A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
Click the flash player below to listen to or the mic to download the MP3
“Rev. Al” is a traveling pal with the abominable Newt Gingrich on Education Secretary Arne Duncan's $4.3 billion charter school and high stakes test booster tour. First stop, Philadelphia, where the tightly choreographed Listening and Learning Tour shut out unvetted teachers, student leaders and community activists. Learning in America is becoming a businessman's game.
The Sharpton/Gingrich Traveling Salt-and-Pepper Educational Minstrel Show
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
“The administration and Newt Gingrich have found common ground in their mutual antagonism to unionized teachers.”
The Rev. Al Sharpton has debased and discredited himself by teaming up with arch right-wing clown and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s traveling propaganda show. The mere fact that Gingrich, the deep-fried Georgia reactionary and race-baiter, signed up as a performer on Secretary Duncan's Listening and Learning Tour should loom like a curse over President Obama’s grand plans for America’s schools. Earlier this year, Gingrich described the educational component of Obama’s economic stimulus package as “anti-Christian” because, he said, it barred churches from using public schools for meetings on Sunday. Gingrich wants prayer back in the classroom, and “multiculturalism” to be replaced by patriotism in the public schools, whatever that means. But for all his troglodyte views, Gingrich likes the Obama education plan. The administration and Newt Gingrich have found common ground in their mutual antagonism to unionized teachers.
Al Sharpton is the darker ingredient in this salt-n-pepper vaudeville presentation. By all accounts, he said nothing beyond banalities in Philadelphia, the first stop on the Tour. Sharpton and Gingrich are symbolic bookmarks, stereotypes in contrast, whose purpose is to give the impression that all reasonable people, Left and Right, should unite behind the administration's high stakes testing, union busting, charter school boosting program. Secretary Duncan has $4.3 billion for distribution to states that dramatically increase the number of charter schools and link teacher's professional futures to student test scores. Those states that fail to join the charter school parade won't get any of Duncan's multi-billion dollar slush fund.
“Obama’s so-called reforms are actually formulated in 'close partnership with business interests.'”
Philadelphia was an appropriate jumping off point for the Sharpton/Gingrich/Duncan show, since 46 of its public schools are already run largely by private organizations and for-profit companies.
Teachers, students and community activists in Philadelphia found it very difficult to access the tour. Most events were tightly choreographed and invitation-only.
The city's Teacher Action Group has lots of ideas for school reform, that would include parents and students, as well as teachers and administrators, in decision-making on “budgeting, hiring, school culture, curriculum, academic vision” – the entire educational experience. But those aren’t the kind of people or ideas Secretary Duncan and his boss, President Obama, want to hear. As one Philadelphia teacher put it, Obama’s so-called reforms are actually formulated in “close partnership with business interests, owners of education and charter management organizations” and “stockholders in the testing industry.”
The real shame of Al Sharpton is not so much in his clowning around with Newt Gingrich, giving the impression that the old racist scoundrel is good company and a fit role model for children of any race. The real problem is, Sharpton has signed on to corporate education, which is far more dangerous to ideals of community control than any union could ever be. Sharpton is shuckin' and jivin' with the enemy – and presumably, getting paid. For Black Agenda Radio,
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
Developing countries and mass organizations at the COP17 summit continue to demand compensation for damage and loss created by fossil fuel production in industrialized capitalist nations. The…
There have been endless news stories about basketball player Kyrie Irving. But insight on celebrity culture and acknowledgement of the confusion that is deliberately created in this country is…
Oppression of Haitians in the Dominican Republic intensifies, as deportations and discrimination against Dominicans of Haitian descent continues. The Socialist Workers Movement of the Dominican…
In this segment we will learn about the scarcity of affordable housing in New York City and why this public need is not being met. We will also hear about how voting rights for formerly convicted…
Leah Goodridge is an attorney, housing advocate, and member of the New York City Planning Commission. She is a former member of the Rent Guidelines Board which sets the rents for regulated apartments…
