The Violence of Neoliberal Education or “I Am Not For Sale!”
Sheila Landers Macrine
Ain’t it funny how the factory’s doors close
Round the time that the school doors close
Round the time that the doors of the jail cells
Open up to greet you—like the reaper
—Rage Against the Machine, “Ashes in the Fall”
Over the past few years, the Philadelphia school district has been under siege from the blight of poverty to threats of take-over. Under-resourced and abandoned by state and federal monies, the school district has hobbled along. Then in December 2001, the state of Pennsylvania seized control of the city’s schools and practically put them on the auction block. Yet, the state had no intention of running the schools. They are following the Bush administration’s embrace of proposals to privatize education and open public schools to the market. The state had plans to sell off the management of schools to the highest bidder. In an unambiguous transfer of public monies to private hands, the state replaces the management and organization of public institutions like schools, hospitals, and even prisons with the ever-encompassing neoliberal model of corporate management. The case of the Philadelphia schools is another example of public institutions under attack.
As many for-profit and some nonprofit school management companies applied to run clusters of Philadelphia’s low-performing schools, the newly state-appointed School Reform Commission (SRC) awarded Edison Schools Inc., the country’s leading for-profit manager of public schools, a six-year, $101 million contract to run 45 of the city’s neediest schools in partnership with community groups. There are two smaller management corporations that will also be contracted with, Victory and Beacon Academies. The hope here is that corporate management methods can do a better job of running Philadelphia’s schools. When classes began in the 2002 school year, the district launched the biggest experiment to date in creating the largest-scale privatization of a school system in the country.
H. Christopher Whittle, founder and CEO of Edison, reports that his plan consists of opportunities for all—students, teachers, parents, school districts, governments, and especially their corporate investors. On Tuesday, May 14, 2002, Edison Schools Inc. (NASDAQ: EDSN), the nation’s leading private manager of public schools, reported net revenues for the quarter ending March 31, 2002, of $121.9 million compared to $92.8 million1 a year ago, an increase of 31 percent. Gross site contribution for the quarter increased to $21.7 million from $18.1 million2 for the same period the previous year.
Just months into the state takeover, major chunks of the state’s vision of school reform are having profound and turbulent effects on the Philadelphia school district. To date, these measures have caused more turmoil (school walkouts, hundreds of teacher resignations and transfer requests, lawsuits, and other protests) than any concrete educational change. As this chapter goes to press, Edison is embroiled in a series of inter-related scandals over accounting, test-score reporting, and questionable financial practices that have driven down share price and raised questions about the for-profit schooling.
Beyond the specific case of Edison, my concern is the way that neoliberal educational policy making has infiltrated education reform and harmed teachers, students, and administrators. These ideologies move to silence and strip teachers of their decision-making role and view students as potential consumers to be trained in brand loyalty. Additionally, an increasingly corporatized model of educational leadership rewards administrators for embracing the corporate model that abstracts questions of efficacy from equity and the broader purpose of schooling. In no small part owing to the corporate mass-mediated discussion of education on the corporate model, administrators are entrenched in a corporate mentality of cutting costs, accountability defined strictly through “outcomes,” high-stakes testing, and standardized test performances and hence fail to grasp the necessity in a democratic society for students to develop as thinkers and for education to be understood as a process of self-and social edification rather than merely as an outcome.
In this chapter I discuss the results of neoliberal reform in Philadelphia. I utilize interviews with Philadelphia teachers, administrators, and students about how the privatization of their school district is affecting their lives. I show how these corporate ideologies reinvent schools through discipline-oriented reforms that threaten the possibility of remaking public education as an endeavor ideally engaged in preparing students for democratic participation and renewal. Corporate reforms also threaten the possibility of teaching as an intellectual undertaking toward the end of more just social transformation.
I have been a professor at a mid-sized university in Philadelphia for seven years, and I have had many dealings with the school district. I have volunteered in numerous ways, as other professors around the city have, to help with curriculum development and to promote more school district/university partnerships. Some of the schools that I worked in did not even have paper and pencils. With the federal push for inclusive education, the district had to move on to inclusion of special education students in regular classes. Yet, the teachers did not have copies of children’s IEP (Individualized Education Plan), which is in violation of the State Compliance Law. The special education law is stringent, going so far as to hold teachers personally responsible for not implementing IEPs or not having them available, to the tune of being sued up to $10,000 personally. Most of the teachers who I spoke to said that they had no idea where the IEPs were and thought that perhaps they were locked up somewhere. So, yes there were problems in the Philadelphia schools.
Philadelphia school district has always had its share of wonderfully dedicated teachers. Some teachers come into school at 6:30 am to build literature clubs and to share great books with their students. The students do their best in an impoverished school system that the state capital has forgotten about. Most are there to learn with no books or supplies, and with asbestos walls and ceilings falling in on them. They remain impoverished, abandoned, and dejected. It is imperative to consider neoliberal school reform in relation to the bleak future promised by the undermining of the social safety net and the real opportunities awaiting youth after they leave Philadelphia schools. Unfortunately, the continuation of current models not only marginalizes nondominant groups but also perpetuates class, race, and gender differences that serve the profit imperatives of a postindustrial economy. Ultimately, neoliberalism serves to justify an educational system that enhances the emerging American economy of service managers, franchise workers, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists that sit on a huge underclass of burger wrappers and security guards, certainly not what the “promise of a literate” society intended.3
Enter Edison, Christopher Whittle, media entrepreneur and founder of Whittle Communications, who has a history with education. He created the controversial Channel One in-school news program designed to make students into a captive audience for the program’s advertising of junk food and other consumer goods. In 1991, he introduced the Edison Project. His plan was to build one thousand new, for-profit schools, two hundred of them within five years, at a projected cost of $2.5 billion. Over the next four years, Edison invested $44 million from private investors into research and development. Whittle tapped former Yale University president Benno Schmidt in 1992 to lead a group of educators and businesspeople and spent the year developing the Edison school curriculum.
Several lawsuits have now been filed, which, if successful, may prevent the implementation of the plan. A majority of city council members and several advocacy groups have filed suit in federal court in an attempt to overturn the state takeover. They contend that the take-over violates residents’ constitutional rights. They also announced plans to seek a preliminary injunction that could bring the most pressing business of the state-run school district to a halt by the end of March 2002. Employee unions and other groups have filed two lawsuits that are pending in state court. One challenges the constitutionality of the take-over; the other seeks to prevent an educational management firm from doing business with the city, citing a conflict of interest.
Schools in the United States and elsewhere are now set within the logic of a market system where devolved budgets, calls for reform, and corporate raiding of school systems have set the framework for the corporatizing of education. In the following section I interview teachers about their experiences with the privatization reforms in Philadelphia.
Within the model of enforcement, teachers are increasingly directed by districts and school administrators to focus on raising test scores rather than teaching for understanding or, in the long tradition of Dewey, Gramsci, Giroux, and other progressive educators, as an intellectual activity fostering democratic social transformation.
Teachers have many concerns about the outcomes of the reforms. One of the cuts being considered in this “cost cutting–profit making experiment” is to cut libraries and librarians.
Teacher C: And I don’t understand why you’re going to think of depriving the children of this school of a library and a librarian. With all of the concern about early literacy and lack of literacy practices the last thing to cut is the libraries. We have no books in the classrooms now, they are taking the last resource that we have…. Unbelievable.
State Departments of Education increasingly intrude into the lives of teachers and teacher educators through more and more regulations. These regulations are manifest through technical methods such as accounting, compliance to mandates, and auditing. Regulation occurs through technical means of standards, testing, and measuring.
Recently a former graduate student of mine (Teacher A) told me that she was leaving the Philadelphia school district. She told me that she wants to teach in Philadelphia public schools, but no longer can.
Teacher A: You know that Governor Ridge sold this school District down the river to Edison even before he left office. He never had any respect for teachers … you know (that) when he said that you could put any non-certified person in the classrooms, which he did … and then he turns around and complains about low-test scores.
In August 1, 2001, Governor Tom Ridge (former PA governor and now Secretary of Homeland Security) selected Edison Schools—the nation’s largest private manager of public schools—to lead an intensive two-month review of the Philadelphia school district’s educational and fiscal management. “Edison Schools knows what it takes to produce better educational results for children, and they know how to do it within a budget,” Ridge, a Republican, commissioned Edison to conduct a $2.7 million study of the district, which became the basis for the plan ultimately put forward by his successor, now Pennsylvania Governor Schweiker. Ridge said, “This will not be just another audit of the district’s books. This will be an expert, performance-based management analysis, such as Philadelphia’s schools have never seen before. It is designed, not to point fingers, but to suggest fresh ideas and innovative perspectives for the district—ideas and perspectives that will be fully grounded in the tough day-to-day realities of managing and improving a struggling urban school district.”4
Teacher B: Teachers are fleeing the school district. You know that everyone knows that problems exist and many even doubt the severity of those problems. I am resigning too [she sighs]. I wrote that in my letter to my principal and the chancellor of the district told them that, “should the many administrators, politicos and bureaucrats who sit in their ivory towers in cluster offices, union halls and City Hall fashioning solutions for mass consumption deign to ask teachers and students who labor without paper and pencils in schools polluted with asbestos and lead for their opinion and perspectives, they just might hear the truth and find the beginning of the path toward the light. But they don’t. And they won’t, until the system stops rewarding lies and deception. They won’t until our so-called leaders are no longer permitted to tread upon the spirit and hopes of the children as they greedily grab for more power, perks and favorable opinion polls.”
Teachers are protesting angrily. Not only are they being replaced, but the ones who stay are going to be under the gun to cut costs. Some teachers report that they were forced to replace art and music with test-taking drills last year. There’s a lot of pent-up anger. Teachers know that education is not just about taking tests.
Teacher B: These tests are culturally biased and they do not measure the bright lights that I see in my kids’ eyes. Or do they measure the knowledge that my students have and continue to garner?
Teacher E: I am a guidance counselor here for the past four years and I was a teacher for the past 26 years; so, I have worked for the district (Philadelphia) for the past 30 years. I am also a product of this school system. That said I am putting in for early retirement at the end of this school year. I have worked hard to help my students achieve, both in the classroom and in the guidance office. I am leaving because I simply cannot take what is happening to the school district. I feel that I am not valued as a hardworking professional, by the district, the city or the state. [Tears well up in her eyes.] No one has bothered to ask the opinion of the front-liners, the teachers, those working in the schools everyday, trying to give students the best education possible. It is obvious that our opinion is not wanted. So for reasons too numerous to list, I will not be back here when school opens in September. I wish the best for the students, parents, and teachers that are remaining, but frankly, all I see happening is the worst. And I refuse to be a part of shortchanging students at the same time building someone else’s stock portfolio.
Teacher D: What about the sixth-grade material? We don’t have sixth-grade material. We have nothing to start these children with. We also have no teachers coming back because we have a revolving door of educational staff.
These women and men who have dedicated their lives to teaching in the inner city are being silenced, written off, and replaced by inexperienced teachers. The Philadelphia school district is facing a huge teacher shortage in the fall as hundreds of teachers retire, resign, or transfer, and the pool of qualified applicants dries up as a result of the hodge-podge of so-called reforms being inflicted on city schools. According to the Pennsylvania Federation of Teachers, “This has the makings of a major disaster for the children of Philadelphia when schools open come September,” Ted Kirsch said, “and the School Reform Commission only has itself to blame. Its single-minded pursuit of this risky experiment with privatization is costing Philadelphia many of its best and most experienced certified teachers.”5
School district figures show 416 teachers filed by April 15 to retire or resign on June 30, up from 290 the previous year. Approximately 720 employees filed voluntary transfer requests by May 17, many of them from schools that will be reconstituted, turned into charter schools or handed over to private management. Last year, 369 employees had requested transfers as of May 17. Of the 720 transfer requests, 200 came from apprentice and literacy intern teachers at targeted schools, and the district said it is in the process of returning those requests because only appointed teachers with three years of building seniority are eligible for voluntary transfers.6
“All told, the District begins the hiring process with nearly 800 teaching positions vacant,” Kirsch said. “And we expect even more resignations by next fall, when teachers who are applying for jobs in neighboring school districts are snapped up. Thousands of Philadelphia children will likely begin the new school year without a certified teacher to welcome them back to school, and everyone knows that you can’t raise test scores without caring, compassionate and qualified teachers.”7
Arlene Kempin, Pennsylvania Federation of Teachers (PFT) personnel officer, said a fourth-year teacher at one of the schools targeted for private management resigned. She said:
He said, that with the turmoil surrounding the privatization of public schools and the blatant lack of respect for teachers, he just can’t take anymore, and he’s getting out. If the School Reform Commission’s goal is to provide a qualified, certified teacher in every classroom, it won’t succeed by throwing schools into chaos and stripping teachers of their right to workplaces that are free from harassment and arbitrary, unfair and capricious treatment. When you combine the number of resignations, terminations and existing 100 to 200 classroom teacher vacancies, you’re looking at 850 teaching positions that will have to be filled this summer, and that’s before the suburban districts siphon off more certified teachers.
Philadelphia is also losing its administrators. Another former graduate student who is a current administrator spoke about being one. He told me that he knows that he doesn’t fit the model type administrator that corporate America is looking for.
People are going back to the classrooms … they are giving up administration, there is no way that they [administrators] are going to be displaced after putting in so many years in the district. There is no way that our present administrators are going to stay here under a Gestapo regime! Edison is going to come in like the Queen of Hearts and it’s off with their heads … they have no mercy and don’t care to have any discussions. I can tell you, folks are shaking in their boots!
One administrator said that, “Philadelphia Public School is not going to be in the business of replacing failing public schools with failing privatized schools. It is going to be accountability through controlling teachers through threats.” The hiring of former accountant and former CEO of the Chicago public schools Paul Vallas to Philadelphia is specifically geared for such strong-arm tactics. Vallas has a record of precisely such control through such tactics as threatening to fire teachers, dissolve schools, and “reconstitute schools” (move teachers around to other schools suffering disinvestments) when they do not make the scores. Vallas, arriving in Philadelphia, has “declared war” on low achievement (achievement of course being defined through test scores).
To the surprise of many adults, student activism is alive and well in Philadelphia— in the form of elementary and high school students. It is the Philadelphia public school students who have been leaders of opposition to the state taking over the schools, according to Aldustus Jordan, a student reporter for the Notebook, an independent local school newspaper. On April 17, 2002, members of the Philadelphia student union actually staged a series of street protests including a student walkout, a sit-in, and a nonviolent blockade of the school district administrative offices in protest over the privatization of schools.
Student activism, like these examples have shown, can inspire adults to take action as well. It has been said that the students from the Philadelphia student union and Youth United for Change have often been ahead of adults in getting the facts, seeking out information, demanding answers and even engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience. Students in groups like Philadelphia Student Union, Youth United for Change, and Asian Americans United have demonstrated, marched, independently organized students, held educational forums, and spoken out about the type of education they desire. They have, on two occasions, blocked entry to the district’s main offices in protest against the privatization of schools.
One of two students that I spoke with was a junior at the local high school. She told me that the students (mostly of color) are feeling like they are being traded like slaves to the highest bidder to improve profits for big corporations. Unfortunately, members of the Philadelphia student union, fending for themselves in court on April 19, 2003, face a lawsuit from the school district and possible fines of up to $50,000 for blockading the district administrative offices. Two days earlier about 25 students had slept overnight in front of the building and blocked all of the entrances by early morning. This was to protest the SRC meeting scheduled to take place later that day and where the SRC was expected to announce its plans for the privatization and other dramatic management changes to 70 Philadelphia schools.
Although the SRC moved their meeting the District still got an injunction to force students to move away from the building’s entrances. On April 24, 2001, Albert J. Snite, Jr. issued an injunction, valid until August 2002, that orders all protesters to stay seven feet away from the building’s entrances and prevents protesters from hanging signs on buildings. The school district did not stop there and reserved the right to sue adults involved with the protests for $200,000, the amount it says the school district lost when employees could not report for work.
A high school student and member of the Philadelphia student union named Sara wrote this poem on Philadelphia schools titled, “I Am Not For Sale!”
2.7 million dollars down the drain,
But we could’ve told you we were in pain,
But you called up this for-profit corporation,
That betters the schools through process of illumination,
These Edison people are already in debt,
So we have price tags till their demands are met,
This is no way to treat adults of tomorrow,
Philly’s school funding is a pitiful sorrow,
The plight of our schools would make even Snow White turn pale,
So say it now … I am not for sale! I’m not for sale!
I want a textbook from the nineteen-nineties,
It should be a right, but we’re still askin’ pretty please,
Don’t I deserve a proper education?
Some say that Edison has helped some schools,
But those people can be mistaken for the fools,
Because in a school that Edison has backed,
14 out of 15 students kicked out are black,
Edison’s school in San Fran I warned ya’,
IS one of the worst scoring schools in California,
Does this sound like the answer we need?
These Whittle executives are wrapped up in their greed,
I don’t need these rich white males …
So say it now … I am not for sale!
I’m not for sale!
The state slaps on what they think is an answer,
But you’re giving us problems like tumorous cancer,
You’ll sit coiled up in your bittersweet satisfaction,
But remember State:
To every action there is a reaction!
We are students we are young and proud,
We are smart, energetic, bossy, and loud,
Who better than us to know what we need,
And (Gov.) Schweiker up yours because I can obviously read,
So we are young willing and able,
We will fight back with all the cards on the table,
It’s the adults that walk over us that we’ll nail,
So scream it loud … I AM NOT … FOR SALE!
Not a dirty school and civil rights violations
What did I do to be put in this mess?
I have a swipe card around my neck, and you tell me
How to dress,
These are no ways to run our schools,
We are people with needs, not money earning tools,
At this rate I’m never going to Yale,
So say it now I’m not … for sale!
I’m not for sale!
—Sara Davidson, student at Central High School, Philadelphia, 2002
Sara, the author of this poem, is not the only young person who is transforming the bitter experience with Edison, and more generally the state and the private sector, into the basis for rejuvenated public action. Various organization such as Research for Action, ACORN, Parents Advocating School Accountability, as well as numerous students have responded to the ways that instead of getting resources they are getting rules. The lesson to be taken from these activists is that the struggle to strengthen public schools as part of an effort to bolster the public sector is central to the work of making a more democratic society that puts people over profit.
1 Revenues for 2001 reflect the reclassification of approximately $6.8 million.
2 Prior year third-quarter amounts have been restated to reduce the loss from operations by $0.6 million for losses, primarily related to two school contracts, that should have been recorded in the first quarter of 2001.
3 Patrick Shannon, Becoming Political, Too: New Readings and Writings in the Politics of Literacy Education (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1989).
4 Arlene Kempin, “Major Teacher Shortage Looms: Record Numbers Retire, Resign, Transfer,” The Reporter: A Publication of the Pennsylvania Federation of Teachers (June 2002).
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
7 Edison Schools Corporation Press Release, August 1, 2001.