The 2 False Principles on Which School Reform is Built

It never ceases to amaze me how many people who should know better buy the following dominant principles of the School Reform narrative

1. American schools as a whole are failing because American students are being pampered, both by their parents and teachers. We need to demand more of them to meet Global Competition

2. Schools in high poverty and moderate income neighborhoods are failing because they are filled with incompetent teachers who are protected by teachers unions. We get rid of those teachers, those schools will improve markedly.

Since these principles are espoused by politicians of both parties, and by most people in the media, they are accepted as given by the general public

The result- an orgy of Teacher Bashing, Union Busting, Privatization and Profit Taking which has undermined the teaching profession, destabilized neighborhoods, and filled schools with fear and stress without significantly improving the performance of the nation's schools, reducing child poverty, or retarding the growth of the prison industrial complex and  the concentration of wealth at the top levels of US Society.