THE MARKETABILITY OF EDUCATION

Outside of privatizing the military, public education is the most profitable market in America. The goal of corporations vying for public schools is to use our tax dollars to boost company stock, not improve public education.

These private interest groups demonize teachers and persistently deceive parents by falsely decreeing the failure of public education. Don’t believe them. Their interest is not with the children. It is with turning a profit. In fact, the data proves that public school students have been making progress, not failing. Let’s take San Mateo County as an example. According to STAR (standardized testing and reporting) fourth grade students have made significant growth in both language arts and math. In 2006, 35% scored advance in math, 50% scored advanced in 2011.

In 2006, 24% of 4^th graders scored advance in language arts. Five years later, 49% scored advance. In fact, across all elementary grades students have made progress, even middle schoolers. In 2006, 26% of 8^th grade students scored advanced in language arts. In 2011, 41% scored advanced.

Privately owned, publically funded schools have an agenda and it is not to educate every child in America. They have a selective admissions process that segregates the student population, precluding students with learning disabilities and requiring aptitude entrance exams. Disguised as reform, these schools are being controlled by corporate managers who see very clearly the profit margin of privatizing them.

Even so, according to EdSource, an independent, non-for-profit research organization, charter elementary schools had lower API (academic performance index) scores than traditional public schools, further proving education is better left in the hands of professional educators and community members not corporate executives looking for a net gains.

Public school teachers understand that they often have challenging students and cannot choose only kids who have all the advantages it takes to come to school prepared to learn. More importantly, they also know that no underprivileged child chose their condition. It is a moral imperative that every child receive a quality education, even those – especially those - who are disadvantaged.

Public school teachers and the public school system are not the root of all evil. They are on the side of children. Everyday parents turn over their most precious possession, their children, to teachers, entrusting them with the task of preparing their kids for a successful future. And even with schools being drastically underfunded for years, public school teachers have shown resilience, courage and professionalism, as have their students. The result is well-informed, well-read, knowledgeable children and we have the data to prove it.

Founding father Thomas Jefferson understood the correlation between the education of every citizen and retaining a free society. “Convinced that the people are the only safe depositories of their own liberty, and that they are not safe unless enlightened to a certain degree, I have looked on our present state of liberty as a short-lived possession unless the mass of the people could be informed.”

Let’s keep informing the masses by leaving education to professional educators, not CEOs.