The news over the last few days has carried stories about university/college students protesting tuition hikes,racism, and the ongoing push for privatization of education.

And the news regarding Rhode Island firing all the teachers at a particular school.

And you have the Obama Admin also pushing for charter schools, specifically Arne Duncan,Education Secretary.

But do charter schools actually do better than public schools? In a word,NO.

"I’m just trying to say the evidence says No Child Left Behind was a failure, and the evidence says that charter schools are going to lead us into a swamp of—well, first of all, they’re not going to be any better, because if you look at national test scores—charter schools were first part of the national tests in 2003—they didn’t do any better than regular public schools. They were tested again in 2005, 2007, 2009. They have never outperformed regular public schools. So if we’re looking for a quantum leap in educational performance, as the President—as President Obama says, charter schools have no evidence behind them. You can find one charter school here or there that did spectacularly well, but on the other side will be others that were terrible."

"But I think, within the Bush administration, the more important dialogue that was going on, that I was just very peripheral to, was the idea of school choice, vouchers, charter schools, and then also accountability. And where the Democrats and the Republicans began to make common cause was around this theme of accountability. And what accountability ultimately meant, not just in the Bush administration, but in the Clinton, and now in the Obama—in the, you know, next Bush and then this administration, accountability means who should be punished. If the scores don’t go up, who should be punished? Teachers. Teachers should be punished. The unions should be demonized.

But you asked me about Lynne Cheney. The reason that Lynne Cheney gets into this conversation is that she was the one who saw that the history standards were—you know, she attacked them. And there got to be a huge national brouhaha back in 1994, 1995, about whether the history standards were politically correct. And it caused such an uproar in the press with—you know, the right-wing talk-show hosts jumped all over it, and then you had people on the left defending it. Congress and the administration just said—and this was in the Clinton administration years. They said, “Let’s not touch this whole idea of standards. Let’s just stick with basic skills.” And that’s how we today have inherited this legacy of the only thing you’re allowed to really talk about is reading and math, don’t touch science, the arts. They’re all too controversial. You might get into an argument over evolution if you try to talk about science."

From here.

"Well, this is the great legacy of No Child Left Behind, is that it has left us with a system of institutionalized fraud. " ; a "system of institutionalized fraud" can pretty much describe many ideas in our country, from HCR (theObama/Senate bill), Financial reform (put the CFPA in the Fed and don’t restrict the kind of trading that led us into the current situation), climate change (‘clean coal’), war as a necessity(Iraq,Afghanistan), elections(computers for which you have no idea of how votes are counted), and on and on.

Long story shortened, the very government that is supposed to ‘promote the general welfare’ and be representative of the people (with the necessary checks and balances to ensure majority rules don’t impede minority rights) has become the means by which the "commons" (The commons is what we share together. From parks and clean water to scientific knowledge and the Internet, some things are no one’s private property. They exist for everyone’s benefit, and must be protected for future generations.) is being sacrificed upon the altar of privatization.

It might also be stated as democracy is being sacrificed upon the alter of capitalism.

An excellent example of this that relates to the CA students protest is this from the 1960 California Master Plan for Education(big pdf): "For the state colleges and the University of California it is recommended that:
1.The two governing boards reaffirm the long established principle that state colleges and the University of California shall be tuition free to all residents of the state."

Now look at what it costs to attend a sate college or University in California.

So I urge others to not fall for the ‘charter schools’ are the better ‘mousetrap’ and work locally and nationally for a return to a strong curriculum in schools and not be caught up in test scores. And to do whatever one can to end the idea that privatization of the ‘commons’ serves the people in ANY positive manner.