The Education Wars

Arne is still out parading the idea charter schools are so great when in fact they are no better than traditional public schools.

The real problem in public education is structural, and that is the lack of true accountability of administrators, including principals and superintendents, who pretty much do as they damned well please, law and ethics be damned. School boards are mostly rubber stamp operations, and few voters really care about school board elections. And as few voters care about who gets elected to school boards, it is often cronies of school administrators who get elected, including former teachers or administrators, which should never be allowed because of conflict of interest. Charter schools or privatization of schools would do nothing to rectify the problem; in fact, they would make it worse.

Public schools are NOT about children; that is the biggest mistake people make. Public schools are POLITICAL institutions first and foremost. And because they are political, all kinds of wrongdoing occurs in school districts without the knowledge of taxpayers. This is the hardest thing for people to grasp: they don't want to believe principals and other administrators are in it for the power and perks, not because they care about children, and most do not. Yet teachers, who have no real power at all, with unions totally ineffective if not in the tank with school administration, are the scapegoats for all problems in the schools.

"Reformers" like Duncan or Eli Broad or Bill Gates don't care about administrator abuse or lack of oversight; in fact, they think the crooked tendencies of administrators are a perfect fit for their desire to destroy public education.