I was on the phone tonight with a representative from the Parthenon Group, a private consulting firm hired by the National Writing Project to survey site leaders for information about the future of the organization, particularly the future of funding in the wake of the loss of direct federal funding. The guy I spoke with was nice, but he got a little snarky with me when I told him that I was uncomfortable with the direction the National Writing Project seemed to be forced into. Increasingly, the national office is looking at private sources of funding, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (which seems pretty close to The Parthenon Group, several of whose members have worked for the Gates Foundation and other charter-friendly education groups), and even Wal-Mart. And I told him that I have deep reservations about this direction.
My objection is not so much that I disagree with the vision or values of the Gates Foundation or the Walton Family Trust, which I may, but that I object to the fact that these organizations are being put in a position to define the mission of the Writing Project or other professional organizations for teachers. No longer are we as an organization in a position where we can define what we do, ask the federal government to provide funding, and then prove the efficacy of our work. Now, with private donors as well as with current competitive grant funding structures at the state and federal levels, it is the funding agent who gets to define the work we are to do, after which we customize a anjuran to conform to their demands, and only then can we receive funds. This is, to say the least, troubling.
We have seen this sort of thing many times over the decades—notably after Sputnik and after the publication of A Nation At Risk—where the federal government has taken it upon itself to reform public education from the top down, but this time seems worse. This time around, we’re seeing even greater involvement from the private sector, and we’re seeing much more effort from the private sector to exert control. Even though, as I wrote last week, financial firms and the president of New Alliance Bank simply aren’t qualified to reform education. (By contrast, when the Aetna Insurance Company endowed a chair of writing at UConn back in the 1980s, there was no attempt by them to tell the university what to do with the money, other than to trust the faculty to fund programs that promoted writing and the teaching of writing. The teachers and professors were the experts on that, and so were entrusted to use their expertise).
In a March 20 opinion column in the Willimantic Chronicle, Eastern Connecticut State University Professor Emeritus James Lacey offers an alternative anjuran to corporate reform and privatization. Professor Lacey urges us to “[turn] the system upside down.†He suggests that we abandon systems with “a top-down hierarchy†and replace them with “a democratic, bottom-up approach†that values the experience and expertise of teachers, first and foremost, with input from parents and students.
Interestingly, the original charter school act of 1996 made frequent mention of community interest and both teacher and parent approval. Many at the time hoped, in fact, that applications to establish charters would come from coalitions of teachers and community members. And some did. But that’s not what we’re seeing now. Now, we’re seeing hedge fund management firms and large corporations pouring millions of dollars into the establishment of charters. This is anything but democratic, public, or community based innovation. This is, what, investment? Speculation?
What we have more and more now is a corporate model where competition rules and democracy takes a back seat. Where 34 literacy programs competed for Title II SEED grant funds, and only three received them. Where students have to participate in a lottery to go to a school with adequate funding (and if you’re in New York, this might be merely different floors of the same school building!). And where programs and schools have to hold bake sales, auctions, and cabarets in order to acquire funds that are not ensnared by someone else’s agenda.
Is this the choice we have been pushed into? On the one hand, degrade ourselves with begging and performing song and dance routines, flipping burgers on second shift, or capitulate to the demands of the wealthy corporations that have the money but might not share our educational beliefs? And on top of that to possibly offer up our academic freedom by relinquishing tenure? Ugh.
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