The Education Wars: The Privatization of the Common Good

The notion government can NEVER do anything right and because of this, functions designed for the common good should be open to market forces, dies hard. It's been debunked over and over and over again, but the privatizers keep on with their destructive rhetoric.

At bottom, this is a war against democracy itself by trashing basic institutions such as public education.

The worst thing of all is the neoliberals are infecting the Democratic Party with their destructive rot.

Oakland teachers have had to face the hard lessons of Privatization earlier than most. The state took over the public schools in 2003 and then turned the school system into a virtual laboratory for the corporate concept of schools: opening charters left and right, closing schools, laying off librarians and custodians, trashing the quality of public education, and testing, testing, testing.

Our experience is that privatization proceeds in pieces, the first step includes turning over public functions to “the market” through corporatizing every policy and procedure. The United States – the first country to establish free, universal public education – is on now track to being the first country to eliminate it. After seven years, far more cities than Oakland are living out what this means.

The final step is the disenfranchisement of the public in all forms and the extermination of public rights, public lands, public parks, public control, public concerns, public spaces, the public commons, the welfare of the public, public issues and… public power.

It's a matter of ideology, not facts. These neoliberals simply can't face the fact that the public institutions are there for a reason.