Ostensibly, the policy of evaluating teachers on their students' performance is designed to improve public schools by holding teachers accountable. However, by refusing to take into account several factors which impede student learning and over which teachers have no control, this policy is, in essence, a punitive measure, a political weapon, a pre-emptive strike against teachers, intended to demoralize and drive them out of the teaching profession.
Moreover, when linked to merit pay, a divide-and-conquer strategy to pit teacher against teacher, this evaluation attempts to destabilize and weaken the National Education Association (NEA), the nation's largest labor union with its three million members, a development not unwelcome to corporate America.
Why has this happened? Connect the dots:
(1) Every year hundreds of billions in federal, state and local tax revenue support America's public schools and their teachers.
(2) How divert those billions into the hands of privatizers, charter schools, and their corporate sponsors?
(3) You've never taught a day in your life, yet you christen yourself an educational "reformer," who concocts an anti-public-school narrative of "school failure" that smears teachers in order to make the public lose confidence in them.
(4) You then ask Bill Gates for seed money and promise him an exclusive multi-billion dollar contract -- with no competitive bidding -- for putting computers in every American classroom.
(5) You then give Pearson Publishing Co. the contract for high-stakes standardized tests so flawed that up to 70% of students will fail them.
(6) You and your fellow "reformers" then fan out across the country to enlist the services of willing governors and legislators by "campaign contributions" to "facilitate" legislation that will give charter schools a semblance of "legality."
(7) You bring in Arne Duncan, President Obama's Education Secretary, for political muscle in imposing standardized testing on all public schools, even though government intrusion in the classroom is forbidden by law. You don't worry about breaking the law because the White House is also on board and calls this "reform."
(8) You double-check with Pearson that the failure rate on these tests will be so high that it will "validate" your claim that public schools and their teachers aren't doing their jobs.
(9) Enter teacher evaluations based on student performance on these rigged tests, and you begin to understand what standardized testing is really about -- providing the "legal" basis for evaluating teachers as the first stage in firing them.
(10) Since 25% of all children in America are below the poverty line, they'll do poorly on these tests as will their schools, which you can then label as "failures," shut down, fire their teachers, break up their union, and re-open as charters.
(11) You don't worry about the corporate media blowing the whistle about what you're doing since, with few exceptions, they're in on the scam.
(12) Although you trumpet "reform," your real agenda is the destruction of public schools and the ultimate privatization of education.
(13) Even now tens of billions in tax revenue are annually diverted to charter schools and private investors, who preside over what they hope will be the Golden Age of charters, the self-styled wave of the future, the Promised Land and long-awaited deliverer of American education as you undermine democracy.
(14) Your mantra for charter schools is "freedom of choice" for parents to send their children to whatever schools they wish. The only problem is that charters are not public, but private schools, a fact you deny, for how else will you get taxpayers to unknowingly finance your scam?
(15) It makes no sense whatsoever that public-school parents must pay for the private-school education of other parents' children! It's not fair, equitable, or even moral, but you don't let that stop you!
I have been making essentially this same argument for over ten years now, though admittedly not quite so eloquently.
This is why I speak out so aggressively against private schools and religious home school programs.
They are not about educating children so much as they are about pushing an ideological agenda and making a profit.
Oh, and of course destroying the public school system in this country.
P.S. By the way this is only a portion of part three of a three part series written by this man, Frank Breslin, part one can be found here and part two is right here.
