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Saturday, April 23, 2016
What Hillary Says
Clinton hasn't been entirely clear on her position on several K-12 issues but, given she like hedge funders and their money, she probably supports charter schools in some form. But this comment is a true one.
9 comments:
Outsider
said...
It's funny how the connection isn't made in the PC mind between Hillary's comment and stories like the Stevens camp fiasco (immediate prior thread). In that story (for those who didn't read), the traditional fifth grade overnight trip was scrapped because they could neither exclude nor handle a couple of notorious bully-troublemakers. Maybe the fact that charter schools "don't take the hardest to teach kids" is precisely why they are popular with parents.
The Stevens story is a microcosm of the collapse of public schools. The decision is made to let disruptors and rejectors rule the school. Bad student behavior is necessarily the school's fault -- lack of resources, lack of cultural compentence, something -- and the only allowed remedy is to devote even more resources to the disruptors and rejectors. That starts a predictable downward spiral of dysfunctional classrooms, demoralized and disappearing teachers, and more kids climbing on the rejector bandwagon because they see who is in charge and want to be with the winners. Stevens itself has a large cohort of Lexus-liberal parents with lots of resources who can with sufficient effort keep the ship upright. But it's easy to see how schools without that advantage sink quickly.
It seems to me that the writing is on the wall, and the public schools can't survive. Melissa and Charlie are like French generals in high-top black boots with monocles, pacing up and down the Maginot line, forever fighting the last war. Meanwhile, the silent majority of parents is silently looking for a way out. The public schools survive now based on a deep well of support from older people with fond memories of their own public school time, but no current contact with the schools, and no understanding that they are totally different now. As that generation passes, and the electorate consists more and more of people who personally experienced schools as they actually are now, the support won't be there. What lesson do you think the students are learning at Stevens? Don't bother to ask them; they know well that you stick to the PC catechism on pain of punishment. But they have lyin' eyes and private thoughts. What do you suppose they are?
To me, crony-capitalist looter charter schools seem like the fire outside the PC public school frying pan. A much better answer would be vouchers, to give parents real control. The next war is about what replaces public schools. A system like Medicare would be much better -- single payer but choose your own provider.
Final irony noted -- when the Clintons first won the White House, it was campaigning on "personal responsibility." Now Hillary apparently put her finger in the wind, and realized it really is all society's fault.
Clinton -> WalMart -> Walton Foundation -> Charter Schools.
Anybody that thinks the Neolibs are going to do anything for public education has managed to ignore Arne Duncan.
This is the area where I have the least confidence in Ms. Clinton. And interestingly, the one solid area where neolibs and conservatives find agreement over the last 8 years.
More of the same? Not buying it. And otherwise, not a Clinton-hater.
She's a flip-flopper, changing her stance depending on her audience, so it's really hard to say exactly where she leans. In the end, I believe she'll bow down to all the entities/corporations/billionaires who have supported her with huge sums of money. Anyone who thinks differently is in denial. She will not be good for public education at all and that is the lens I look through to pick my candidates.
Outsider, good analysis and I may use it to pivot off of but I love that idea of me and Charlie in our black boots and monocles (I'm assuming I'm Napoleon.)
Melissa, the Maginot Line was later by a century. You might end up as General Gamelin; or if you change your mind and start to support charter schools, Marshal Petain.
The Maginot Line gets a bum rap. It worked perfectly, the Germans didn't even try to go through it. The problem was the French were pledged to protect the Netherlands and Belgium, so they didn't build the Line on that part of their border. That's where the Germans went through and outmaneuvered their ground forces.
If Melissa and like minded people are fighting the last war, I'd like to postulate that the edreformsters and charter shills are like Bush invading Iraq after 9/11. Both are misguided efforts to solve a problem with the wrong approach that ignores expert advice, pays off the media and create all new worse problems than the original ones.
9 comments:
It's funny how the connection isn't made in the PC mind between Hillary's comment and stories like the Stevens camp fiasco (immediate prior thread). In that story (for those who didn't read), the traditional fifth grade overnight trip was scrapped because they could neither exclude nor handle a couple of notorious bully-troublemakers. Maybe the fact that charter schools "don't take the hardest to teach kids" is precisely why they are popular with parents.
The Stevens story is a microcosm of the collapse of public schools. The decision is made to let disruptors and rejectors rule the school. Bad student behavior is necessarily the school's fault -- lack of resources, lack of cultural compentence, something -- and the only allowed remedy is to devote even more resources to the disruptors and rejectors. That starts a predictable downward spiral of dysfunctional classrooms, demoralized and disappearing teachers, and more kids climbing on the rejector bandwagon because they see who is in charge and want to be with the winners. Stevens itself has a large cohort of Lexus-liberal parents with lots of resources who can with sufficient effort keep the ship upright. But it's easy to see how schools without that advantage sink quickly.
It seems to me that the writing is on the wall, and the public schools can't survive. Melissa and Charlie are like French generals in high-top black boots with monocles, pacing up and down the Maginot line, forever fighting the last war. Meanwhile, the silent majority of parents is silently looking for a way out. The public schools survive now based on a deep well of support from older people with fond memories of their own public school time, but no current contact with the schools, and no understanding that they are totally different now. As that generation passes, and the electorate consists more and more of people who personally experienced schools as they actually are now, the support won't be there. What lesson do you think the students are learning at Stevens? Don't bother to ask them; they know well that you stick to the PC catechism on pain of punishment. But they have lyin' eyes and private thoughts. What do you suppose they are?
To me, crony-capitalist looter charter schools seem like the fire outside the PC public school frying pan. A much better answer would be vouchers, to give parents real control. The next war is about what replaces public schools. A system like Medicare would be much better -- single payer but choose your own provider.
Final irony noted -- when the Clintons first won the White House, it was campaigning on "personal responsibility." Now Hillary apparently put her finger in the wind, and realized it really is all society's fault.
Clinton -> WalMart -> Walton Foundation -> Charter Schools.
Anybody that thinks the Neolibs are going to do anything for public education has managed to ignore Arne Duncan.
This is the area where I have the least confidence in Ms. Clinton. And interestingly, the one solid area where neolibs and conservatives find agreement over the last 8 years.
More of the same? Not buying it. And otherwise, not a Clinton-hater.
She's a flip-flopper, changing her stance depending on her audience, so it's really hard to say exactly where she leans. In the end, I believe she'll bow down to all the entities/corporations/billionaires who have supported her with huge sums of money. Anyone who thinks differently is in denial. She will not be good for public education at all and that is the lens I look through to pick my candidates.
Independent voter
Outsider, good analysis and I may use it to pivot off of but I love that idea of me and Charlie in our black boots and monocles (I'm assuming I'm Napoleon.)
Melissa, the Maginot Line was later by a century. You might end up as General Gamelin; or if you change your mind and start to support charter schools, Marshal Petain.
See, I learn something new every day.
The Maginot Line gets a bum rap. It worked perfectly, the Germans didn't even try to go through it. The problem was the French were pledged to protect the Netherlands and Belgium, so they didn't build the Line on that part of their border. That's where the Germans went through and outmaneuvered their ground forces.
Pay Bill a half million dollars for a short speech and Hillary will say whatever you ask her to.
Follow the money
If Melissa and like minded people are fighting the last war, I'd like to postulate that the edreformsters and charter shills are like Bush invading Iraq after 9/11. Both are misguided efforts to solve a problem with the wrong approach that ignores expert advice, pays off the media and create all new worse problems than the original ones.
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