What in the world is the Obama Administration thinking putting all of these for-profit education foxes in charge of the public school henhouse? For people who are supposed to be data-driven, they sure seem to be ignoring the data on charters in favor of a heaping helping of faith-based (literal and figurative) free-market learning goodness.One of the nation’s leaders of the privatization movement, Ted Mitchell, has been confirmed by the. U.S. Senate as Undersecretary of Education, the second most powerful job in the U.S. Department of Education.Mitchell most recently was CEO of the NewSchools Venture Fund, which collects millions from philanthropies and venture funds and invests the money in creating charter chains and for-profit ventures.
Anyone who has spent time in school buildings as an adult knows that the best way to improve our "failing"schools would to combat the poverty that plagues the worst-performing schools. Shoveling public funds to for-profit education companies, online education companies, educational software companies, and standardized testing companies isn't going to better educate anyone.
Let's try plowing that money into revamping old school buildings, supporting teacher training, increasing teacher pay, and hiring more teachers and other specialists to reduce class size. Then let's compare the results. For the life of me I do not understand why we seemingly have unlimited funds to spend on an ungodly number of standardized assessments, but we can't pay the people who actually do the work of educating our kids a decent salary.
Very, very disappointed in Obama for his continuing embrace of educational "reform."
More on Ted Mitchell.
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