Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is leading the bipartisan push to digitize American education. In and out of office, he’s helped develop a national model that funnels taxpayer funds to private companies, sucker punches public employees and unions and sets him up for election as a champion of education reform.
Or, as the Mother Jones article below sarcastically asks: “Is the former Florida governor’s online-education advocacy: A) a stealth attack on teachers’ unions; B) presidential positioning; C) an effort to divert public money to private corporations; D) all of the above?”
Survey the virtues—or lack thereof—of virtual schooling below and you be the judge. —ARK
Mother Jones:
Virtual schools work very much like voucher systems. In most states, these schools receive per-student funding that would normally go to a student’s home district. This can wreak havoc on public school budgets—which, to Bush and others working to privatize elements of the education system, may be exactly the point. In a December interview with Nick Gillespie, editor of the libertarian magazine Reason, Bush said he sees digital learning as “a transformative tool to disrupt the public education system, to make it more child-centered, more customized, more robust, more diverse, more exciting.” He told National Review two months later that “the unions see [digital learning] as an even bigger threat than vouchers because it’s such a disruptive idea.”
… As it stands, in many virtual schools, students rarely hear from their teachers. At the Insight School of Wisconsin, which was recently purchased by K12, students need only sign in to the school website and/or communicate with a teacher once every three days to prove they’re actually attending. A state legislative audit found that 16 percent of the virtual teachers surveyed had contact with individual students as little as three times a month. At one point, K12 even outsourced paper-grading to a contractor in India.
If you have trouble leaving a comment, review this help page. Still having problems? Let us know. If you find yourself moderated, take a moment to review our comment policy.
By Marian Griffith, December 12, 2011 at 7:00 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
I guess it is time to stop with the pretense and call it what it really is:
K-9 training
It is obedience school for the lesser human beings, where they learn to respond with suitable groveling to whoever buys them and to follow every order without hesitation or independent thought.
And on the happy day that this is the only form of education left (now rapidly approaching thanks to the tireless efforts of Jeb Bush and other brave crusaders like him) the remaining trillions worth of private property will flow into the bank accounts of those who already have far too large a share of the pie.
Shenonymous: You forgot to add that Jesus rode on the back of dinosaurs.Scary when you put out the facts, which those who should be paying attention, to do not even see it.Thanks for the info.
This is probably the single most important problem facing America
today. The predictions implied by Richard Hofstatder (Anti-
Intellectualism in American Life), Susan Jacoby (The Age of American
Unreason), Edward Humes (Monkey Girl), and Hector Hawkins (the
Feast of Unreason) are over the brink of being true because clear-
thinking Americans are letting it happen because they are not clear
acting.
There is a grave disregard for the corrosion of education in America that
is being perpetrated by the Republican Religious Right that is insidious
and perniciously damaging our student population. The latest recurrence
coming from Jeb Bush can be traced directly to his elder brother George
W. Bush’s intention to infuse intelligent design and creationism in public
American curriculum in an attempt to indoctrinate the entire nation.
The following stats gathered by Jacoby shows how bad is the problem:
More than a third of Americans believe in a literal interpretation of the
Bible.
Nearly six in ten believe that the bloody predictions of Revelations will
come true.
More than half Americans believe in ghosts; three quarters believe in
angels and 80% believe in miracles.
More than 100 million copies of the Left Behind books have been sold.
These books, including a children’s series refer to those “left behind”
[Left Behind: The Kids] to be slaughtered for their unbelief in Jesus after
he returns for the Last Judgment.
Nearly two thirds of Americans want creationism and evolution taught
alongside each other in public schools.
Fewer than half of Americans (48%) accept any form of evolution and
42% believe that all living creatures, including humans, have existed in
their present form since the beginning of time.
One in five Americans believe that the Sun goes around the Earth.
Ninety percent of Americans do not understand radiation and what it
can do the body.
More than two thirds of Americans cannot identify DNA as the key to
heredity.
A third of Americans believe that there is a substantial disagreement on
evolution among scientists—not understanding what “theory” means in a
scientific context.
Responsibility for the less than stellar knowledge of American students
is spread around not only among the species of listless thinking by
parents and caretakers of school children about the quality and quantity
of course content in the education system but by many teachers
themselves. And here I step gingerly since I’ve been in the education
domain for nearly 30 years in some capacity or another, primarily as a
teacher from pre-K to graduate students, in public school and in the
halls of higher education. It is simply stunning how many teachers who
are the products of the same inadequate public schools themselves just
don’t understand evolution. A survey by researchers from the University
of Texas 1998 found that one out of four public school biology
teachers believes that humans and dinosaurs inhabited the earth
simultaneously. These misconceptions do not tell anything about the
teachers’ religious beliefs, but they do reveal exactly how poorly
educated the teachers are. Any teacher who does not know that
dinosaurs were extinct long before Homo sapiens put one footprint
down is unfit to teach biology.
By comparison, national curriculum standards exist in Europe, where in
the US more than a third (mostly in the Midwest and Southern states)
seriously fail to familiarize students not only with the importance of
Darwin’s theory to all modern scientific thinking, but with the basic facts
of evolution. And while it can be argued that there is no absolute proof
of Darwin or scientific facts, these are
What’s completely astounding is that these teachers are as ignorant
about the contents of the Bible as they are about science and can’t name
the Gospels let alone Genesis as the first book of the Bible!
MrFreeze et al: The quoted article by Sirota was
published on Truthdig. If this link fails to work,
just copy & paste it in your browser. It, too, is
essential reading for anyone interested in
preserving real as opposed to virtual public
education, & is based on massive statistical
studies constructed by social scientists, not just
bamboozling propaganda created by socially
disordered capitalists whose sole intent is to use
the concocted lies to get us to allow them to
steal the trillion dollars or so that we pay
annually to help our children develop their
minds & advance our culture:
“What Real Education Reform Looks Like”
By David Sirota
How is this going, we don’t need the post office, we don’t need schools, we don’t need to have uppity middle class people who think they have rights which the Republicans like to call entitlements. Only thing we need is trickling down and we don’t need no middle class!
Like Newt said we need high paid union workers fighting against high paid teachers, that’s what we really need.
This is an essential article detailing the
ongoing already very successful effort by
numerous rich & powerful persons &
corporations to capture the trillion dollars
spent annually in the U.S. to provide
public K-12 education. George Bush’s
brother, Jeb, is the Mob’s front man in
this scam, & there are many players.
Rupert Murdoch [News Corp. & Fox] is a
major figure - he’s already invested
hundreds of millions of dollars in what is
surely his family’s attempt to get the
lion’s share of the theft. It is a full blown,
massively financed criminal operation
with its own propaganda manufactories,
big TV media, ‘documentary’ film
(presented as created by a liberal, ha ha),
lobbyists, paid members of Congress, &
paid state governors & legislators.
One cannot begin to understand this mob
operation if one gets caught up in its
phony ideology & false claims. Let me
explain. A news anchor that you trust
tells you that the Brooklyn Bridge is
broken (which it’s not) & is about to
collapse (which it isn’t), & that to save it &
prevent loss of life when it collapses Big
Daddy Pluckbucks has offered to manage
it for the bankrupt (which it is not)
government. Pluckbucks promises that
when he gets control of the bridge it will
be repaired, regularly maintained & better
yet, all this will cost fewer tax dollars
(which it will not) & speed of traffic on the
bridge will increase from 12mph to
35mph (which it will not). NOW here’s the
question. Does any of this have anything
to do with the bridge? No. It’s only about
allowing Big Daddy to pluck the tax
bucks. Does the scheme have anything to
do with improving services or reducing
operating expenses? - Did you remember
last night to put 50¢ under your pillow so
that the Tooth Fairy would not steal your
molars?
In short, this scam has nothing
whatsoever to do with education, the
public good or reduced taxation. It’s about
stealing our money for themselves, &
nothing else.
Is American public education as bad as
they say? No - quite the opposite, & of
course what is wrong is related to 2
factors: a) poverty, & b) school funding
via property tax distribution that gives
richer districts schools that are better
funded than those in poorer districts ...
thus further ghettoizing America’s poor,
by blocking the educational pathway out
of poverty & depriving them of
opportunity. As one of America’s most
able & honest journalists, David Sirota,
wrote in an article 3 days ago:
“... our entire education system is not “in
crisis,” as so many executives in the for-
profit education industry insist when
pushing to privatize public schools. On
the contrary, results from Program for
International Student Assessment [PISA]
exams show that American students in
low-poverty schools are among the
highest-achieving students in the world
[the PISA study is worldwide & gigantic].”
By Concerned Teacher, December 11, 2011 at 8:11 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Online classes at a school aren’t nearly as concerning to me as online
classes from home. If this push is for kids to stay home, it gives me the fear
of kids being more apt to be lazy, cheaters, anti-social, and unsupervised
during the day. I rarely think about the service schools perform as teen
daycares. Students need to be held accountable for their learning and
behavior. The police do not need that task added to their plate by kids
being home, free to roam.
What these people really want is automatic people. Push their buttons and they do as they are told. Why? Because they are conditioned by what was put into their heads as children. Freedom of thought is sin. Conformity is wisdom. Originality is offense against the law and order. Sit down and shut up!
Benghazi: Dissecting Congressional Follies, Media Coverage and ‘Cover-Up’ Charges
 . '/' . substr('9781556592478',-6,3) . '/' . '9781556592478' . '.jpg'; ?>)
Email 
Print
Share
Email to a friend
Newsletter 
Like Us
Follow Us
Get Our Feed
By Shenonymous, December 12, 2011 at 9:47 am Link to this comment
Marian Griffith, Dec. 12 6:00 am
I guess it is time to stop with the pretense and call it what it really is:
K-9 training
Maybe K-12? (I know I know… K-9 is slavedog obedience training)
Report thisBy Marian Griffith, December 12, 2011 at 7:00 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
I guess it is time to stop with the pretense and call it what it really is:
K-9 training
It is obedience school for the lesser human beings, where they learn to respond with suitable groveling to whoever buys them and to follow every order without hesitation or independent thought.
And on the happy day that this is the only form of education left (now rapidly approaching thanks to the tireless efforts of Jeb Bush and other brave crusaders like him) the remaining trillions worth of private property will flow into the bank accounts of those who already have far too large a share of the pie.
Report thisBy purplewolf, December 11, 2011 at 7:06 pm Link to this comment
Shenonymous: You forgot to add that Jesus rode on the back of dinosaurs.Scary when you put out the facts, which those who should be paying attention, to do not even see it.Thanks for the info.
Report thisBy Shenonymous, December 11, 2011 at 3:33 pm Link to this comment
This is probably the single most important problem facing America
today. The predictions implied by Richard Hofstatder (Anti-
Intellectualism in American Life), Susan Jacoby (The Age of American
Unreason), Edward Humes (Monkey Girl), and Hector Hawkins (the
Feast of Unreason) are over the brink of being true because clear-
thinking Americans are letting it happen because they are not clear
acting.
There is a grave disregard for the corrosion of education in America that
is being perpetrated by the Republican Religious Right that is insidious
and perniciously damaging our student population. The latest recurrence
coming from Jeb Bush can be traced directly to his elder brother George
W. Bush’s intention to infuse intelligent design and creationism in public
American curriculum in an attempt to indoctrinate the entire nation.
The following stats gathered by Jacoby shows how bad is the problem:
More than a third of Americans believe in a literal interpretation of the
Bible.
Nearly six in ten believe that the bloody predictions of Revelations will
come true.
More than half Americans believe in ghosts; three quarters believe in
angels and 80% believe in miracles.
More than 100 million copies of the Left Behind books have been sold.
These books, including a children’s series refer to those “left behind”
[Left Behind: The Kids] to be slaughtered for their unbelief in Jesus after
he returns for the Last Judgment.
Nearly two thirds of Americans want creationism and evolution taught
alongside each other in public schools.
Fewer than half of Americans (48%) accept any form of evolution and
42% believe that all living creatures, including humans, have existed in
their present form since the beginning of time.
One in five Americans believe that the Sun goes around the Earth.
Ninety percent of Americans do not understand radiation and what it
can do the body.
More than two thirds of Americans cannot identify DNA as the key to
heredity.
A third of Americans believe that there is a substantial disagreement on
evolution among scientists—not understanding what “theory” means in a
scientific context.
Responsibility for the less than stellar knowledge of American students
is spread around not only among the species of listless thinking by
parents and caretakers of school children about the quality and quantity
of course content in the education system but by many teachers
themselves. And here I step gingerly since I’ve been in the education
domain for nearly 30 years in some capacity or another, primarily as a
teacher from pre-K to graduate students, in public school and in the
halls of higher education. It is simply stunning how many teachers who
are the products of the same inadequate public schools themselves just
don’t understand evolution. A survey by researchers from the University
of Texas 1998 found that one out of four public school biology
teachers believes that humans and dinosaurs inhabited the earth
simultaneously. These misconceptions do not tell anything about the
teachers’ religious beliefs, but they do reveal exactly how poorly
educated the teachers are. Any teacher who does not know that
dinosaurs were extinct long before Homo sapiens put one footprint
down is unfit to teach biology.
By comparison, national curriculum standards exist in Europe, where in
the US more than a third (mostly in the Midwest and Southern states)
seriously fail to familiarize students not only with the importance of
Darwin’s theory to all modern scientific thinking, but with the basic facts
of evolution. And while it can be argued that there is no absolute proof
of Darwin or scientific facts, these are
What’s completely astounding is that these teachers are as ignorant
Report thisabout the contents of the Bible as they are about science and can’t name
the Gospels let alone Genesis as the first book of the Bible!
By Daye, December 11, 2011 at 2:01 pm Link to this comment
MrFreeze et al: The quoted article by Sirota was
published on Truthdig. If this link fails to work,
just copy & paste it in your browser. It, too, is
essential reading for anyone interested in
preserving real as opposed to virtual public
education, & is based on massive statistical
studies constructed by social scientists, not just
bamboozling propaganda created by socially
disordered capitalists whose sole intent is to use
the concocted lies to get us to allow them to
steal the trillion dollars or so that we pay
annually to help our children develop their
minds & advance our culture:
“What Real Education Reform Looks Like”
By David Sirota
12/8/11
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/what_real
_education_reform_looks_like_20111208/
###
Report thisBy mrfreeze, December 11, 2011 at 11:25 am Link to this comment
Daye - I enjoyed your post; however, what’s up with the link? Doesn’t seem to go anywhere.
Report thisBy ribbie149, December 11, 2011 at 11:20 am Link to this comment
Hasn’t this family cost American enough pain and grief?
Report thisBy texanarch, December 11, 2011 at 9:59 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Sorry Jeb. You and daddy and brother and grand pappy have all shit in the well.
Report thisBy Leefeller, December 11, 2011 at 9:36 am Link to this comment
How is this going, we don’t need the post office, we don’t need schools, we don’t need to have uppity middle class people who think they have rights which the Republicans like to call entitlements. Only thing we need is trickling down and we don’t need no middle class!
Like Newt said we need high paid union workers fighting against high paid teachers, that’s what we really need.
Report thisBy Daye, December 11, 2011 at 9:17 am Link to this comment
This is an essential article detailing the
ongoing already very successful effort by
numerous rich & powerful persons &
corporations to capture the trillion dollars
spent annually in the U.S. to provide
public K-12 education. George Bush’s
brother, Jeb, is the Mob’s front man in
this scam, & there are many players.
Rupert Murdoch [News Corp. & Fox] is a
major figure - he’s already invested
hundreds of millions of dollars in what is
surely his family’s attempt to get the
lion’s share of the theft. It is a full blown,
massively financed criminal operation
with its own propaganda manufactories,
big TV media, ‘documentary’ film
(presented as created by a liberal, ha ha),
lobbyists, paid members of Congress, &
paid state governors & legislators.
One cannot begin to understand this mob
operation if one gets caught up in its
phony ideology & false claims. Let me
explain. A news anchor that you trust
tells you that the Brooklyn Bridge is
broken (which it’s not) & is about to
collapse (which it isn’t), & that to save it &
prevent loss of life when it collapses Big
Daddy Pluckbucks has offered to manage
it for the bankrupt (which it is not)
government. Pluckbucks promises that
when he gets control of the bridge it will
be repaired, regularly maintained & better
yet, all this will cost fewer tax dollars
(which it will not) & speed of traffic on the
bridge will increase from 12mph to
35mph (which it will not). NOW here’s the
question. Does any of this have anything
to do with the bridge? No. It’s only about
allowing Big Daddy to pluck the tax
bucks. Does the scheme have anything to
do with improving services or reducing
operating expenses? - Did you remember
last night to put 50¢ under your pillow so
that the Tooth Fairy would not steal your
molars?
In short, this scam has nothing
whatsoever to do with education, the
public good or reduced taxation. It’s about
stealing our money for themselves, &
nothing else.
Is American public education as bad as
they say? No - quite the opposite, & of
course what is wrong is related to 2
factors: a) poverty, & b) school funding
via property tax distribution that gives
richer districts schools that are better
funded than those in poorer districts ...
thus further ghettoizing America’s poor,
by blocking the educational pathway out
of poverty & depriving them of
opportunity. As one of America’s most
able & honest journalists, David Sirota,
wrote in an article 3 days ago:
“... our entire education system is not “in
crisis,” as so many executives in the for-
profit education industry insist when
pushing to privatize public schools. On
the contrary, results from Program for
International Student Assessment [PISA]
exams show that American students in
low-poverty schools are among the
highest-achieving students in the world
[the PISA study is worldwide & gigantic].”
Source of above:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/wh
at_real_education_reform_looks_like_201
11208/
Obviously, we are being misled & robbed.
Report thisOur culture is being shit upon, our
dreams trashed & our future made
wretched.
By Concerned Teacher, December 11, 2011 at 8:11 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Online classes at a school aren’t nearly as concerning to me as online
Report thisclasses from home. If this push is for kids to stay home, it gives me the fear
of kids being more apt to be lazy, cheaters, anti-social, and unsupervised
during the day. I rarely think about the service schools perform as teen
daycares. Students need to be held accountable for their learning and
behavior. The police do not need that task added to their plate by kids
being home, free to roam.
By gerard, December 10, 2011 at 8:49 pm Link to this comment
What these people really want is automatic people. Push their buttons and they do as they are told. Why? Because they are conditioned by what was put into their heads as children. Freedom of thought is sin. Conformity is wisdom. Originality is offense against the law and order. Sit down and shut up!
Report thisBy PatrickHenry, December 10, 2011 at 6:05 pm Link to this comment
‘Reform’ is a two edged sword.
Report this