When Will Wealthy People Stop Trying to Run Public Education?
The answer looks like, not anytime soon. UW College of Education professor, Ken Zeichner, had a column at the Washington Post's The Answer Sheet this week about legislation in Congress to "reform" teacher preparation programs. It's called "The GREAT Teachers and Principals Act" and naturally, it is nothing of the sort. During the last few years, The New Schools Venture Fund ( NSVF ), a major private funder of K-12 charter schools, has been intensely involved in creating and promoting a bill (the GREAT Act) in the U.S. Congress. This bill, if passed, would lead to the establishment of teacher and principal preparation programs that would not be subject to the same level of accountability as other state-approved programs. The bill is a part of a broader movement to disrupt the current system of college and university teacher education and replace it with deregulation, competition, and a market economy. We should be concerned over the lack of pu...