I don’t get it! “It” being the fact that the very people who claim to want to save the public education system — from privatization, corporatization, dismantling, and turning it into a confusing, inefficient smorgasbord of charters — don’t want to hear the naked truth. With all this going on around them, they still argue over whether or not the system is broken. Really?

Greed-driven privatizers saw a growing public dissatisfaction with the lack of consistent and reliable quality education. The profiteers saw a weakness; they saw opportunity because of dysfunction and division. The division is greater than ever.

Educators and others who believe that the whole problem has been “created” are ignoring the voices of parents who have had some very bad experiences with the system. When we brush these parents off as complainers or excuse their comments as just a perception problem, we are telling them that their experiences have no value in the discussion. If you later want them to support public schools, how do you think they are going to feel about that?

Do you see what is broken here? Do you see the division?

A PUBLIC system, locally controlled or dictated to from above, is a broken system when it excludes the voice of the public in its decision-making. Any well-run public institution that exists to serve the public’s needs must hear the public’s voice.

We can stop all this wasteful warring by simply agreeing that the country must get back on track to continuously improving all schools. This is where we were in the 30’s, we advanced on the idea in the 70’s, and we lost it after that.

Face the naked truth – we have NEVER had quality education available to all children, all the time — but we can.