The "StudentsFirst" Reform Scam

(c) by Mark Dempsey

Former Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson's wife, Michelle Rhee was appointed the superintendent of Washington D.C.'s schools where she implemented her philosophy of education which includes these three principles: 1. Charter schools (privately managed public schools) are better and more flexible. 2. Good teachers should get merit pay (because money them) and 3. Testing will determine how well students are learning (and poor student performance is grounds for dismissing teachers). Rhee dismissed 241 teachers while she was D.C. superintendent before founding the "StudentsFirst" scam organization to promote these plausible principles.

Unfortunately for Rhee no studies validate her "reforms" improve educational outcomes, although the political right relentlessly promotes them as solutions for problems in education. More recently, on the Sacramento Bee's editorial pages (3/20/25) Lance Izumi of the "Center for Education at the Pacific Research Institute"--a Republican-funded "think" tank--and author of The Great Classroom Collapse... unsurprisingly provides an account of public school failures, suggesting the remedy is letting parents choose where their children are educated--a related "reform" principle.

The inevitable conclusion: private schools would do much better! Izumi's attempt at a plausible remedy is "choice," as though most parents have the wherewithal to make an informed choice in an economy where 40% of them can't afford a $400 emergency and 60% live paycheck to paycheck (according to the Federal Reserve). As usual, Izumi's suggested remedy would favor the very wealthy, adding "educational advantage" to their pre-existing wealth and income advantages.

Again: none of the proposed remedies from these "experts" have been validated to improve educational outcomes. But there is something that studies suggest does correlate with poor educational outcomes: poverty.

Those on the political right--and frankly, both major political parties--make every effort to supply an endless stream of plausible "reform" ideas to distract from this simple conclusion: poverty makes people dumber, just as a sleepless night reduces measurable IQs.

Mr. Izumi cites the futility of increasing the amount of money spent on schooling but mentions nothing of the context and how the majority of citizens have become impoverished. Investigative reporter David Cay Johnston says that real, inflation-adjusted median income for the bottom 90% has increased $59 since 1972 while real expenses for housing and healthcare, among others, have increased dramatically more. Johnston goes on to say that if that $59 increase were an inch on a bar graph, the bar for the top 10% would be 141 feet high. The bar for the top 0.1% would be five miles high. 

 

He adds that federal spending on higher education since 1972 has diminished 55 percent, requiring dramatic increases in college tuition. Gosh, I wonder why student loans are second only to mortgages in US indebtedness! 

And, lest you think the Democrats are on the side of the poor, it was Joe Biden's legislation that tightened bankruptcy law so student loans are no longer something bankruptcy can retire. Seniors can and do now have their Social Security checks garnished to pay off student loans.

The sabotage of the public realm, from schools to post offices to infrastructure, has been unrelenting. The plausible explanations for why this was necessary have been provided by a cottage industry of consultants and "experts." But the outcome has been the beggar-on-every-corner economy, and an impoverished population--all done at the expense of the wealthy who can afford the luxury of private schools, private planes and well-funded think tanks that rationalize their predatory behavior.

The rationale for this wealth shift from the poor to the plutocrats is that more money makes people smarter, but experience says otherwise. One philanthropy administrator told me he met lots of wealthy people in his work and "ninety percent of these guys were born on third base, but all of them want to act like they hit a triple."

The election of a political wrecking ball--our current president--is a form of sabotage enthusiastically embraced by those our political and economic system betrayed and impoverished. To the victims, it's what the smug patricians deserve for scolding the public that they were "deplorable" or just made poor choices. 

The dumbing down of our governing institutions to entirely ignore systemic problems like poverty is all part and parcel of the self-sabotage of a country determined to promote more greed and produce more billionaires, but not much else. Destroying the educational system that made the US a world leader is part of that process.