As promised, more on the SOS Rally in my latest TNR column.
One phrase that got thrown around a lot at the rally was “corporate foundation,” with the word “corporate” being used as a catch-all insult along the lines of “dastardly” or “scum-sucking.” This seems to be a trend in anti-school reform talking points. I expected to hear this kind of rhetoric from the socialists and communists in the crowd–and to be clear, these were actual socialists and communists, complete with Lenin biographies and so forth, not “socialists and communists” as commonly defined in 2011 i.e. “people who believe in progressive taxation and the regulation of banks.” It’s disappointing that the rhetoric has become so simplistic. And it’s worth noting that the phrase “corporate foundation” has a specific meaning. For example, the ExxonMobil Foundation gives money to lots of charitable causes. That’s a corporate foundation, ultimately accountable to owners and shareholders. When ExxonMobil underwrites “Masterpiece Theatre,” it contributes to the culture but also gets p.r. benefits that help mitigate some of the less popular aspects of being a gigantic energy conglomerate. By contrast, the Carnegie Corporation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Century Foundation, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation and many others are independent non-profit foundations that got their money from rich people who founded large corporations. There’s a difference. The politics of Henry Ford and the interests of the Ford Motor Company are by no means aligned with the strategies put forth by the Ford Foundation.
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Also, thank you for the suggestion, Joanne. Maybe “misguided” would do it. We need a compound noun too — misguided education reformers.
The best school leaders have always “run schools like businesses,” in the limited sense that they held themselves responsible for educational effectiveness and cost effectiveness. (Yes, at times it seemed as if there were not many following those principles, except to the extent that elected school boards held their feet to the fiscal fire). BUT, good school leaders have not run schools like businesses in the sense of trying to reduce outcomes to numerical metrics, in the sense of encouraging churn in their workforce in order to reduce costs, in the sense of seeing curriculum change as an opportunity to sell goods and services at a profit — no, good schools do not have the ultimate bottom line of creating profit for outside stakeholder at the expense of inside ones. Outside stakeholders (employers, schools of education, vendors, retirees) should be heard, but they should never dominate. Inside stakeholders (children, teachers, parents, even taxpayers) rightfully hold a more central position in this scenario.
Hmm — now I see that the “reformers” are trying to backpedal from the “run schools like a business” story. http://jaypgreene.com/2011/08/05/misleading-market/
Fine, but don’t deny that that’s been the theme for well over the past decade.
So Joanne, you’re claiming that “reformers” aren’t arguing that schools should be run like businesses?
Wow, that’s new. I’ve been following ed reform for well over a decade, reading the works of Terry Moe, John Chubb, Andrew Coulson (the OTHER Andrew Coulson, not the disgraced Murdochite), and more — all of whose visions of how schools should be run like businesses appear to pervade the ed reform philosophy. Competition will force public schools to improve and all that. Am I behind the times?
Who argues that schools should be run like businesses? The libertarians are big on competition and choice, but the “corporate” philanthropists like Bill Gates don’t talk that way. Gates hired a bunch of education researchers, many of whom had started as teachers, to develop his ideas.
For years, K-12 schools have asked business leaders to contribute money for special projects. After the Annenberg Challenge debacle — lots of money, no results — philanthropists decided to stop funding the status quo and start looking for ways to make a difference. Some are misguided: I think Noyce’s foundation funded trendy but bad ideas on teaching reading, for example. Gates’ small schools initiative didn’t pan out — too little focus on curriculum — but the foundation recognized the failure and changed course.
Critics could attack “misguided” education reform and praise “sensible” education reform.
Thank you for continuing to praise the Save Our Schools event with faint damns. I’ll bite on the use of “corporate.”
It’s hard for critics of the current fads in education reform to clarify what it is we’re criticizing. We are not actually opposed to true, positive, beneficial education reform; we’re calling out the currently trendy “reform” policies as ineffective and harmful.
I put “reform” in quotes there. Sometimes I use “so-called reform” (though actually a lot of people don’t recognize the “disbelief” connotation of the adjective “so-called”). Some of us use “corporate reform” as shorthand.
Presumably there are some among us who view anything “corporate” as evil. I’d say that doesn’t apply to most of us.
In my own case, I’d say it applies to education policy based on the idea that schools should be run like businesses; based on ideas that come from business leaders and that ignore and disdain the views of actual experienced educators.
“Corporate education reform” as a term isn’t a perfect solution to the need for a way to characterize the education policy philosophies I’m referring to. Any suggestions?
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