The Public Education Shock Doctrine

Over the past several months, I have had this nagging feeling of déjà vu. As the nation divides into competing camps over the implementation of Common Core, I am constantly left with a feeling that we have already been down this path. That everything we are fighting about has been fought over already. That this has all happened before and the techniques being used by the government and the big educational corporations have been used to gain support and momentum in the past. And then it occurred to me, the buildup of the war on public education is strikingly similar to the buildup of support for the war in Iraq. And even further, there appears to be a similar goal- the corporate profiteering from a public good.

In Naomi Klein’s 2007 book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, she details the ways in which the laissez-faire philosophies of neo-liberal economists, such as Milton Friedman, had a direct influence on the political policies and practices of many Latin American coups and also the Bush administration’s push for the invasion of Iraq in 2002-03. Klein goes through mounds of data to make connections between CIA’s experiments and the ways in which the major western economic powers utilized these practices to create blank slate countries in which they could create developing economies favorable to corporatist regimes. In particular, she applies these theories to the buildup to the war in Iraq and the United States’ drive to gain access to Iraq’s vast nationalized oil reserves for corporate profit.

With the target of Iraqi oil reserves set, the next step in the process was the development of a crisis. In this case, As the Bush administration ramped up its push to overthrow Saddam Hussein in the fall of 2002 and winter of 2003, the tactics they used to gain public support and the outcomes sought were strikingly transparent and flimsy. Rationale’s wavered from weapons of mass destruction, the war on terror, human rights violations, democratization and the ultimate goal of peace in the Middle East. Regardless, the crisis was established and the rationale for action was “legitimized”. 

What followed was a process of social, political and economic destruction, a “blank slate” as Klein describes it, and the imposition of new institutions, often corporate, to replace those destroyed through the employment of “shock and awe” techniques. In the final stage, a new corporatist state would be secured to the benefit of western economic elites and shareholders.

Here is a quick summary of the basic process according to Klein:

STEP ONE- Identify target

STEP TWO- Invent crisis to expose popular weakness in the target

STEP THREE- Destruction of the existing order

STEP FOUR- Create new corporatist state

In the fight for the American public education system, the similarities to the buildup to the war in Iraq are striking. The TARGET in this case is the school system itself. For decades, a publicly funded holdout to corporate “reforms” and supported by the collectivist teacher unions; it’s the last bastion for privatization and its potential for financial gain is potentially astronomical.

The CRISIS in this arena is the manufactured and hyped up inequalities and inefficiencies of “failing schools”. With the public outcry over declining scores on the PISA test and cries of mediocrity on the NAEP, all fueled by an eager and willing corporate media structure, politicians and corporate reformers have found common ground on which to fight to save our children and prepare them for “college and career readiness”. However, these tests do not tell a full or even legitimate account of student performance since these scores do not take into account impacts of outside factors, such as socio-economic disparities. 

In an analysis of the 2009  PISA scores, Martin Carnoy and Richard Rothstein found that when accounting for socio-economic disparities, the scores for students in the  United States  jumped dramatically. In Reading, the students jumped from 14^th to 4^th and in Mathematics from 25^th to 10^th. Enormous gains ignored. Why? Because officials go to great length to ignore and minimize these statistical factors since they highlight two very important things- the ongoing divide between social classes in America and a failure to focus on the true crisis facing public education- poverty and income inequality.  

The DESTRUCTION OF THE EXISTING ORDER, perhaps the most insidious component of this progression, is taking place in school districts around the country. With the “evidence” of declining test scores, the politicians, corporate financiers and monied interests wage war on public education and the status quo; all with a glorified mission of rising up the impoverished through their philanthropic deeds and charter schools. By bringing testing scores to the fore, these reform minded forces can chip away at the multitude of labor protections that have prevented them from privatizing the system earlier- labor unions, collective bargaining, tenure laws- while holding high their moral certitude of providing a quality education for all students. Because in the view of the reformers, these aren’t just the factors holding back privatization, these are also the factors that hold back our children- just look at those falling test scores!

With the elimination of collective bargaining and tenure laws, the decline of labor unions as a political and financial counter-force is nearly eliminated. This ushers in the final stage in the process- establishment of a CORPORATIST STATE. Corporatism is defined by Merriam-Webster as “the organization of a society into industrial and professional corporations serving as organs of political representation and exercising control over persons and activities within their jurisdiction”. Simply put, the government is run by and for the benefit of corporations and their shareholders. No longer a democratically functioning tool, the government institutions simply work as elected arms of the corporations. In this final stage, corporations create laws and secure their passage and implementation. They buy entre through political donations, manipulate legal wording through lobbyists and maintain power through the funneling of funds to special-interests. Then they establish their own set of laws, through the Common Core State Standards, that simultaneously create a tool for demonizing schools and teachers while providing a framework for profits.

Finally, society becomes segregated by what Klein describes as “disaster apartheid”, in this case a form of educational apartheid. Following the privatization of schools, we will have a system that provides opportunities for the few at the expense of the many. This is hardly an exaggerated concept. Simply look at the impacts charter schools have had in several urban communities and you see the ways in which a new class order is being formed. Children who are lucky enough to win the charter lotteries are just the start. In order to stay in the charters they must demonstrate behavioral and academic norms that meet the expectations of the charter organization. This is something you simply can’t (and wouldn’t) do at a public school. In the end, the reformers succeed in streamlining class divisions based on socio-economic standards and academic achievement. Further fueling a rebirth of the civil rights era battles for equality. Except this time, the divisions are about economic standing as much as they are about race.

Every step in this process for educational privatization has followed a clear and steady plan. Built on the past success in other political areas, the corporations are playing by the same rules. However, as Naomi Klein describes in the final chapter of her book, the unintended consequences lie in the backlash that rises up against the corporations and the forces that work with them. At some point, the shroud of benevolent illusion is lifted only to reveal the true nature of the corporate beast. As testing increases and public schools face further funding cuts, the parents, teachers, administrators, politicians and community-minded organizers will work effortlessly to strike down the new order and reveal it for what it truly is.

Already we are seeing the roots of this movement. All across the country parent groups and teachers unions are organizing to fight for our children and the future of their schools. Courageous Administrators are taking brave stands in outing the tests and the standards for what they truly represent. Politicians on both sides of the aisle are combating the power-grab through new attempts at legislation that either restricts the impact of tests on teachers or withdraws their states from Common Core altogether.

The monetary and political alliances are being exposed and the media farce is becoming its own circus. As groups organize to oppose the Common Core, through meaningless standardized testing and the teacher evaluations that are based upon them, they develop the political power to overthrow this current regime. The political and financial motives of the “reformers” are not that complex. With opponents on the political right and left, perhaps the one thing they didn’t count on was the full spectrum of opposition that faces them today.