Today's Must-Read: Privatize Everything, Redux

Tom Sullivan at Hullabaloo examines the charter school movement, taking off from this segment of John Oliver's Last Week Tonight:

John Oliver's Last Week Tonight back-to-school segment on charter schools Sunday was a welcome window into the world of education "reform" grifters. (I just found time to watch it last night.) Griftopia, as Matt Taibbi defined it:

There really are two Americas, one for the grifter class and one for everybody else. In everybody-else land, the world of small businesses and wage-earning employees, the government is something to be avoided, an overwhelming, all-powerful entity whose attentions usually presage some kind of financial setback, if not complete ruin. In the grifter world, however, government is a slavish lapdog that the financial companies that will be the major players in this book use as a tool for making money.

Sullivan details a few of the abuses and scams. I found this particularly interesting:

Aside from the happy talk about experimentation and free-market competition (you may genuflect now), the smokescreen that obscures some of the worst results of lax oversight is the notion that these schools run as non-profits. But nonprofit doesn't mean no cash flow. Oliver points out (and this is not unique) how the president of the Richard Allen charter chain in Ohio contracted oversight of its schools to a nonprofit she founded and who contracted $1 million in management and consulting firms she also founded.

Even in non-profits, someone's making money.

And of course, the real victims here are the kids, who are not getting the education we're paying for.

WTF?

Every damned thing is news.

Bias Is Not Right-Handed

This story, which came to me via e-mail, for some reason disturbed me a lot. I'm not sure why -- it's of a piece with so many stories recently about rabidly right-wing parents assaulting schools who try to deal with reality. (See this story, from the Brisbane Courier-Mail, and this one, from 365gay.com).

Maybe because in the St. Andrew's case, the discrimination is coming from the left, from a school that prides itself on openness and diversity, run by a denomination that is, at least, grappling honestly with the issue of gays.

One thing that struck me is that at no point, apprently, did the school administration address the issues openly with the students and parents. This was all behind closed doors stuff. What is the message there? "It's OK to be different if you keep it hidden"? Or is it simply "Don't worry, we know what's best"?

From the comments published, it seems that to the overwhelming majority of students and parents, the real issue was the rumors and the administration's reaction, not the teacher's acting roles. The students and most of the parents seem to feel this man is an exceptional teacher and the administration should have fought to keep him.

The headmaster's statement to parents, which is on the school's website, comes well after the fact and strikes me as essentially self-serving. He stresses that Mr. Giombetti "chose" to leave, while dismissing the thinly veiled threats from Giombetti's supervisor reported by Giombetti. (Considering what the context must have been, it's clear Giombetti didn't feel he had much of a choice.) This, I think, in light of the outcry from students and parents, is pretty much a CYA vehicle. "Working with" in this instance, based on the news reports and Giombetti's statements, seems to mean "do it our way or else." What's to work? As far as I'm concerned, a schoolteacher is entitled to a life, and not all of it needs to be under the school administration's supervision. I realize it's sort of foreign to the monotheistic world view, but the best solution is just to treat people like thinking, independent beings and level with them. (Apparently, one reason the students loved the teacher is that he did just that.)

And this is coming from the Left, to all intents and purposes. Maybe I'm getting too cynical, but I think I have reason: I remember too many instances from my own young manhood in which "liberal" friends and acquaintances couldn't quite keep the condescending tone hidden when my relationships came up. The worst part is, I think these people had convinced themselves that they were truly accepting of my life. I don't really think that attitude has changed much -- we're still not real people to most of the country, no matter how many of us are out.

I know -- it takes time, and continued contact, and a lot of challenging people on their basic assumptions and their habit of accepting without question whatever they hear from someone with an agenda.

It still pisses me off.