Where's the Philly Phallout?

The Philadelphia Public School System announced last week that it will be effectively dissolving itself by closing 64 schools and splitting up the rest between private sector operators.  You would think this would be big news, but hardly a word has been said about it in the mainstream media. This is indicative of media outlets that are being controlled by the same interests that want to privatize public education.

 

Bill Gates has been a long-time supporter of corporate-based school reform and has had a tremendous influence on education policy. The Gates Foundation has provided substantial financial support for lobbyist groups like Stand for Children that pressure State Legislators to adopt flawed high-stakes testing accountability measures and legislation that limits teacher’s collective bargaining rights.  The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has made significant financial contributions to ABC, NPR, and the BBC, In addition to major media outlets, the Gates Foundation has also donated millions of dollars to over 40 other media related organizations including the Editorial Projects in Education and the Education Writers Association. Gates also owns MSNBC, which along with NPR, is considered the “liberal” media (at least when compared to Fox News).  

Of course, Fox News is owned by Rupert Murdoch, who also owns The New York Post, The Wall Street Journal, and several other media outlets listed as assets under Murdoch’s NewsCorp. He was also the keynote speaker at the 2011 National Summit on Education Reform and his education technology firm Wireless Generation stands to make huge profits from corporate-driven education reforms.  Thanks to former NYC Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, Wireless Generation has multi-million dollar contracts with NYC Public Schools. Mr. Klein is now the Executive Vice President at NewsCorp.

What’s happening in Philly is also happening in other urban school districts like in NY City, Los Angeles, Chicago, New Orleans, etc. Traditional public schools are being closed and replaced with deregulated private sector run charter and turnaround schools.  A person has to comb through academic journals and community-based newspapers to get a sense of the research and growing parental opposition that does not support corporate school reform.  You certainly don’t hear much about it form the above-mentioned media outlets.

The corporate interests behind corporate school reform know the general public would be outraged if they knew what was really happening in our schools. They don’t want you to know that when you remove the poverty factor, U.S. schools are some of the best in the world. They also don’t want you to know that despite deregulations that allow privately run schools to shed unwanted students, these schools are on average, “performing” no better than traditional public schools. Instead, they want people to think teachers are to blame, that all children can be measured with the same test regardless of socio-economic and mental health status, and that privatization is the only way to save education.

Although corporate interests can buy off politicians and media outlets, they cannot come up with enough money to pacify and silence the growing number of mostly low-income, minority parents whose families and communities have been directly disaffected by corporate school reform. Parents, teachers, community activists, and even children are getting organized and are fighting back. Grassroots vs. corporate money is always a David vs. Goliath situation, but as U.S. history has shown, our country’s greatest social injustices have been overcome by collective action.