Some of you may have noticed protests springing up around the world: there’s a group of students in Brazil who were upset about higher bus fares and some environmentalists and others in Turkey who have used the plan to build a mosque and other establishments on one of Istanbul’s last remaining parks as a focal point to protest what they feel is a government that has become too much like a dictatorship.
Students who protest bus fares don’t really reach a tipping point, but when things do get ugly, the scope of the protests becomes larger. At that point, it’s about having a voice, of being heard by governmental leaders.
The tricky part, as Bill Keller noted in the New York Times, is that protesters are usually the same people who benefited from the regime they’re protesting against. Middle-class 30-somethings in Russia, he pointed out, left their cubicles in 2011 and protested against the “highhanded rule of Vladimir Putin,” even though Mr Putin’s very policies enabled them to get their successful jobs.
Because protesters in almost every case have something to lose that can be taken away as easily as it is given, the government ultimately stops the protesters, usually by wearing them down until they become too tired or depleted to keep protesting. They don’t go away but often keep their problems brewing quietly, building their anger deep inside.
When I read Mr Keller’s excellent analysis, I couldn’t help but think he was talking about student protests in the US against the corporate reform movement in education. He wasn’t, of course, but I think there are striking similarities between student protests here and those in Turkey. In both Turkey and the US:
- Protesters tend to be the individuals who once supported the current political party in power.
- Protesters are temporarily silenced with each move (closure, budget cut), but they come back stronger.
- Business leaders move forward with their own agendas, despite good arguments against their course of action, and never respond adequately to protesters’ criticisms.
A mind-blowing example of the tone-deafness leaders have toward criticisms of their policies and practices was illustrated at the hearings over the school closings in Chicago. Irami Osei-Frimpong produced this video to present one of the most cogent arguments I’ve ever heard against Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s school closures.
Opposition from friendlies
Teachers and people who live in large cities tend to vote for Democrats in national elections. One community organizer—I apologize that I didn’t get his name—declared at a hearing before the US Department of Education in January, “President Obama, we love you, we voted for you, and now we’re calling on you to do something about [our problems].” These very people are now protesting against one of President Obama’s biggest initiatives in education, the Race to the Top grant competition, which pushed standardized tests to measure students’ progress under the Common Core State Standards and to be used in teacher evaluations.
The American Federation of Teachers officially endorsed President Obama in February 2012, here. The union said Mr Obama was the “only candidate who will fight to preserve and expand the middle class [and] fight for economic opportunity for all Americans.” This ringing union endorsement was a distant memory when AFT’s president, Randi Weingarten, got herself arrested at a protest in Philadelphia on the day the School Reform Commission announced about two dozen school closings. The Philadelphia closings resulted from policies enforced by the Obama administration under No Child Left Behind.
Tone-deaf leaders and oligarchs
Ms Weingarten recently wrote a letter with education historian Diane Ravitch directed to US Education Secretary Arne Duncan, asking him to intervene in the dire situation in Philadelphia’s schools. Although I have serious doubts the letter will be effective in putting any federal rescue plan into motion, she did this because leaders in Philadelphia’s ruling class have abandoned their responsibility to the public schools. Ms Ravitch writes:
Let it be remembered and recorded by historians that [Pennsylvania] Governor Corbett, the state legislature, the state-controlled School Reform Commission, the Broad [Superintendents Academy]-trained superintendent [William Hite], the city’s foundations and its business leaders decided to walk away from their responsibility to the children and public schools of Philadelphia. They knowingly, consciously, callously turned their backs on the children. Remember their names.
For what it’s worth, we recorded it here. Nobody seems to be reading, I’m sorry to say.
In addition to being tone-deaf, the oligarchy tends to rely on biased reports in their propaganda, often dismissing objective university studies as bad science. That is, not only don’t they listen, but they don’t speak very well, either, in terms of providing support for their arguments.
A slow, painful decimation of the public schools
As schools in cities like Philadelphia and Chicago go down, stripped of programs, support services, and extracurricular activities that make them places where lifelong learning is encouraged because it’s fun; as students and teachers protest; and as parents move their families out of neighborhoods—witness now the destruction of public education in these cities. Charters, which will inevitably replace the neighborhood public schools, will drain more money from the public school coffers and offer fewer support services, enrichment programs, and “total education” for our students.
This generation of students in Philadelphia is lost, unless they leave the city soon, because once schools start down this path, they never seem to come back. It’s really difficult to be objective about this to comprehend the other side. It’s got so much money backing it anyway, that my reporting would add very little to its force. But instead of marching forward with an agenda that demeans teachers and plants an atomic bomb right in the middle of our public schools, could we possibly turn some of that power in favor of the public schools and what they need?
