronicle Research Services, also in June of this year. That report states that "colleges that have resisted putting some of their courses online will almost certainly have to expand their online programs quickly."

In addition, we welcome you to visit our Higher Ed Holdings Web site, where professors and deans from state universities describe their work in developing and teaching their online programs. We appreciate your interest,
Anna Martinez, Higher Ed Holdings, Dallas, Texas

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August 6, 2009

A Response to Higher Ed Holdings
Derek Ide

Higher Ed Holding’s representative, Anna Martinez, was quick to respond to my original article condemning the privatization of higher education in the United States. While her rapid response may be a testament to the capability her company’s Public Relations department, her arguments concerning online education are largely vacuous when scrutinized beyond the rhetoric. Much like corporate-driven charter schools emphasis “choice” for underprivileged children, all while making inane profits, Higher Ed Holdings utilizes language of “competition” to reach “underserved populations.” This rhetoric falls far short of reality, however, despite the claim to statistical evidence.

Her immediate argument is that the university remains the controller of curriculum and her company simply transfers regular courses to the web. While I never said otherwise, it does very little to distract from the fact that both Higher Ed Holdings, along with the university administration, is converting to online courses not for the benefit of the student or the professor, but to extract larger sums of money from our pockets.

First, the entire situation must be put into context. In the face of $7.8 million in state cuts to higher education, the people who run the University of Toledo are trying desperately to find ways to cut costs. The immediate response was to notify students, on top of the 60% cut in their Ohio Choice Opportunity Grants awarded by the state, that they would be facing a tuition hike next year. At a time when working class families are suffering from wage cuts, loss of jobs, and home foreclosures, this is only one more added worry to those who were subsidized for the prodigious costs of post-secondary education.

The University of Toledo is largely a working class school and, these price increases and funding cuts will inevitably limit those who wish to pursue an education but cannot afford it or significantly increase the debt students go into to pay for education.

Online education, however, does absolutely nothing to lessen the problems working class students face. Students enrolled in online courses, despite decreasing the costs for the schools through various cost reductions (no physical space needed, no instructor present, less infrastructure for parking or public transit, etc.), online courses are just as expensive per credit hour as regular courses. To top it off, UT charges a “distance-learning fee” for the travails the administration suffers under such cost-cutting measures.

While this does not implicate Higher Ed Holdings directly, and I do not lay claim to the idea that they are the root cause of UT’s problems, instead of the cost-cutting benefits going to the students by decreasing tuition costs the money is funneled into the hands of those who own Higher Ed. This represents a furthering of the privatization that inevitably removes democratic control from educators and students. The company and its message play a vital role in maintaining and perpetuating this new discourse which allows for the privatization of our education.

Thus, the second problem with Martinez’s response is the whole ideological component that is necessarily attached. Higher Ed Holdings claims to “gives state universities a competitive advantage over their rivals.” The presupposition that competition is a positive thing and the business-model for education supports quality learning only supports the dominant ideological discourse surrounding the privatization and, in turn, profit-making schemes that have hijacked our educational system.

This emphasis on competition inevitably forces the university to pursue any cost-cutting measures available to them by a variety of means. Online education is simply one tool to pursue this, and Higher Ed Holdings simply the means through which this tool is put into action.

Third, Higher Ed Holdings itself is not known for their legitimacy. The owner, Randy Best, is a right-winger who vigorously supported and fundraided George W. Bush’s campaign in 2000. He actively supported No Child Left Behind, which has been disastrous for educators and students across the nation. On top of this, ABC news reported he made “millions of dollars in profits from a federal reading program that critics say favored administration cronies at the expense of schoolchildren.” In return for his service to the Bush campaign, he received lucrative contracts from NCLB. Best eventually turned around and sold Voyager Expanded Learning, associated with the $6 billion Reading First initiative, for $360 million.

Conversations with Higher Ed Holdings and UT began due to “Scott Scarborough, the university’s chief financial officer, has a history with the company, and once sat on its board.” Mr. Scarborough, of course, was never elected to his position by faculty nor does he represent their interests. He eventually left DePaul University due to the fact that he, according to president of the 2006-7 Faculty Council, had a “tendency to allow financial concerns to override academic priorities.”

He exemplified this concern in a recent statement about the budget cuts, “There will be conversations with the provosts, deans and vice presidents trying to identify non-revenue producing programs…you have to start there to ask the question, ‘Is it essential; is it strategic, is it mission-critical?” It seems that for Mr. Scarborough mission-critical means, first and foremost, ‘does it make money?’

Even more preposterous is, as the Independent Collegian reported, he plans to make working people pay for the cuts:

“Aside from looking at programs, administrators will be approaching the various unions which received contractually negotiated salary raises and ask them to consider forfeiting them, Scarborough said. According to estimates from last semester, this would free up approximately $6 million annually. Administrators may also consider stopping the previously approved salary raises for those non-union personnel making under $40,000. Personnel making more than that didn’t receive a raise.”

Scarborough, President Jacobs, and the rest of the administration do not seem willing to fork over their bloated salaries, why should regular working people? Why would they be willing to hand out money to private companies like Higher Ed while they attempt to cut workers’ pay?

Thus, we should not be surprised to find two profit-driven, corporate pals trying to push their agenda on our school.

Fourth, my argument was not that online education is completely invaluable, or that we should dogmatically dismiss it as a medium of education. That is not the case at all. In fact, I believe online education can be, and should be, implemented and immersed in every learning environment, as web-based skills are absolutely essential in our day.

My criticism was that UT, with the help of Higher Ed Holdings, would transform the Master’s degree program from one based in the classroom, with all the dialogue, discussion, and potential for hands on activity which it entails, to one completely online. Along with this inevitably come the various problems associated with it, such as a separation from educator and students, rout learning with little critical analysis, very few possibilities for engaging dialogue and debate, etc. More importantly, the intent was not to create a symbiotic learning environment which utilizes face-to-face education and online education, as the very study Martinez points us to confirms as “best of all,” but to create one where UT could create a degree factory which pumped out titles with as little cost as possible.

In other words, students would be receiving less for their money. They would be paying the same amount, more with the additional distance-learning fee, and receive no face-to-face instruction, no chance for dialogue, debate, or discussion, and even less room for democratic participation in the classroom.

Even the study which she claims to promote her argument notes that online education is not a better medium for learning, but students generally spend more time with online courses then they do in the classroom.

Fifth, educators within the department would be forced to convert to an online program, whether or not they preferred the medium. Personally, I have spoken with a number of educators who were quite weary of teaching their classes purely online. The advent of this forced conversion would, it seems, render the alienation of the educator from their work even greater. There is a reason that Higher Ed Holdings backed out of the deal; popular pressure from professors and students forced them too.

The original report explained some of the motivation behind this opposition:

“Under the roughly outlined agreement, Toledo faculty would continue to teach online courses through video lectures, but students would be assisted by “coaches” employed by Higher Ed Holdings. Toledo faculty say they’re unsure what the credentials of the “coaches” would be, and that’s a source of discomfort.”

An unidentified professor explained further:

“If I’m a talking head on video, I would have very limited contact with my students,” the faculty member said. “The only people who would have contact would be ‘coaches,’ who have a masters degree – or not; who would understand – or would not understand – [course] content or the province that I have in my classes. It’s probably the worst case scenario, as far as I’m concerned.”

Due to space, I will save extensive critiques of the sources of these studies and their supporters. Arne Duncan, the Department of Education, private companies like Higher Ed who hope to make a profit, they all have a vested interest in completely digitalizing education. It cuts costs. For the state, this means less expenditure on superfluous populations. For private companies, this means more profit is directed to their pockets.

I also have not seriously reflected here upon the implications that online education entails in reality for students. The facilitation of standardized test-style education, a format which dilutes the learning process and stunts the development of critical thinking skills, would be greatly increased with online education. Anyone who has taken an online course knows how they are full of multiple choice and fill-in-the-blank education, quite the opposite of the dynamic and engaging learning atmosphere actually required to stimulate students.

To close, my argument is not that online education should be outright opposed, but that private companies hoping to make a quick buck off transferring our courses online in order to cut costs should be. Online education, in the right hands, may prove liberating and helpful, but it can also be used to perpetuate the “banking-style” education dominant in the field at the moment. We, as socialist and progressive educators, must combat this. We must also struggle against the continued privatization of our schools. Charter schools and private companies like Higher Ed are waging a war of ideas, dressing their profit-generating schemes with progressive phrases. It is our job to take them up and unveil the reality behind their ostensible rhetoric.