Arianna Huffington has gotten in on the action today by launching a new site for all things education: HuffPost Education. The site seems to be making a genuine call for input from educators, students, teachers, and the interested public. It appears to be taking an open and receptive stance to all sides of the debate and even seeks to celebrate the successes of teachers across the nation (thank you). Yet, initial funding for the site is coming from Paramount Pictures, who released "Waiting for Superman", and the line up of contributors reads like the movie's credits, including Bill and Melinda Gates.
One of the blogs found on the HuffPost site did catch my interest. The piece is called The Fake Revolution, by Sam Chaltain. The title, and some of the points he makes, struck a chord with me. Just this morning, driving to work, I heard a report on NPR that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is donating millions (35 to be exact) to community colleges to increase graduation rates and job placement. President Obama and Vice President Biden sold the initiative as if it was some sort of meaningful reform. The Fake Revolution.
Chaltain also mentions an interview he heard with Finland's minister of education. Finland is light-years ahead of us. Chaltain emphasizes that Finland does not have high stake tests, they value their teachers and schools (in other words they are not dependent on their population of billionaires to fund education), and they empower their teachers to determine what students require to learn instead of the top-down system we have in America.
A recent article by Linda Darling-Hammond in the NEA (National Education Association) publication, NEA Today, also highlighted Finland's education system. The article explains how when Finland started to revamp its broken education system in the 1970's, it started by enacting social reforms including health care for children in parallel with school reforms. So, to my Tea Party/Republican friends: we too can have a world-class education system, if you don't mind a little socialism.
And really, socialism is key because it distributes resources equitably across the system. Bill Gates and his Billionaire buddies are creating a have and have-not system. It is not sustainable. Facebook's Mark "there's-a-sucker-born-every-minute" Zuckerberg's $100,000,000 (that's 100 million dollars) donation to Newark New Jersey schools is not education reform. It is the Fake Revolution. That 100 million got tied up in legal issues, by the way.
Enough of the social-networking, we need some socialist networking. Let's make our schools more equitable. Any reform of public education needs to start with this premise: education for all, equally. Reclaim public education!
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