The Concept of the "Public Good" is Being Destroyed,

and nowhere is this more obvious than in the area of public education. It is being assaulted because of an ideology that says public institutions are bad because they are public, not because they are "inefficient"--everything is supposed to be run on market forces, no matter how ill-suited. They are also being assaulted because the proponents of privatization don't believe in democracy.

There is are at least two reasons why there are public institutions. One is they exist because the private sector cannot adequately perform the functions required to maintain public institutions, as the private sector must operate on the bottom line. The public sector can and does run efficiently most of the time because of no bottom line, thanks to the system of taxation. When it comes to education, private schools are not a real option for the masses; these schools basically cater to a niche "market" such as religion and cannot even begin to absorb the population that public schools educate. Two, there is the concept that we are all in this together as a democratic society, and education is seen as the key institution for instilling and preserving democratic values without which this country and others could not survive.

But some 40 years of propaganda against public institutions, including and especially education, have taken their toll:

Education has become the political weapon of choice for conservatives, and they have had astounding success in using the mainstream and new media to drown out the voices of more progressive critics. The evidence is everywhere. For instance, The New York Times is currently advertising its Watch Education Take Center Stage initiative and the keynote address is being given by the politically and morally discredited champion of neoliberal education, Lawrence Summers. Given his failed presidency at Harvard, his utterly shameful role in contributing to the financial crisis of 2008 and the failure of Obama's economic policies and his crude instrumental view of education, why would The New York Times select him as an educational leader and beacon of hope for any kind of educational vision designed to address future generations? Other speakers include the likes of Chester Finn, whose views on public education are as politically reactionary as they are theoretically bogus. Another example can be found in the ongoing Education Nation series sponsored on a number of platforms by NBC. It's endorsement of market-driven anti-public education policies are evident in its parading of the likes of Bill and Melinda Gates and their utterly anti-public, charter school, privatized and technocratic vision of education. Also included are the usual list of charter school, corporate funded anti-union, public school cheerleaders for defunding and privatizing American education. Of course, missing from these dog-and-pony shows are progressive public school reformers such as David Berliner, Stanley Aronowitz, Jonathan Kozol, Marian Wright Edelman, Donaldo Macedo, and others who have been fighting for real educational reform for the last few decades. Nor is there any mention of the many local struggling social movements fighting for public education and the ever-dissolving protections of social contract inherited from the legacy of the New Deal and the Great Society programs. Education at all levels is firmly in the hands of the rich, reactionary and the powerful. Is it any wonder given how invisible progressive forces are in this country that young people are not in the streets as they were in the sixties, refusing the future being offered to them by Wall Street and the moralizing Christian fundamentalists?

Not just that, but these "reformers" are astoundingly stupid despite (or perhaps because of) being rich.