Here is a link to an article that details how our schools are being taken over by korporations for purpose of creating commodity style workers. It sounds like a conspiratorial type idea, but… I don’t know if we have a bunch of corporate types in a back room planning this, but the effect is the same. And I believe real. Korporations want compliant workers. Besides lower wages, I think part of the rush to H1-B workers and off-shoring was to get a more compliant workforce. My experience, having worked with a multitude of H1-Bs, is that they do not buck the system and accept whatever is dealt out. Korporations 1, workers 0.
The link: Our Public Schools Are Churning Out Drones for the Corporate State
For whatever reason there seems to be a head long rush to divide us into a classed society. A rush to divide us into a society of the educated and the poorly educated. Education does not seem to be valued any more for the sake of knowledge, but only for what it can do for you career-wise. Most of the Meta values I am aware of are not derived from the korporate workplace.
This two class society scares me in another way. For a democracy to really work well, it is better to have an educated population. To have a population that is not influenced by every Glenn Beck that comes along. A population devoted to the NFL and reality shows, is not going worry too much about state of the nation until it is too late.
Most of my adult life I have worked for large korporations that include several Fortune 500 companies. While I do not think I am exceptional or different, I have always chafed in these places. There is something about being stuck in a little gray cube 8 hours a day that is not conducive to the soul’s health. The folks that run these companies know that. So the question becomes how do we keep the work force under control, and with the illusion that this is what life is all about? They obviously think the answer is to hijack the educational system. With control of the education system the values and skills that benefit the korporations can be instilled early and often. They are well on the way to doing that.
For the longest while I did not understand what charter schools were. Remember vouchers for education. There was a big push several years ago for the government to provide citizens vouchers to use at whatever private school they so chose. Essentially, charter schools have done the same thing. We are using public money to finance private schools. Let me say this in a different way, at a time when our public school systems are struggling, we are giving money to companies to educate our children. It is essentially an attempt to privatize education.
Are charter school teachers required to be certified? According to several sources the answer is no. One source stated that, “They are far less likely to be certified, or to have certification in their main teaching assignment. Charter school teachers are more likely to have attended selective colleges and are slightly less likely to have attended less selective colleges than traditional public school teachers.” (Reference 1 below). While certification is no guarantee of competency, it is a least a place to start. I do not think I would want a plumber that was not licensed or a doctor who had not passed his boards.
Since they are businesses they are not bound by a lot of the niceties that public school systems must follow. They can pay less, ignore unions, etc. Currently, it is my understanding that many of these charter schools are able to cherry pick the students they take. This has the effect of leaving the weaker students in the public education system. This is a big deal because of standardize testing. It is a lot like the Yankees having the best players because they can cherry pick due to finances. It makes it hard for teams like Pirates to compete. And so it is with public schools.
There may be some out there, but all the teachers I know are not proponents of No Child Left Behind and standardize testing. They feel that all they really do is teach to the test and real learning does not take place. Teacher burn out rate is high and job satisfaction is decreasing. In many ways the job has become very bureaucratic.
We are a rich nation with many resources. Unfortunately, this wealth is being concentrated at the top by folks and korporations without regard for the United States or the population. These are just things to be exploited for capitalistic gain. At some point we need to stand up and say, “Enough is enough.” Not everything is about fattening the korporate coffers. Not everything should be priviatized. Schools are way up this list, jails, defense, and dare I say it, health care are on that same list.
Korporations in many ways of made this country great, these same korporations running amuck, are in the process of tearing down what we have built up over the last 225 or so years.
“What?” “Oh, I am sorry I do not know who is on Big Surviving Brother XIV tonight.”
References/Resources:
I saw a news report today that said many of the people in college now with student loans will not be able to pay them off until after their own children are in college. So when they leave college their nut, (money they have to have to pay their bills), to bust every month is already $200.00 to $500.00. What a sneaky way to create a class of slaves, admittedly they are house slaves and they have it little better than the field slaves. So put your ties, (slave collars), on and shuffle off to work, the massa needs you. Another possibility. Its aliens from space, they are educating and training us to do the work so they can reap the benefits without using to much of their resources.