ABOUT OUR PROJECT

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

We will see what comes of this SLPS School Board election.

All respect to #Ferguson protestors, but Charters, TFA, Non-Profits, and Corporate Reform Agenda are not going to lead to what the #Ferguson protestors are (or seem to be) demanding.

With this corporate reform/non-profit agenda you may get some individual mobility, the symbolic achiever to show that the system still works for some people.  And that symbolic body of color can be held up, and pointed to, mostly by white folks, to say look, it works.  (I'm thinking of KIPP's so-called "success" stories).

But you are moving further away from deep commitments to broad-based support for high quality public education for all children.  You deepen the existing system of economic and racial segregation, by solidifying the hierarchy between private, public, and pseudo-private charters.  You deepen your dependence on corporate philanthropy, fickle and self-interested as it is.  You weaken the possibility of demanding accountability from the state for all of its children.

For the corporate education reform movement, black lives don't matter that much, but black bodies are a good way to make money, take tax breaks, and carry on with the system. Kind of like prison. Think about it. Follow the money.