The school system is one of America’s last public treasures, but corporate interests represented by private schools, charter schools, and virtual schools are launching a new push to help privatize them.
Dubbed “School Choice Week,” a coalition of these schools is launching 3,500 events this week to advocate for school vouchers, the expansion of charter schools, and other policies that would help privatize education.
The kick-off event for the group featured a concert and rally hosted by the Jonas Brothers in Phoenix, Arizona. Organizers described their push for school vouchers as equivalent to the battle for civil rights and woman’s suffrage:
Just as whistle-stop tours were used to promote civil rights like womenai??i??s suffrage to the end of racial segregation, the National School Choice Week ai???Specialai??i?? will draw attention to the great civil rights fight of the 21st century: school choice for all Americans regardless of their race, income, zip code or learning ability.
But it should be noted that this coalition doesn’t consist just of grassroots activists like the civil rights movement did. On its website, you can see that it has support from the New Jersey Business and Industry Association and a number of virtual schools that would profit from greater access to public dollars.
And it’s also important to remember a key study released late last year that found that the proliferation of charter schools has actually increased racial segregation, a blow to civil rights.
I already knew that the Jonas brothers are religious fanatics (as is Justin Bieber), but now I see that they’re evil.
Shall I assume that they’re in cahoots with Philip Anschutz (who might as well be the third Koch brother)?
There is so much that’s offensive about the civil rights comparison, especially the fact that this claim is being made by billionaires who are devoted to undoing the social and economic gains true civil rights heroes like MLK died to earn.
But the idea that having an educational “choice” is the civil rights fight, as opposed to actually being guaranteed an education (which school choice directly undermines) is the most nonsensical.
School Choice is a definite problem because when you come from a district in Ohio with the worst public schools in the state being able to go to a private school like I did helped me become a National Achievement Scholar getting me free college tuition to UC. I have been in both homeschool and private school my entire life, and I could never be more thankful to my parents’ for the sacrifice that they made for my education. Without the opportunity to go to a private school, I probably would have ended up like a good portion of everyone else in the district- pregnant and maybe with a GED. Also, JB was also taught privately their entire lives. In order to be a child star, you must be in homeschool or private school for protection and your irregular schedule. The government is horrible at educating children in low income areas because OH schools only get money from the income tax of that city generally.
And which party is it that doesn’t want to provide that money? And now they are trying to further line the pockets of the rich by providing government money to pay for the schooling of their children and through privatization of public schools.
Your words help make the case that poverty is the problem!
Lastly, it is my guess that you would have done just fine in public school because your parents were so supportive.