Sirota shows, through a U.S. Dept. of Education study, that “about one in five public schools was considered high poverty in 2011 … up from about one in eight in 2000.”
The entire school-reform movement is meant to not only crush the last unions left in America, but also to enrich a few corporate charter school honchos at the expense of the American taxpayer.
Sirota notes that the wealthiest public school districts in America are among the world's highest-achieving schools.
Oh, and most of their teachers are unionized, too.
Sirota calls attention to a 2011 study from a Stanford University professor that shows, without a doubt, "family income is now, by far, the biggest determining and predictive factor in a student’s educational achievement."
Of course, Sirota had to drag Stanford into this debate because, otherwise, no one would believe him.
But, really, do we need a Stanford study, most likely federally subsidized, to point out the obvious?
Hello!
The "income-achievement gap" is older than new math. Actually, it's much older than that.
Here's Sirota's coup de grace:
"Meanwhile, despite the fact that many “reformers’” policies have spectacularly failed, prompted massive scandals and/or offered no actual proof of success, an elite media that typically amplifies — rather than challenges — power and money loyally casts “reformers’” systematic pillaging of public education as laudable courage (the most recent example of this is Time magazine’s cover cheering on wildly unpopular Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel after he cited budget austerity to justify the largest mass school closing in American history — all while he is also proposing to spend $100 million of taxpayer dollars on a new private sports stadium).
"In other words, elite media organizations (which, in many cases, have their own vested financial interest in education “reform”) go out of their way to portray the anti-public-education movement as heroic rather than what it really is: just another get-rich-quick scheme shrouded in the veneer of altruism."
Speaking truth to power.
If you can sit her and tell me that the teacher's unions have the welfare and education of the children in their schools as a #1 priority, well sir, you're an idiot. (Guess we already knew that, though)
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