The Battle for and against Public Education

From the expensive and fruitless edu-experiments by corporate edu-philanthropists Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg to the legislative and litigious initiatives by groups as varied as the DFERs and the Koch Brothers, the complicated enigma of education reform is a challenging story to report. However, the reliable journalistic mantra to "Follow the Money" is an invaluable guide to the issue. The week the WashPo's education writer Valerie Strauss has given column space to an extensive bit of long-form investigative journalism from writer Joanne Barken:  What and who are fueling the movement to privatize public education — and why you should care

When champions of market-based reform in the United States look at public education, they see two separate activities — government funding education and government running schools. The first is okay with them; the second is not. Reformers want to replace their bête noire — what they call the “monopoly of government-run schools” — with freedom of choice in a competitive market dominated by privately run schools that get government subsidies.

Public funding, private management — these four words sum up American-style privatization whether applied to airports, prisons, or elementary and secondary schools. In the last 20 years, the “ed-reform” movement has assembled a mixed bag of players and policies, complicated by alliances of convenience and half-hidden agendas. Donald Trump’s election and his choice of zealot privatizer Betsy DeVos as U.S. secretary of education bolstered reformers but has also made more Americans wary.

What follows is a survey of the controversial movement — where it came from, how it grew, and what it has delivered so far to a nation deeply divided by race and class.