[RSCT] CounterPunch 12/18/08: Arne Duncan's privatization agenda

[Rick Kisséll]

CounterPunch.orgDecember 18, 2008
      No school left unsold 
      Arne Duncan's privatization agenda 
      By JESSE SHARKEY 
      Teachers
in Chicago are sorry to see that the CEO of the Chicago Public Schools
(CPS), Arne Duncan, is getting a promotion. Barack Obama has selected
Duncan to be his Education Secretary.

      In
the past couple years, Duncan has been turning public schools over to
private operators--mainly in the form of charter and contract
schools--at a rate of about 20 per year. Duncan has also resuscitated
some of the worst "school reform" ideas of the 1990s, like firing all
the teachers in low-performing schools (called "turnarounds"). At the
same time, he's eliminated many Local School Councils and made crucial
decisions without public input.

      Charter
schools and test-score driven school "choice" have been the watchwords
of Duncan's rule in Chicago. Expect more of the same in Washington, D.C.

      To
me, the thing that made Duncan's role clear came after three months of
organizing at Senn High School, the community school where I teach,
against the Chicago Board of Education's proposal to install a Naval
Academy.

      After
an inspiring campaign that involved literally hundreds of people in the
biggest education organizing effort in the area in decades, we forced
Duncan to come up to our neighborhood to listen to our case for keeping
the military out of our school. More than 300 of us--parents, teachers,
and community supporters--held a big meeting in a local church and, at
the end of the meeting, we asked Duncan to postpone the decision to put
the military school at Senn.

      Duncan's
answer was a classic. He said: "I come from a Quaker family, and I've
always been against war. But I'm going to put the Naval Academy in
there, because it will give people in the community more choices."

      The
exchange showed that when push came to shove, Duncan was always a loyal
henchman of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley's political machine--albeit
with a style that made it seem like he was listening. He's just the
kind of person who will look at you with a straight face and tell you
that, as a person with a pacifist background, he supports a military
school.

      Never
mind that the community was fighting as hard as it could against this
backroom deal between Daley and the Department of Defense--according to
Duncan, the Naval Academy would give the community "more choices."
Indeed, CPS has more military high schools than any other school
district in the U.S.

      Despite
all this, Duncan is being portrayed in the national media as a school
administrator who had a "good" relationship with the Chicago Teachers'
Union (CTU).

      The
truth is quite different. Duncan pursued anti-labor policies by pushing
nonunion charter and contract schools. He also imposed test-oriented,
competitive schemes that force schools to close if they can't raise
test scores above a certain level.

      Yet
he failed to implement the kinds of changes that really would improve
student performance--such as smaller class sizes and expanded
facilities to end overcrowding. Instead, special education teachers
were laid off and budgets squeezed.

      Moreover,
Duncan has done nothing to address racial segregation in our
schools--which is so bad that a 2003 Harvard University study found
that CPS is "only a few percentage points from an experience of total
apartheid for Black students." Rather than try to remedy this shameful
situation, Duncan requested the removal of the federal judicial consent
decree that mandates the meager efforts CPS has undertaken to improve
the racial balance of our schools.

      CTU
members in the Caucus of Rank and File Educators (CORE) will use their
December 17 press conference to set the record straight.

      Duncan
is getting ready to take his methods to the national level. Teachers,
students, parents and communities everywhere will have to be prepared
for a new round of attacks on public education under the banner of
"reform."

      Jesse Sharkey is a teacher in Chicago.
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