The Real Democratic Force in the Arab World

It is apparent, given the revolutionary upheavals in Tunisia and Egypt, along with the accompanying protests in Jordan, Yemen, and other places in the Arab world, that neither the United States nor Israel are the proponents of democracy. In fact, Israel's devout support for the corrupt Mubarak regime, alongside the United States' billions of dollars of yearly military aid for the corrupt state apparatus, shows that far from being progenitors of democracy, these states have shown themselves to be stalwart defends of oppression and exploitation.

Although the following post will not relate directly to Egypt (for a live stream, please visit Al Jazeera), it will deal with Morocco, another U.S. client state with a highly undemocratic regime that presents a facade of popular government. I wrote this reflection after having to attend a discussion on a civics program called Civitas. Some Moroccan government officials, as participants in the program alongside the U.S., were present. It is obvious, in my opinion, that the program is largely a front to propagandize the participants in the United States and, even more so, in Morocco, to buy into very superficial conceptions of democracy. In honor of the Tunisian revolution, and the valiant struggles of the Egyptian people still ongoing, I post this piece.

We can only imagine the prospects of these struggles for the future. Perhaps, the people of Morocco and the Western Sahara will be next.

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The notion of how to students, and teachers, involved in civic education at a grassroots level is an intriguing and well-pursued area of study. It is vital for students to understand both the forms of civic participation narrowly confined under the legal and political scope of “public policy,” alongside the more broad and participatory forms of civic engagement which extend beyond the traditional institutions imposed from above. In other words, while students ought to be educated about the legal channels through which small-scale change may occur, it should never, for the sake of democracy, displace the emphasis on the form of activism that pushes the legal limits and, in many cases, fundamentally challenges the dominant structures of our society.

My experience with the Center of Civic Education representatives, along with the delegation from Morocco, has lead me to the conclusion that the Civitas program, headed by the Center for Civic Education, is not entirely conducive to the goal of democratizing society as I understand it. Instead, aside from the benevolent-sounding rhetoric, Civitas seems aimed primarily at enervating popular movements and forcing them to be subsumed into the current political system, rather than encouraging them to fundamentally alter what are, essentially, unjust social relations.

Furthermore, by completely ignoring the economic system, which is inherently undemocratic when organized under the auspices of capitalism, political democracy is little more than a sham. To paraphrase what John Dewey proclaimed a century ago, until we free ourselves from industrial feudalism, politics will remain the shadow cast over society by big business. Power in society will, as James Madison so exuberantly effused was the correct order of things, remain with the “minority of the opulent.” My largest complaint with Civitas, then, is that its understanding of “democracy” is limited to the most basic and low levels of democratic participation which, in large part, are the most unimportant and non-participatory forms of civic engagement that currently exist. It is narrow in scope and serves not as a gateway to more progressive forms of democratic participation, but as an ideological weapon to prove that the “system works” because students are able to get rid of plastic lunch trays or get a few truant classmates back into school (worthy goals, no doubt, but out on the periphery). In other words, while in its mission statement it claims to be “nonpartisan,” it is definitely not “non-ideological,” it is inextricably linked to a conception of democracy tied to capitalism as an economic system, and insofar as this is true, its commitment to democracy proves nothing more than rhetoric.

The next complaint is that, while it aims to show that “democracy works,” it is funded by a government, namely, the United States, which simply does NOT take democracy seriously around the world. In Vietnam it staged a brutal occupation and war to avoid democratic elections in which it feared Communists would win. In 1973, the United States materially supported the overthrow of the democratically elected government in Chile because it challenged corporate interests in the region and upset the hyper-exploitation of the people there. In the 1980’s it backed the vicious and brutal terrorist organization named the Contras in Nicaragua against the Sandinistas, who garnered mass popular support, in their overthrow of a U.S. backed dictator. There are various more instances that could be cited here. The U.S. supported the apartheid regime of South Africa until the very end against the democratic will of the majority black population there. When Huge Chavez won the democratic election in 1999, the U.S. leaders panicked and, in 2002, with the help of the CIA, supported a military coup against him. When Hamas was democratically elected by the people of Palestine, the U.S. placed them on the terrorist watch list and would not negotiate with them, despite being internationally observed as a free and fair election. Just last year, when President Zelaya of Honduras was overthrown in a military coup, the U.S. backed the military government that brutally repressed civil dissent in the country. In other words, democracy is fine as long as the U.S. backed candidate is elected. Democracy is a threat, however, when it challenges U.S. corporate interests and the larger ideological capitalist hegemony. How then, can one of the most anti-democratic governments in the world construct and implement a program that claims to support democracy? Simply put, it cannot.

For instance, one of the countries in which the program takes place, Morocco, and also where the representatives in our meeting were from, is one of the most highly undemocratic, in fact, anti-democratic nations in the world. Morocco, a constitutional monarchy, has always been a pawn of the U.S., both as an anti-Communist buffer in North Africa and, more recently, as an “anti-terrorist” state who happily signed on with the U.S. wars of aggression to placate its own colonial holding in Western Sahara. While Morocco has a democratically elected parliament, the only democratically elected body, only 37% of the population actually voted in the last election, meaning that far less than half the population was represented. Furthermore, real power lies with the Moroccan monarch, who wields an enormous amount of executive power, enough to even disband parliament at will. The country hosts a brutal occupation of the Western Sahara, which it took over after Spain withdrew in the 1970’s. Since then, there has been a popular, grassroots movement in the Western Sahara for independence and democracy. Ironically, the Western Sahara, which is 99% Arab and Berber, has a female spokeswomen as the head of the democratic movement there, which is what the U.S. claims it wants to see in the Arab world in regards to womens’ rights and so on. Instead, it supports Morocco in its colonial exploits over the region, and as permanent member of the Security Council, has blocked United Nations resolutions promoting Western Saharan independence. We are to believe, then, that these two highly anti-democratic governments have formed a partnership through Civitas in which they are mutually exploring democracy. Orwell must be rolling in his grave.

When I attempted to engage the Moroccan delegation, who were, basically, government spokesmen, not educators, on their occupation of the Western Sahara, the English-speaking representative misleadingly attempted to sway the audience by claiming that the occupation was, essentially, just a “media misunderstanding” because one Spanish outlet had put a picture of Gaza up when talking about the Western Sahara. Then, I was instructed that I was not qualified to speak on Morocco, or its political institutions, because I was not from there nor had I been there, and “reading about Morocco is different than being there.” I suppose that reading about the enormous power that the Moroccan leader has, or listening to ground reports and first-person accounts of the Western Saharan occupation, or having read and listened to the foremost author of the Western Saharan occupation, means absolutely nothing to the Moroccan government officials. Indeed, this is what, presumably, passed for democratic discourse in Moroccan society. No wonder the United States leaders are pursuing such close ties, the ideological unanimity among the Moroccan rulers must inspire them.

Perhaps the most telling comment came from the big screen, where Civitas directors from another part of Ohio were trying to explain their program through the superb technological capabilities available at the University of Toledo. At one point, and this is when I truly understood for the first time the core component of what Civitas was, the male representative explained that the program was designed to get people to try and change public policy through the most basic channels and to get them to work without “protests, holding signs, or street demonstrations.” Those words were the most lucid, clearest articulation of what the program actually was meant to do. After I engaged that comment, some of the representatives backed off that claim, and attempted to back-peddle. One man, in particular, the gentleman I had a conversation with afterward, was open to dialogue, which I found refreshing concerning the ideological dogma manifested by the rest of the Civitas representatives.

Despite this, it remained apparent that Civitas was, primarily, a program meant to inculcate teachers and students with the idea that social change was best pursued through the lowest legal channels available, and that civic participation beyond that ought to be questioned and, sometimes, even ridiculed for ineffectiveness and, as they basically implied, its “non-democratic” nature. Regardless of the purported aims, it was clear to me upon leaving that meeting that Civitas is something that is meant to funnel our disgust with the inequality in society into safe channels, into outlets that make us feel good about doing something small but do not cultivate an idea or organizing for greater societal change. Civitas, for instance, would not support the work of WikiLeaks, an organization truly fighting for democracy and transparency, or the British students fighting back against budget cuts and austerity. The day that Civitas gets students to protest their schools for slashing their budgets, raising tuition, or cutting teachers, that is the day that I will get Civitas a second glance. Until then, I understand the program is little more than, despite the benevolent intentions of some individuals involved, a government-sponsored propaganda program meant to install what are, essentially, undemocratic values under the guise of democratic participation.

On Education Part Ten: Jefferson, Mann, Dewey, Conant - A Comparative Analysis

    In any society the single most determining factor in how institutions are organized and function is the political and economic situation in which those institutions exist. Schools are a reflection of the society and how it is structured. Generally, schools can serve one of two functions; either they are designed to perpetuate the current system or they act as spawning grounds for dissent, questioning of society, and those who run it. In practice, the latter usually dominates. However, not everyone agrees on what role education and the school system should play in society. Some, like Mann and Conant, would propose that the primary goal of education is to reproduce the existing class structure and the classes required for such a society to continue its existence. Others, such as Jefferson, hoped, in an extremely exclusive way, that education help develop the minds of those citizens who had the leisure time to pursue it so that they could function in a relatively limited form of democratic society. Still others, such as Dewey, believed democracy should extend further than the political realm to all spheres of life, including school and the workplace, and the only way to prepare students for such a democratic society was to model schools in a participatory and democratic way. These key thinkers in educational philosophy and their ideal of schooling help illuminate the social, economic, and political realities at each stage of American education. Indeed, each one of their arguments is reflective of the material conditions at the time and each were attempting to respond, whether reactively or progressively, in a manner that would deal with these constantly changing conditions.

    Thomas Jefferson’s ideas of education were rather clear as he wrote frequently about the subject. He believed that in order to fulfill the role of active, aware citizen required in any sort of democratic society, men (with an emphasis on the gender-specific term, along with the exclusion of non-propertied men and men of color) should be liberally educated in order to understand the world, and how society functions, more broadly. Extremely vital in Jefferon’s conception of education is his postulation that democratic localism, or local school control by the community, represents the best method for how schools are to be organized and run. He believed that a sort of basic, three year education should be provided by the local government to all free children but insisted that education beyond that point should be privately funded. Jefferson’s style of education seemed to have very little to say in regards to vocational work, instead focusing on classical literature and traditional subjects in order to train the mental faculties. Armed with the basic necessities needed to be consciously aware of one’s own self-interest and, to a certain extent, the collective good of society, Jefferson believed his model of education would supply the “habit and long training” required for democratic participation by the citizenry (Tozer, p. 37). This would be accomplished by the free exchange of ideas through newspapers where argument and debate would manifest and educated men would rationally decide upon which argument best suited their interests. It is no question that the material conditions present in Jefferson’s particular historical framework played an immense role in shaping his understanding of how education should be organized.

    Many of Jefferson’s arguments cannot be understood without a basic understanding of reality in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.  Formulated around a largely rural, agrarian based economy with little in the way of communications, it would only make sense that Jefferson articulated his idea of extreme localism and autonomy for each and every distinct school district. The industrial revolution was still decades ahead of Jefferson and social relations were largely pre-capitalist; enormous corporations, media consolidation, and globalization were not historical realities that impinged upon society with the same percussive impact they do today. Therefore, Jefferson believed that each individual white male, owning his own plot of land and having the leisure time to pursue a liberal education, would be informed of his own interests and, subsequently, how he should vote for representatives in government. Women were left out in Jefferson’s education ideal since he believed, echoing the dominant ideology at this time, they were naturally inferior beings “governed more by appetites and passions than by reason [and] were less capable of self-governance” (Tozer, p. 35). Similarly, the entire institution of slavery excluded blacks from the educational process during the Jeffersonian era. Males without property with likewise excluded from democratic life. Jefferson’s democracy then, along with his education which fostered it, was highly exclusive. Thus, the larger political economy heavily influenced, and also explains the limitations of, the Jeffersonian education ideal.   

    The locus of Horace Mann’s educational philosophy was that an “appropriate set of moral values” should be taught to all children in order to “support and sustain industrial development” (Tozer, p.68). His ideal education, a synthesis of various methods but borrowing from the authoritarian Prussian model most heavily, was an attempt to homogenize the enormous influx of immigrant workers. To do this, he believed it would be necessary to “provide [employers] with workers who were not only more productive but also docile, easily managed, and unlikely to resort to strikes or violence” (Tozer, p.76); similarly, he thought education should be used to “disarm the poor of their hostilities towards the rich” (Tozer, p.77). By instituting public education through common schools for the majority of the nation’s children, Mann believed that the inculcation of obedience and discipline, or “modern values,” into working class children should be the primary goal. Thus, his educational ideal would act as a perpetuation, indeed an expansion, of the existing order.

    During the Common Era of education, in which Mann played a significant role, industrialization and urbanization were rapidly changing the American scene; city sizes were growing, technology was making it possible for capitalists to bring together prodigious numbers of workers into one spot to labor, and immigrants from all over, but especially Ireland, were crossing the Atlantic to find work. Therefore, Jefferson’s ideal of democratic localism based upon the rural economy was largely fading from palpability. Mann, then, was trying to formulate a policy to "Americanize" the large influx of (often militant) immigrant workers who rejected to the wage slavery imposed upon them by capitalist enterprise. His ideal is a direct response to the changing political economy and he desired to force workers in a direction of obedience in order to expand the nascent industrial capitalism and subdue working class resistance to it. Therefore, his educational ideal was naturally very different than Jefferson's; it had to be state instituted and financed so that it could effectively reach the broader population and indoctrinate them into the newly emerging capitalist society. At the same time the feminization of teaching was becoming prevalent and, since females generally worked for much lower wages than men, females were being hired at a much higher rate and for much less pay. Once again, as with Jefferson, one can hear the echo of the dominant ideology’s sexism through Mann’s idea that women were biologically inclined to act as the “guide and guardian of children of a tender age” (Tozer, p. 75). However, he differs from Jefferson on one important fact; instead of excluding women from education, he pushed for it. But as Tozer et al. explains, “[t]he long term effect…was to reinforce the sexist belief that women were by nature not only fundamentally different from men but deficient in rational faculties” (Tozer, p. 75). To this day, the wages of educators pale in comparison to other professions, a legacy due in large part to the devaluation of occupations normally associated with women.

    Dewey theoretical contributions to the philosophy of education are probably the most underutilized, yet ultimately most valuable, aspects of pedagogical development. Dewey’s ideas arise in order to combat social efficiency proponents such as Charles W. Elliot who viewed students as “raw materials” which must go through “factories,” or schools, in which they are to be “shaped and fashioned into products to meet the various demands of life” (Tozer, p. 157). In contrast, Dewey’s focus relies upon furthering participatory democracy throughout all realms of society such as the workplace, school, and both the economic and political spheres. Rather than mold students into obedient workers as with traditional educational thought, his primary postulation was that schools should serve as models of participatory democracy; students and teachers alike are to function within a sort of democratic microcosm of the ideal society. Dialogue, debate, and democratic culture were vital factors in Dewey’s educational philosophy and, likewise, in his conception of a democratic society. This “developmental democracy” that he articulated would upset quite a lot of elite educational theoreticians. Dewey was a challenge to those who wished to maintain the existing, undemocratic class structure and the private tyrannies whose real nature are disingenuously hid behind free market dogma. Precisely because of this, Dewey would be largely underutilized in mainstream schooling environments.

    The Progressive Era of education is defined by this clash between social efficiency theorists and development democracy theorists. Industrialization and urbanization were rising sharply and elites understood that some sort of publicly funded, far reaching education would have to be implemented if the dominant ideology was to maintain its hegemony. Labor unions and radical workers, especially from the various southern and eastern European nations, were providing a significant challenge to the capitalist political economy. Thus, the elites found the manifestation of their educational ideal in Elliot who wanted less democracy and more obedience. On the other hand, Dewey argued for more democracy which should extend to the industrial arena (and the workplace in general) and empower workers, essentially the socialist position. Therefore, Dewey’s educational philosophy was a direct response, indeed, even a furthering, of the participatory democracy and economic control which millions of workers struggled for throughout this era.

    James Bryant Conant’s main educational assertions are that standardized testing was a “foolproof method for ascertaining academic promise,” education should function along meritocratic lines, public schools could serve as “the first bulwark of defense” against official state enemies and inculcate young minds with “greater cultural and social unity” on a seemingly nationalist basis (Tozer, p. 209-13). Conant argued that “school must first prepare talented youth for strategically necessary scientific, professional, and technological occupations” (Tozer, p. 222). Conant largely ignored the extremely varying social and economic backgrounds which may impede or further a student’s academic ability. The university, according to Conant, was an ivory tower where only the most academically successful should have a presence; education should be extremely competitive and only available for those who could make some sort of contribution to the national-security state and corporate interests. The rest of the population should be confined to purely vocational pursuits, a liberal education only hindering their limited minds from acting as docile, passive laborer, consumers, and flag-wavers. Conant’s theory of education follows the line of T.S. Elliot and, to a certain extent, Horace Mann, in developing a fundamentally undemocratic theory of education.

    Conant’s educational philosophy can only be understood within an exponentially strengthening American capitalism after World War II and the ensuing Cold War conflict with the Soviet Union. At a time when arms and technological development became a primary goal that consumed an enormous amount of resources, and while American capital was expanding rapidly and pursuing new markets, the reasoning behind Conant’s idea of an elite group of experts dictating how society should be run for the rest of the population becomes rather lucid. Instead of a society based upon Dewey’s model where participatory democracy reigns and the value of jingoism and capitalism to collective society can be challenged, Conant interjects on behalf of the current ruling elite with a meritocratic educational ideal which perpetuates the existing class structure. At a time when two world super powers were colliding for supremacy, the elite in each society hoped to infuse an extreme sense of nationalism and fear of the other within their respective populations. Thus, Conant’s educational philosophy was largely impacted by, and helped to reinforce, the flag-waving, red scare mentality among the American populace. The schools would play a vital role in this ideological transmission.

    The superficial democracy represented by philosophers such as Mann, Elliot, and Conant is not only a democracy for the few, it also manifests itself as an oppressive force for the many. Capitalism, the class society it produces, and the various oppressive formats which stem from its competitive and irrational nature, are in opposition to democracy. Democracy entails more than simply voting for a different political representative every few years whose vocation is to maintain the dominant structures of society. True democracy, participation and action involving the masses of society, cannot be realized in a society where profit dominates human motivation. Despite the empty rhetoric and glittering generalities which so profusely emanate from political pundits and multi-national corporations, the promise of democracy has yet to be fulfilled.

    A society where the premise is the collective good can only be established through a transformation of the political and economic system. It must be a change which stems from the people whom are oppressed themselves. When Dewey explains that democracy must extend beyond the shallow political sphere, he is absolutely correct; collective decision making by members of society who control their own labor, the means of production, and how those products are distributed is absolutely essential for any sort of functioning democracy. Political democracy is a hollow ideology when the so called free market ingeniously manipulates it in the manner that it does today.

    Dewey was also correct when he emphasized that schools should reflect the democratic ideal. A democratic culture inside the schools is vital to preparing students and teachers alike for their immensely important role in a democratic society. Democratic change has always, and will continue to be, a limit on the power of the wealth and the elite in society; if democracy is to be realized, it must remove the conditions in which enormous wealth and power are accumulated in the hands of the few. While Dewey’s development democracy model is a necessity, a truly democratic society and educational system must not only reflect the democratic ideal, it must actively seek to challenge oppression in any form. As Paulo Freire outlines, democracy involves transforming humans as objects who simply respond to their surroundings into humans as subjects who are intricately involved in determining their own destiny. This process undoubtedly involves the engagement of the oppressed in challenging and struggling against the system of oppression which forces itself upon them. Full human liberation, where the power and wealth of the few do not dictate the lives of the many, can only is achieved through a democratic struggle in which collective ownership and participatory decision making is the objective.

    The current political, economic, and social factors which may impede one’s ability to actualize a democratic structure in the classroom are multifaceted. Fundamentally, the overarching structure of a society based upon hierarchical control by those with wealth and the power it wields limit democratic decision making by educators and students. An extremely rigid school hierarchy, an often dense an seemingly impenetrable union bureaucracy, limited government resources and the dominant ideology as represented in the corporate controlled media and textbook publishing companies are some of the major limiting factors. The day to day life, along with the material realities of the students whom educators encounter may provide a challenging obstacle as well.

    Involving students by allowing them to help make decisions in the classroom and by engaging them with their own interests is a vital step in achieving some semblance of democracy in the classroom. Students must be tied to their educational experience directly and this is facilitated by involving them in constant dialogue and discussion. Both an understanding of their own oppression and the oppression which exists around them is necessary. Developing a democratic culture in the classroom, as Dewey suggests, can have an immense impact on the students that pass through the classroom. In fact, helping to develop that democratic culture will inevitably lead to questions of how society can be further democratized, which should be the goal of any educator in a democratic society. Students who are actively involved in struggles against oppression, and reflection upon that activity, will be more inclined to fight for radical change as they being to decode, comprehend, and articulate the world around them. Giving them the voice, and the power, to articulate their own experiences and their relations with the larger world will give them the power to help propose solutions to the challenges in their own life and the struggles society must overcome collectively.

    More importantly, teachers must take up the issue politically as well. Educators, whether they like it or not, are intricately bound up in the political and economic realities of society. Struggling to garner more resources for the schools, decreasing class sizes, fighting against standardized testing, providing equal treatment to all students, and protecting the sanctity of public education are important goals that every teacher should be involved with. To do this, a struggle against a government which favors wars, wealthy bankers, and corporate subsidies over education is essential. Likewise, a struggle to democratize unions so that they become a vehicle for fighting back against attacks on the public sector should be important as well. Educators and students should fight to play a role in shaping curriculum, challenge charter schools and privatization efforts, make the case for the removal of military recruiters from high schools and campuses, exercise their right to participate in budget decisions, combat mandated tests, and do all they can to struggle for a more humane, stimulating learning environment where students are not alienated. This will involve one-on-one battles in specific schools and particular districts; but it also involves linking these struggles with the general trends around the nation and the world. Teacher solidarity and community support are essential features to fostering a democratic learning environment.

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

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 Nine: Class and the Potential to Transcend Race, Nationality, and Ethnic Identity

In celebration of our notorious "Columbus Day" we have here in the United States, I would recommend everyone check out this brief summation of Howard Zinn's work on Columbus.


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

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Near the end of his autobiography Malcolm X explicates upon his post-Mecca transcendence of the Nation of Islam’s narrow Black Nationalist philosophy he had so vehemently promoted previously. Despite political pundits claiming the coming of a “post-racial era” with the election of Barack Obama, America remains a country divided by and categorized along conceptions of racial affiliation, along with a collection of racist institutions with American capitalism serving as the nexus. Malcolm explains that during his trip to Mecca he began to understand that blanket condemnations of whites were not only wrong, but counterproductive to the liberation he sought for blacks. He explains that he witnessed “brotherhood between all men, of all nationalities and complexions” (Haley, p. 417). He postulates that “racism [is] so deeply rooted in the white people collectively…[that] many whites are even actually unaware of their own racism” (Haley, p.417). He furthers the concept that colonialism, imperialism, and, by extension, the capitalist need to expand has divided third world peoples here and abroad so that the poor fight amongst themselves rather than organizing collectively against the oppressor. Malcolm embraced the label of “revolutionist” and argued the need for dismantling the system of oppression in place (Haley, p. 423). He further explicated the concept that “it isn’t the American white man who is a racist, but it’s the American political, economic, and social atmosphere that automatically nourishes a racist psychology in the white man” (Haley, p. 427). Malcolm, of course, spoke openly about socialism at the end of his life after his visits to Africa. However, it is clear he remained at a crossroads that would have allowed space for his political trajectory to develop on various paths had his life not ended so abruptly.

His choice of words, his new idealized forms of black and white organization, his willingness to work with whites, and his condemnation of the political economy and dominant ideology are particularly relevant to educators today. In fact, his understanding that racial tensions are stirred by the dominant societal institutions is a concept educators must understand if they are to challenge the virulence of racism, homophobia, sexism, and other forms of bigotry that are perpetuated by the class structure. His arguments help to foster an understanding that class society remains the root of the problem. This is not to say that prejudice will be automatically removed with the removal of the class structure, but it implies that the dismantling of such a class society is a prerequisite to the abolition of bigotry and institutionalized forms of oppression. Without this vital concept, educators would be left to dealing with instances of racism or bigotry in one of two ways; they would be perceived as personalized flaws, a problem of individual prejudice that fails to address institutional oppression (this can be labeled the liberal conception of racism) or as intrinsic, unfixable, permanent problems of human nature (this is the Black Nationalist view of racism). Both of these approaches represent a non-dialectical, anti-materialist approach that attempts to displace historical phenomena from the material conditions which produce them.

Racism, a problem Malcolm spent a majority of his life addressing, flows naturally from a system that functions to serve a small minority. Without artificial wedges to separate the oppressed, exploited, laboring masses, the ruling class would be hard-pressed to maintain their status, power, and wealth, or the system which grants them the ability to garner such luxuries. Prominent liberals had already embraced the concept of racism as an individualistic form of prejudice. With the election of the first black man as President, however, many have begun to articulate an enhanced conception of the old “blame the victim” ideology. As author Dinesh D’Souza explains:

As I watched Obama take the oath of office…I also felt a sense of vindication. In 1995, I published a controversial book The End of Racism. The meaning of the title was not that there was no more racism in America…My argument was that racism, which once used to be systematic, had now become episodic…racism existed, but it no longer controlled the lives of blacks and other minorities. Indeed, racial discrimination could not explain why some groups succeeded in America and why other groups did not...for African Americans, their position near the bottom rung of the ladder could be better explained by cultural factors than by racial victimization (D’Souza).

These new postulations of regurgitated liberal conceptions of racism are dangerous, not only for those targeted by them, such as communities of color, but for progressive educators who wish to combat racism wherever it rears its ugly head. The educator inside of the United States in the 21st century must come to grips with the reality that American capitalism always has been, and remains to be, inherently racist. As the world embarks on the greatest international economic crisis since the Great Depression, educators must be ready to engage in dialogue about the root cause of inequalities in American society and foster critical discussion concerning realistic, broad-reaching solutions to such collective problems.

For instance, to assume that racism is an individual problem that certain people must be “cleansed” of would ignore the glaring fact that Black and Latino poverty rates have remained steadily higher than white poverty (over 20 percent, with child youth statistics much higher). It would not account for the increased instances of police brutality and murder in communities of color or the inequalities marginalized groups face when involved with the so-called justice system (overzealous prosecutors, less access to rehabilitation, prodigious incarceration rates, and the list continues). This conception of racism cannot adequately explain why, although unemployment is skyrocketing nationally across color lines, in many cities such as Milwaukee, Detroit, and Chicago, black unemployment is at or near 50 percent (Taylor). Finally, and educators must come to par with this, it does not provide an adequate explanation for why public schools, after a brief glimmer of hope with post-civil rights integration, have become more segregated now than they were thirty years ago; school systems in Chicago, St. Louis, Los Angeles, Detroit, Philadelphia, Cleveland, and many other urban areas are 80-95 percent Black and Hispanic (Kozol). Social commentator and activist Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor postulates these are rational outcomes of the dominant political economy:

The material impact on the lives of Black workers should be clear enough, but ideologically, the systematic and institutional impoverishment of African American communities perpetuates the impression that Blacks are inferior and defective. These perceptions are perpetuated and magnified by the mass media, Hollywood and the general means of ideological and cultural production in bourgeois society. The recurrence and persistence of racism in this economic system is not accidental or arbitrary. American capitalism is intrinsically racist (Taylor).

The liberal conception of racism, which will undoubtedly become common rhetoric given the meteoric rise of Obama into the Whitehouse, must be challenged by educators who desire to combat racism in all of its forms. Doing so requires arguing and promoting the idea that multiracial, autonomous organizations can be built to fight back against institutionalized oppression. Class solidarity among working class and poor people of all colors is an integral principle if liberation of all oppressed groups is to be on the agenda.

Thus, educators can learn important lessons from Malcolm and the conclusions he was formulating near the end of his life. Had he been given the time to articulate his new understanding of racism further, the possibilities for what he could have accomplished are endless. Leaders, however, are nothing without the power of the people. History has shown that leaders cannot be messiahs who, like Moses, lead the suffering masses out of the oppressive conditions they face. If it was up to leaders to lead the people to the gates of liberation, who is to say they could not lead them back into the pits of oppression? Every educator, every worker, every student, every human being who aims for the goal of social justice must be actively involved and rigorously engaged as a democratic participant in their own liberation. Malcolm’s assassination, along with revolutionaries such as Che Guevara and Fred Hampton, has shown that leaders can be killed; they can also be bought off (various third world revolutionary groups, Sunni Awakening Councils in Iraq, etc.), entrenched in the establishment (Tom Hayden, Van Holden), imprisoned (Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier, Huey Newton), misguided (Weathermen), or become the oppressors themselves (Castro, Mugabe, and various Communist Parties around the world). Educators cannot rely upon benevolent politicians or skilled orators to fix the problems of society; it must come from the grassroots, collective pressure of organized activists and human beings willing to engage in the writing of their own history. To paraphrase Fred Hampton, you can jail a revolutionary, but you can’t jail the revolution. You can murder a freedom fighter, but you can’t murder freedom fighting.

Works Cited

D’Souza, D. “Obama and Post-Racist America,” To The Source, 5 April 2009, .
Haley, A. (1964) The Autobiography of Malcolm X. New York, NY: The Random House Publishing Group.
Kozol, J. “Still Separate, Still Unequal: America’s Educational Apartheid,” Harper’s Magazine, Vol. 311, September 2005, 5 April 2009, .
Taylor, K. “Race in the Obama Era,” 5 April 2009, .

 

Education Part Eight: Middle Class Elitism and the Myth of the Super Teacher

Sorry guys, I know it has been awhile. Life, school, work, and a small flare up of my old obsession with Diablo II has kept me from updating as frequently as I had hoped. However, on a side note, I've been reading Lukács and aside from the tremendously important contribution he has given us to understanding class consciousness, I think he has also, rather strangely, explained to me my fascination with games like Diablo II and why people are so deeply interested in "rationalized" games such as MafiaWars on Facebook. Maybe I'm pulling at something that isn't there, but all the talk of being "trapped in bourgeois consciousness" and a super-rational mode of thought has convinced me that there may be a correlation between that and games based almost purely on the most rational choice to augment your strength/power/wealth, etc... Not a very important revelation, no doubt, but interesting; to me, at least. Anyways, on to today's post!

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

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In Malcolm X’s autobiography the fifteenth chapter, entitled Icarus, begins with a scathing critique of “educated Negroes” who, in his words, “never had understood the true intent, or purpose, or application of education” (Haley, p. 307). Malcolm’s indictment of the “brainwashed, integration-mad black puppets” (Haley, p. 284) comes from his experience of personal, organizational, and ideological confrontations with many of the professional and intellectual Blacks who had entered into America’s middle class. His postulation regarding this group, however, is extremely relevant to the contemporary educational sphere. For instance, Malcolm outlines a specific example where a Black social worker had wrote a report detailing the burgeoning Black Muslim movement and stumbled upon a conclusion proclaiming that “The dynamic interstices of the Harlem sub-culture have been oversimplified and distorted by Malcolm X to meet his own needs.” (Haley, p. 307). Malcolm sardonically responds:

Every paragraph [of the social worker’s report] sent me back to the dictionary…Which of us, I wonder, knew more about that Harlem ghetto “sub-culture”? I, who had hustled for years in those streets, or that black snob status-symbol-educated social worker (Haley, p. 307)?

His refutation, at a glance, may appear as nothing more than a clever remark. Analyzed a bit rigorously, however, and the response to the social worker’s slanderous comment can be interpreted as an articulate postulation laced with social commentary and theoretical implications for educational pedagogy.

First, Malcolm’s comment should be understood not as an insult to intellectual development or the pursuit of knowledge, which Malcolm wholeheartedly supported. Throughout his career his constantly reaffirmed his view that education was a vital element to the development of all people, Blacks especially. It should be seen, rather, as an indictment of those who would use the educational skills they garnered to promote and perpetuate the existing structures of society and their narrow self-interests. Secondly, it provides an illuminating look into the intricacies of the mental framework in which educators, organizers, and activists (not mutually exclusive terms by any means!) should operate. Real education, in which students are able to fulfill their own personal and intellectual development and simultaneously achieve a mentality where emancipation from oppression, for themselves and for their larger group, is viewed not only as a pleasant ideal but a feasible goal, requires that students are engaged and actively participate in that education. In the same way that the educated, Middle-class, Black professional cannot come down from the heavens and lead Blacks from the pits of poverty with fancy verbiage and Harvard talk, neither can middle-class educators simply waltz into a struggling, urban high school and save the children which societal institutions have so direly oppressed.

In fact, this sort of “super teacher” myth is promoted vigorously in the media and, an even more pressing issue, in the development of recent educational approaches such as merit pay, which shift the focus from how schools are organized, funded, and resourced, as well as the material conditions children experience in their day to day life, to the performance of teachers, usually measured in terms of standardized test scores. In many cases, the media reports on schools where students succeed because of extra resources and teachers who put in extra hours (sometimes 14 hour days or 60 hours in a week, as in the case of the Urban Assembly School for Law and Justice in Brooklyn, where the graduation rate was 93% in comparison with the rest of New York which averaged somewhere around 50%) (Jones). A plethora of movies have hit the theatres with similar themes; teachers (generally white, Middle-class ones at that) who commit themselves, working day in and day out, to help struggling children in the heart of America’s slums eventually overcome the prodigious obstacles and, against-all-odds, get the students to pass their next state-mandated test or graduate from high-school. Often, these are emotionally-appealing, heart-wrenching tales with very human aspirations and desires. Unfortunately, they are all too unrealistic.

Handling the problems schools currently face by simply hoping a good teacher comes along and fixes things presumes that an individualized, rather random reaction to a major problem will provide a sufficient solution. Instead of a collective change in the structure and functions of schools, where all teachers could provide individualized attention to students, all schools were equally well-resources, and standardized tests were not the primary measure of success, myths of individual responsibility and teacher performance are the crux on which the current reform movement plans to base their educational approach. As Brian Jones points out, this “fable of the super-teacher” is not sustainable. Teachers easily become burnt out and seek different positions or regress from the extra pressure of such strenuous, grueling days. Usually, they have to raise their own resources as well.

Jones explains that at UASLJ teachers “still had to work hundreds of hours for free and raise millions of extra dollars.” If schools were not set up to fail while billions were pumped into banking institutions, military contractors, and the Pentagon’s budget, maybe it would be possible  for “Real-life teachers (not the silver screen variety)…to be able to get the job done in working conditions suited to mere mortals” (Jones). Just as some intellectual “parading a lot of big words” (Haley, p. 307) about Harlem’s sub-culture cannot pull Blacks up from the depths of the ghetto, having a few teachers work ridiculously long hours with too large class sizes, too little resources, and a political economy which perpetuates poverty, racism, and inequitable conditions, cannot fix the collective problem of a failing educational establishment. Fighting for the conditions in which all educators can achieve success with students will involve an immense struggle against a ruling class, with the backing of corporate and political institutions, that holds no interest in all students receiving a decent education. The struggle for resources, smaller classes, intellectual autonomy, student participation, democratic engagement, and better working conditions is one that extends far beyond the classroom walls. For every student that a decent teacher may save, how many more will be left behind? Until teachers, students, and parents force the kind of collective change needed to the educational system, students will continue to fall through the cracks. The profession of teaching is political, and educators cannot avoid that.

Works Cited

Haley, A. (1964) The Autobiography of Malcolm X. New York, NY: The Random House Publishing Group.
Jones, B. (2008) The Fable of the Super-Teacher. Socialist Worker, July. Accessed March 28, 2009. Available: http://socialistworker.org/2008/07/09/fable-of-the-super-teacher