Obama and the “Superman” School Predators

Tue, 10/12/2010 - 22:31 — Glen Ford

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

“Waiting for Superman” is pure propaganda for the hedge funders that seek to “create a private market in for-profit educational services that can be traded on the stock market and bet on derivatives.” Obama has deployed his presidential bully pulpit as a booster for this “bait-and-switch” scam of a film, and for the underlying privatizing project.

Obama and the “Superman” School Predators

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

“’Waiting for Superman’ is a profoundly predatory film, in character with the predatory finance capitalists that are its biggest boosters.”

The corporate media, right-wing billionaires like the Wal-Mart family, Bill Gates and President Obama, are all in the same business. They are trying to create a private market in for-profit educational services that can be traded on the stock market and bet on derivatives but whose costs will be borne by the public. They project this public educational market to be potentially worth trillions of dollars – at virtually no risk to finance capital. That’s why the hedge funds are now so deep into charter schools. But, to transform the public schools into a privately-exploitable market requires great volumes of skillful propaganda, to convince the public that Wall Street and hedge funds will “save” public education.

The movie “Waiting for Superman” is the latest, and slickest, of this corporate propaganda. It is a profoundly predatory film, in character with the predatory finance capitalists that are its biggest boosters. The film shamelessly exploits five Washington, DC school kids and their desperate parents, seeking to win a lottery placement in a charter school exemplified by a 24-hour public charter boarding facility called The Seed School, where student life is “centered around dorms…named for a college or university,” each housing 12 to 15 kids. There are only 15 students for each teacher. On its face, this truly does seem to be a public educational wonderland. But, as mass propaganda for urban charter schools, it is the most cruel and evil bait-and-switch imaginable.

“This film callously dangles a 24-hour prep school as a real and palpable possibility for the millions of educationally underserved in the inner cities.”

The nation’s public schools are in the deepest crisis in memory. It is a money crisis, which has led to the most draconian educational cutbacks in modern times. Teachers have been fired by the tens of thousands, curriculum scaled back to the bone all across the country – yet this film callously dangles a 24-hour prep school as a real and palpable possibility for the millions of educationally underserved in the inner cities. A live-in prep school is supposed to stand in for charter schools as a whole, despite the fact that more charter schools perform worse than their traditional public school counterparts than those that test better, nationwide.

“Waiting for Superman” is a scam and a sham, that has been catapulted into the national political conversation by a $2 million marketing grant from the Emperor, himself, Bill Gates. In the most perverse sense, it is appropriate that Washington, DC’s Seed School is featured, since Gates and the hedge fund billionaire parasites consider their cash contributions to charter schools as “seed money” from which will grow a hybrid, publicly-funded school system where profiteers will flourish. In the last decade, these finance capitalists have enlisted a cadre of Democratic politicians to wage war against teachers and against the very idea of public education, exploiting the historical grievances of Black parents, especially. Barack Obama is the highest expression of the success of this privatizing project, so it is no surprise that he endorsed “Waiting for Superman” as only a president could, hosting the film and the five kids at the White House. But do not be fooled. The film performs the same function for the corporatizing of American education as the movie “Exodus” did for the founding of Israel. This ain't “Roots.” Rather, it sets the stage for the uprooting and destruction of public education. For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford. On the web, go to www.BlackAgendaReport.com.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

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Comments

Bravo

Enlightened Cynic - 10/13/2010 - 13:47

Fantastic and crushing rebuttal to the charter school scam. I plan to hold this essay close to me. I expect a rash of giddy Black folks, you know the educated types like us, to rush to the theatres to see this movie and then hold charter schools up as some saving grace. Amazing that educated people can't comprehend simple-ass math, as if all of a sudden hundreds of thousands of charter schools will spring out of thin air. Negroes better start thinking about the importance of neighborhood schools to not only their pocketbooks but the integrity and wholeness of their communities. Vacant and dilapidated schools are not a good thing.

I intend to use this article as a antidote to the customary circle-jerking. Well done my good and faithful servant of the "cause."

p.s. You getting much love over at commondreams.com, folks like the way you cut to the chaste, no holds barred. I guess you won't be winning any Pulizter's soon like Dem Party cheerleader Eugene Robinson (lol). Don't worry, his writing is 2nd grade level compared to yours. Check out the specious shit he's wrote over at truthdig. com. about the Black voter's responding to Obama's get out the vote call. Hilarious, Eugene's got some "splaning to do."

WHAT I'VE LEARNED

LL - 10/13/2010 - 17:33

I've learned that the best way to "reform" a school is to close a school.

I've learned that if students at private schools get 100% vouchers then that private school is actually a public school.

I've learned that poor people in America must win the war against poor people overseas; otherwise there won't be any cheap labor for Wall Street to exploit.

I've learned that classroom reformers that are calling for 10 to 1 student-to-teacher ratios are supporting the status quo.

I've learned that collective bargaining is the reason why publicly-funded public schools in the suburbs are in such terrible shape compared to publicly-funded private schools in the cities.

I've learned that teachers make too much money.

I've learned that teacher shortages can be solved by getting rid of teachers.

I've learned that we no longer need a grade system.

I've learned that the lack of collective bargaining is the reason why publicly-funded private schools in America do so much better than the publicly-funded public schools overseas.

I've learned that the best way to crush our opponents overseas is to find out what they are doing right and do the exact opposite.

I've learned that teachers have to choose to either spend time with their kids at work or spend time with their kids at home- they can't choose both.

I've learned that grading papers, calling parents, and making lesson plans at home should not be considered as work.

I've learned that anyone that wants to fund public schools by any means other than property taxes is just supporting the status quo.

I've learned that classroom reformers have too much access to the media and school "reformers" don't have enough access to the media.

I've learned that school "reformers" are creating this conversation, because politicians have been implementing the classroom reformers' ideas for decades.

I've learned that most teachers hate due process.

I've learned that most teachers think that administrators don't have enough power.

I've learned that if everyone gets a degree in math or science then poverty will cease to exist.

I've learned that business people know more about education than educators.

I've learned that publicly-funded private schools teach the same kids as publicly-funded public schools.

I've learned that teachers in the suburbs are better teachers than those in the cities.

I've learned that if we turn education into a system of winners and LOSERS then everybody will win.

I've learned that attacking childhood poverty only works with children in publicly-funded private schools.

I've learned that anyone supporting free bachelor's and master's degree education for new teachers is just supporting the status quo.

I've learned that singers know more about education than educators.

I've learned that school boards are an unnecessary bureaucracy.

I've learned that poor people overseas won't defeat poor people in America until their parents have choices.

thanks, very interesting

penny - 10/20/2010 - 15:23

thanks, very interesting comments.

Penny

Obama's Charter School Policies: and their consequences

Enlightened Cynic - 10/14/2010 - 16:15

Found this article on Global Research CA's top censored stories for 2000-10. Check out the entire list of censored stories, and this article in particular as it relates to the subject matter.

Obama’s Charter School Policies Spread Segregation and Undermine Unions

http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/20-obama%E2%80%99s-c...

Excerpt: "Charter schools continue to stratify students by race, class, and sometimes language, and are more racially isolated than traditional public schools in virtually every state and large metropolitan area in the country.

Charter schools are often marketed as incubators of educational innovation, and they form a key feature of the Obama administration’s school reform agenda. But in some urban communities, they may be fueling de facto school segregation and undermining public education.

A University of California–Los Angeles (UCLA) Civil Rights Project study, “Choice without Equity: Charter School Segregation and the Need for Civil Rights Standards,” reported that charter schools, particularly those in the western United States, are havens for white re-segregation from public schools. “The charter movement has flourished in a period of retreat on civil rights,” stated UCLA professor Gary Orfield, co-director of the project.

In many charter schools, 90 to 100 percent of the population is minority students, close to twice the rate of traditional public schools. But even a charter school with a social mission of promoting economic and racial equity still runs up against the limits posed by selectivity and exclusi

Charter schools continue to stratify students by race, class, and sometimes language, and are more racially isolated than traditional public schools in virtually every state and large metropolitan area in the country.

In many charter schools, 90 to 100 percent of the population is minority students, close to twice the rate of traditional public schools. But even a charter school with a social mission of promoting economic and racial equity still runs up against the limits posed by selectivity and exclusion.

Addendum: Now run along kiddies, go and educate yourself, no excuse. No Facebook privileges until you read at least 5 stories.

The Top Censored Stories From 2009-2010

by Project Censored

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=21399

NCLB_RTTT_Hi-Stakes Testing_Trojan Horse to Corporatize Schools

Nixakliel - 10/18/2010 - 03:51

This essay by Alfie Kohn in 2004 -@- www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/testtoday.htm lays out how NCLB [& now RTTT] & hi-stakes testing were/are Trojan horses [weapons] for dismantling public schools & teachers unions as a prelude to the corporate take over of public schools [so-called privatizing] via the so-called & Charter School 'movement' - in the name of 'freedom or choice'. He names people like Bill Bennett & the Heritage Foundation as having planned this for yrs / decades. This is relative to the neo-con / neo-liberal shock doctrine / free market doctrine that privatizing [corporatizing] every institution is automatically superior [for whom- the people or the heads of Corps???] to public [government] institutions.

Arne Duncan earlier this yr had the GALL to say that Katrina was the best thing to happen to New Orleans Schools!!! Where was the out-rage, why were there no demands for him to publicly apologize or even be fired!!! Katrina devastated New Orleans & left over 1000 people dead. It was a national disgrace [& international embarrassment] how the Bushites w Louisiana's Gov, & New Orleans Gov abandoned then attacked & slandered our people during the Katrina Disaster!!! How can Duncan make a statement like that & no-one in the MSNM media call him on it. Compare that to what happened to Van Jones in the fake / hyped up controversy by FOX Noise & Glen Beck. Result - first Mr Jones had to apologize for signing a 9-11 petition calling for a new investigation [DUH!], & then he was forced out.

Comment on these so-called ‘reformers’ of Public Education: What do the likes Arne Duncan, Paul Vallas, Bill Gates, the Waltons of Walmart, Mike Bloomberg, Michelle Rhee really know about education – particularly in the inner city? Except that they are politically connected / influential &/or wealthy - LITTLE!!! With the exception of Rhee, who is a woman of Korean decent – they are all white men from upper middle class / affluent back-grounds, w no real credentials / experience in education {including Duncan & Vallas – before they were politically appointed as ‘CEOs’ of CPS by Mayor Daley Jr, & Bloomberg a billion business-man who used his money to buy the mayor’s spot of NYC}, who all attended exclusive private schools {& presumably their children also}. Thus they have noreal stake in or in-sight of the issues concerning inner-city public schools which they are pushing to {allegedly} ‘reform’- & nothing in common w Black & Brown inner-city children who attend those schools. Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts.

All ideas that seem good on paper & in theory – may not be in practice. IE: [based on personal experience] – In the IT Hi Tech age of: IBM, Dell, HP/Compaq, MicroSoft, Mac / Apple, & Oracle – there has been a push to integrate computer technology in the classroom. But this may not be a good idea in all cases. I witnessed a situation where a school outlined a curriculum for IT in the classroom for all grades [pre-school thru 7th]. But how practical is it to have a pre-schooler up to 1st [& even 2nd] grade, attending computer courses as a regular curriculum. Nearly all pre-schoolers & kindergarteners are just learning their ABCs & 123s – yet the computer keyboard assumes that the operator has mastered this. Further even 1st & 2nd graders are still learning spelling & basic vocabulary, grammar & sentence structure. And there is a way that the Qwerty Key-board [not laid out in ABC order] is supposed to be manipulated via the ‘home-row keys, that would likely give even the average 2nd [& possibly 3rd] grader difficulty in manipulating correctly – because their hands are too small to operate the standard key-board properly from it's ‘home-row keys’; let alone the fact that while in these early grades they are learning ABC order but the Qwerty key-board is not in ABC order. From these facts one can logically conclude that formalized computer classes shouldn’t begin till at least 2nd or 3rd grade- though models & pictures of computers can be introduced even in pre-school [just as models & pictures of power-tools, cars & planes are – but no one thinks it’s a good idea to let pre-schoolers & kindergarteners to even turn-on a power-tool, car or plane – let alone operate them.