[Cross-posted at Schools Matter.] This begins a series of readings concerned with the articles and images found in the October Atlantic Monthly which promote the “Reform Agenda” of both conservatives and liberals (as power has no pure politics). I will primarily be concerned with the conveyance of ideology. However, I have asked my Errant collaborator Doug Martin [...]
Tag Archives: privatization
Tenure Perches in the Soul
I. “Hope” is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune–without the words, And never stops at all, And sweetest in the gale is heard; And sore must be the storm That could abash the little bird That kept so many warm. I’ve heard it in the chillest land, And [...]
The Mind Trust’s “Opportunity” for Indianapolis Corporate Schools
As Bart Peterson and David Harris’ Mind Trust sells its “Opportunity School” agenda (PDF) to the City-County Council Community Affairs Committee this week, it is time to get one thing straight. The Mind Trust plan for Indianapolis Public Schools is not about improving education. Essentially, it is an elaborate (and $500,000 of it taxpayer funded) [...]
So Many Lies From Which to Choose: Privatization and Innovation
I guess you know that the largest private employer in the world is WalMart. Do you know what number two is? I didn’t either. But as I was looking into the private prison issue I discovered this fun fact: the UK “global security” corporation G4S is the second largest private-sector employer in the world with [...]
Experts Serving Interests: Academic Collusion in the Corporate State
Readers of Errant musings know that my primary focus seems to always have a common theme: the loss of local human good to the abstractions of wealth and power. We are seeing a very rapid decline in social goods “produced” by human economy replaced rapidly and without check by the externally and mechanically produced “cultural” [...]
Neo-Determinism, or Pre-Crime Pre-Made is Predictable
Earlier this morning I was trying to begin to really grapple with the determinism of guys like Pinker and Dennett (these are liberal determinists–meaning they have good intentions, really, they promise with a spoon full of the toxin formerly known as sugar), folks that see the forces at work in nature as being primarily a [...]
Trickery and Violence: That of which there is no end.
I’ll be honest, today has me flooded with indignation and it has become hard to think amidst the noise made by the onslaught of corporate legislation removing the education of children from the public charge and domain and placing it in the hands of the highest or most connected bidder. If you want to read [...]
Stand from betwixt me and the Sun…Thoughts on Enclosure
I’m working on a longer piece intended to be about parallels between eighteenth century land enclosures in England as they became legalized via Parliamentary Acts at the behest of vested private interests and the current private interest in turning our local, common, public learning institutions into “educational enclosures” benefiting the propertied classes. Now it’s likely [...]
The Lords and Owners of Their Faces
Today I read another “Privatization is good” piece in our local paper. It is claimed there that selling our public roads is a brilliant maneuver in managing budget shortfalls. As this isn’t argued, detailed or proven in any way by appeal to facts or outcomes, it is clearly only rhetoric. The rhetoric is only intended [...]
Accumulation by Dispossession: Land Theft Masquerading as “Empowering Parents”
Just read these two pieces and see if you need much more to understand the reality of what “loosing” the beast upon the prey that is your public schools, and by very near and dear extension, your children, OUR children, OUR communities. First, from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch an editorial (full of real facts and [...]
Articles
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The Chaos of Monoculture
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The Custom House: Louis Agassiz with Christoph Irmscher
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The Errant Goes Audible: The Custom House on WFHB
