Connecting the Dots between Joyful Warriors and the Dismantling of Public Schools
About those angry moms at your school board meetings (or are they “Joyful Warriors”? It is hard to tell)… Whether they know it or not, their voices are being capitalized on to dismantle and privatize our public schools:
“The politicization and disruption around schools plays into long standing political goals to privatize education. And you’ll see organizations being more and more explicit about this, right, “this is our shot, let’s go for it.” And so now in a state like Michigan, where maybe you would have had school board protests during the pandemic, now you’re in the throws of a debate about full-on privatization through a statewide voucher program. Things are moving fast and I think that people are staring to realize that this isn’t just the voices of a clutch of angry parents, that there’s money behind this, there is power behind this and that the goal is really to privatize public education.” – Jennifer Berkshire, Amanpour & Company, 9/21/22
Jennifer Berkshire is the co-author (along with Jack Schneider) of “A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door” (a must read regarding current efforts to dismantle and privatize America’s public schools ) and co-host (also, with Jack Schneider) of my favorite edu-podcast “Have You Heard.”
Recently, she was interviewed by Hari Sreenivasan on Amanpour & Company about the reality behind the current teacher shortage in America and its connection to well funded efforts to dismantle our public education system. The interview connects the dots between the teacher shortage, school board protests, and moves (in Michigan, Florida and elsewhere) towards Universal Education Savings Plans/vouchers. The goal isn’t just to privatize education but to privatize the responsiblity for education, shifting the tax burden to parents and cementing current economic inequities. The days of public education being the “great equalizer” will be over.
Watch the interview. Share it widely. Use it to awaken your friends and family to the threats to public education.
“Our public schools are a public good. You pay for them even if you don’t have kids. You pay for them because they are a benefit to the community. You pay for them because we’re investing in the idea of schools as growing future civic leaders and participants in our democracy. What does it say that we’re going to walk away from that and start to define education as an individual responsibility that you shoulder the burden for yourself much like we treat Higher Ed. And think about our debate right now about Higher Ed and how has that experiment worked out?” – Jennifer Berkshire, Amanpour & Company, 9/21/22