The election is over Mr. President, so no more pussy footing around, it's time to talk education. You have some explaining to do!

Courtesy of Common Dreams:  

The current wave of school closings is latest result of bipartisan educational policies which began with No Child Left Behind in 2001, and have kicked into overdrive under the Obama administration's Race To The Top. In Chicago, the home town of the president and his Secretary of Education, the percentage of black teachers has dropped from 45% in 1995 to 19% today. After winning a couple skirmishes in federal court over discriminatory firings in a few schools, teachers have now filed a citywide class action lawsuit alleging that the city's policy of school “turnarounds” and “transformations” is racially discriminatory because it's carried out mainly in black neighborhoods and the fired teachers are disproportionately black. 

How did this happen? Where did those policies come from, and exactly what are they? 

Beginning in the 1980s, deep right pockets like the Bradley and Walton Family Foundations spent billions to create and fund fake “grassroots movements.” They churned out academic studies and blizzards of media hype, first for vouchers, later on for charter schools and what’s become a whole panoply of privatization-oriented “education reforms” ranging f rom teacher merit pay to common core curriculum and more. 

Those billions paid off with the 2001 passage of the No Child Left Behind Act which made the right wing corporate agenda of undermining and ultimately privatizing public education national policy. Though standardized test scores were long known to prove little aside from student family income, they suddenly became the gold standard for judging teacher & school performance. School districts were required to purchase & give dozens of costly meaningless tests and to publish lists ranking their own schools and teachers as “failing” when test scores were low, which again, was mostly wherever students were poor . 

Amid torrents of “blame the teachers” propaganda, so-called “failing schools” were required to hire expensive contractors with cockeyed “run the school like a business” remedies and more crackpot tests. Thus it was that NCLB s pawned almost overnight an entire industry of jackleg educational consultants and test suppliers guaranteed a market with dollars diverted from already tight public school budgets. Those industries attracted capital investors, and began doing what every other industry does in the US—make big campaign contributions to politicians to get sweeter contracts and more favorable regulation. When test scores still didn’t rise, NCLB required many schools to close, making openings for chains of charter schools, often highly profitable charter schools, bringing the blessings of “choice” and free market competition to the educational “marketplace.” 

It was an unequal sort of “competition” though, because charter schools have always been allowed to pick and choose their students, to turn away those with special needs, and to hire teachers and principals with little or no relevant training.

Now look you all know that I am a huge supporter of President Obama, but instead of doing away with the damaging policies of George Bush he seemed to only make them worse. Something I never thought was even possible.

Part of the problem is that it seems that the President has allowed the Republicans to define the conversation, and keep the focus on standardized test results that do NOT indicate actual student progress nor take into account poverty levels, learning disabilities, or cultural background.

And it has to STOP!

I can hear it now, "But Gryphen don't we WANT to get rid of bad teachers and under performing schools? And don't charter school and school vouchers offer us a viable alternative, and a way to force public schools to clean up their act?"

NO I don't, and NO they don't!

If you are one of the people who thinks like that perhaps you don't fully recognize the REAL agenda behind why the conservatives push for those two options so aggressively.

Here perhaps this report will open your eyes a little:


So far, I have documented 310 schools, in nine states and the District of Columbia that are teaching creationism, and receiving tens of millions of dollars in public money through school voucher programs. 

There is no doubt that there are hundreds more creationist voucher schools that have yet to be identified. The more than 300 schools I have already found are those that have publicly stated on their websites that they teach creationism or use creationist curricula. 

There are hundreds more voucher schools, across the country, that are self-identified Christian academies, that appear very similar in philosophy to the ones I’ve identified in my research as teaching creationism. These schools may not blatantly advertise that they teach creationism on their websites, or often don’t even have a website, but there is a good chance that hundreds more voucher schools are also teaching our children creationism. Some states, Arizona and Mississippi, haven’t even released lists of schools participating in their voucher programs for the public to audit. 

Here are a few highlights from creationist voucher schools I have identified: 

• The Beverly Institute in Jacksonville, Florida, teaches “Evidence of a Flood,” and “Evidence against Evolution,” and ”The Evolution of Man: A Mistaken Belief.” 
• Creekside Christian Academy in McDonough, Georgia says,“The universe, a direct creation of God, refutes the man-made idea of evolution. Students will be called upon to see the divine order of creation and its implications on other subject areas. 
• Life Christian Academy in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma says their life science class will “lead the student to recognize that God created all living things and that these living things are fearfully and wonderfully made.” Evolution is taught only in history class, where students “evaluate the theory of evolution and its flaws.” The school uses the creationist Bob Jones and CSI curriculums. 
• The principal of the Claiborne Christian School, in West Monroe, Louisiana, says in a school newsletter, “Our position at CCS on the age of the Earth and other issues is that any theory that goes against God’s Word is in error.” She also claims that scientists are “sinful men” trying to explain the world “without God” so they don’t have to be “morally accountable to Him.” 
• Trinity Academy, in Gary, uses the creationist A Beka curriculum and says it “presents the universe as the direct creation of God and refutes the man-made idea of evolution.” 
• Rocky Bayou Christian School, in Niceville, Florida, says in its section on educational philosophy, “God mandates that children be discipled for Christ. They must be trained in the biblical world view which honors Jehovah, the sovereign Creator of the universe. It recognizes that man was created in the image of God” and says “Man is presumed to be an evolutionary being shaped by matter, energy, and chance… God commands His people not to teach their children the way of the heathen.” 
• Wisconsin Lutheran High School, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, says in its biology syllabus that it teaches, “evolutionists are ‘stuck’ because they have no god, therefore they must believe in evolution” and “young earth evidence a disaster to evolutionists.” 
•  

This year, we may see even more creationist school vouchers. Both Tennessee and Texas are considering passing voucher programs. Indiana and Georgia may expand their programs. 

Advocates for vouchers argue that private schools and more competition would offer a better education for American students. Schools that teach creationism and do not meet basic science standards will fail our students and do not deserve taxpayer funding.

This is NOT about providing our children the best possible education, it is about protecting Christianity in America, and about making sure that our children are not educated enough to become confident critical thinkers.

By pushing the idea of alternative schools the advocates for charter schools and voucher programs are able to bypass that whole separation of church and state thing that keeps faith out of the science classroom, and introduce ideas like "America was founded as a Christian nation," or "slavery was a good thing for the black man," or "The Native American people welcomed us with open arms and gave up their land freely," and my new favorite "Prohibition was a liberal idea." (I literally heard that last one on Glenn Beck's radio show yesterday. Just in case you think he is right.)

In a charter school the Bible can easily become an alternate replacement for the science textbook, conservative points of view become the alternative to historical facts, and human reproduction is a lesson you learn the hard way in a car parked behind the library.

What's more is that these schools are run like a business, where profit is more important than pupils, where cheap and easy replaces costly and comprehensive, and where test scores are a product produced by underage workers in minimally educational sweatshops. 

Now you know I would never call the President out like this if I did not have the strongest possible feelings on this topic, and I believe me I fucking do! 

I am with him all the way when it comes to doing something about gun control, I am totally in his corner about reforming our health care system, I will defend him until my last breath as he works to get us out of Afghanistan, but I simply cannot sign on to this Race to the Top program.

President Obama brought those children out onstage with him to help sell the idea of firmer gun control policies. I would have him look at them again and realize that protecting their bodies is only PART of his responsibilities to them. They also desperately need him to protect their access to a good education, and their hopes for the future.

And the time to act is now, because for a generation of our children it is already too late.