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Skandera takes steps to undermine public education
Photo by sidewalk flying/flickr.com
It’s no surprise that N.M. Education Secretary Designate Hanna Skandera is taking steps to undermine public education. The problem is that the educational model she and her backers pursue isn’t education at all. It’s operant conditioning.
Earlier this year I wrote about the questionable nomination of Hanna Skandera to the post of New Mexico secretary of public education – a job for which she is, on evidence, unqualified. Given her lack of a proper background and experience as an educator I wondered just what she was about.
As it turned out, Skandera failed to be confirmed for the secretary position during the 2011 regular session and so has held her office as “secretary designate.” Since holding this office, and without the mandate accorded by legislative approval, she has taken steps designed to undermine the authority of the Public Education Commission and the future of public education in the state.
Ms. Skandera came to New Mexico with a mission – to undertake the process of privatizing public education. She came here under the auspices and/or recommendations of various right-wing “foundations” and “institutes.” In some of them she had previously served as an officer.
Ms. Skandera and New Mexico are not alone in this scheme, as she has numerous counterparts across the country, all paid for by the same cabal of wealthy and influential individuals who underwrite the so-called “foundations” and “institutes” that finance their industrialized vision of public school reform. Here in New Mexico, Skandera has the backing of one of those so-called “foundations,” that being the Rio Grande Foundation and its chief executive Paul Gessing.
The majority of financial support for this “foundation” comes from out-of-state “foundations” and donors. Gessing’s donors include, among others, Donor’s Capital Fund of Virginia, State Policy Network of Virginia, Roe Foundation of South Carolina, Wal-Mart of Arizona and the Atlas Foundation of Washington DC.
A clear warning of an agenda
The obvious duplicity and fact-torturing employed by these so-called “foundations” and “institutes,” which are underwritten by some of the wealthiest people in the United States, ought to be a clear warning to all that they have an agenda. The shuck and jive surrounding their propaganda is patently transparent. What they are after is to defame, de-unionize, scrap and then privatize public education across the United States.
Emanuele Corso
They are beginning with the founding and underwriting of variations on the charter-school theme. Charter schools, across the board, do not have a better academic record than their public school counterparts. What they do offer is that they are generally free of teachers’ unions, a holy grail for the sponsors on their path to privatization.
The efforts of these groups and their agents are sometimes clumsy and ham-handed but in so being they reveal the true nature of what they are up to. For example, Ms. Skandera just recently overruled the N.M. Public Education Commission’s (PEC) decision to not renew the credentials of three charter schools that utterly failed to meet required academic standards. To ensure she has legal cover for her actions, Skandera’s Public Education Department (PED) has now hired Patricia Matthews, who comes from the staff of a law firm that provides legal services to charter schools.
The event was characterized by a member of the PEC as, “…hiring a fox to guard the hen house.”
Skandera also tailored the qualifications for a position within her department so she could hire the wife of the governor’s right-hand man. These antics are, to put it into the campaign rhetoric of our current governor, “Crony” hiring. So much for promised reform on that score.
Foot soldiers for the financially powerful
Why so blatant? Why the arrogance? Perhaps it arises from a sense of hubris gained by knowing you have the backing of wealth beyond the dreams of avarice that wants to become even more wealthy, and you can help.
Being a foot-soldier for the financially powerful has been known to confer delusions of elevated status to certain individuals. To get the picture, one has only to listen to Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, who is doing his best to cut funding for public education at all levels in his state and disenfranchising teachers’ unions, speaking to someone he thought was one of the Koch brothers in this audio recording.
It is also worth noting that Governor Martinez’s campaign reports show that she took $10,000 directly from Koch Industries and $1.3 million from the Republican Governors’ Association. The RGA, for its part, took in at least $1 million from the Koch brothers and donated more than a million to the Republican Party of New Mexico, which heavily aided Martinez’s campaign.
The Koch brothers are businessmen – they expect a return on their investments, and you can rest assured they’ll have business in the Land of Enchantment.
Here is the agenda
Why do I object so strenuously and so strongly to all of the above? I do so because the industrialized education model being pursued by activists such as Skandera and her backers is an endless cycle of memorizing and regurgitating – no critical thinking, no creativity and, above all, no challenging of conventional wisdom or authority. The kind of training proposed by these people is not education – technically, it is operant conditioning.
Bill Gates, who invests heavily in this kind of educational reform through his own “foundation” once told an interviewer that any form of teaching and learning that could not be measured is useless. When was the last time you measured a beautiful sunset? How would you quantify the beauty of a Mahler symphony? Human beings have hearts and minds, Mr. Gates, not CPUs.
Conditioning of this kind is a dead end from which there is no exit. A better conception of the future will be impossible, because not only would the majority of children be unable to imagine such, they also wouldn’t know how to measure it. Children so conditioned would be left with no sense of authenticity or agency to shape their lives beyond low-paying, low-skill, treadmill jobs. Their lives and imaginations would be impoverished and, consequently, so too would be the world in which they would have to live.
People cannot have a better life or fashion a better world if they cannot imagine it, if they cannot imagine themselves creating it. Destroy imagination and you destroy tomorrow.
If people want more for their own children and if people who have no children want more for themselves, they must come to understand that today’s children will shape everyone’s future. We must all see our investment in public education today as an investment in our own futures, an investment in a civilized social contract, in a creative and thriving society.
The moral of Fritz Lang’s film “Metropolis” is that between head and hands there must be a heart. It is a heartless world imagined by those such as Skandera and her sponsors, those who would privatize and industrialize public education.
Emanuele Corso has been a New Mexico resident for over 30 years. Prior to that he taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the Department of Educational Policy Studies, where he received his doctorate in education policy studies. He taught “Schools and Society” and “School Reform” to graduates and undergraduates. He holds two master’s degrees and a bachelor’s in mathematics. He is currently working on a book, “Belief Systems and the Social Contract,” which he started when he was teaching at Wisconsin. You can find him online at siteseven.net.
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Surely one might reasonably expect from Ms. Lentil, a more substantive rebuttal to a closely reasoned and carefully researched essay than a dismissive one liner. “This is Really off base. Sorry.” Don’t be sorry, Ms. Lentil, be factual, add something substantial to the debate.
Ms. Lenti:
If so, it’s a really good disguise.
Skandera is a blessing in disguise to New Mexico education. You just wait. This post if really off-base. Sorry.
Very interesting article. Very interesting.
I see valid arguments on both sides.
This is among the most ridiculous pieces ever. I’ve got news for Corso, any organization like RGF, whether it be Think New Mexico in the center, Voices for Children on the left, or the myriad environmental groups is going to rely on out-of-state dollars. New Mexico is simply too poor and has zero Fortune 500 companies based here.
To his “points” in the article. He acts as if New Mexico has a flawless education system that is graduating kids who are capable of doing everything they need to in order to thrive. That is not true as barely 50% graduate and even many of those who do need remediation. By the way, the “factory” model of education is what we have now. A bell rings and everyone switches places, it is assumed that all kids of the same age should learn the same things in the same way. Sounds like a factory to me.
I couldn’t agree more. Skandera has done extremely questionable things that were she part of the Richardson Administration and not the Martinez Administration, she would have been called out front page by the media.
She appointed Patricia Matthews, a lawyer/lobbyist for the charter school interest groups and charter schools, after Skandera, reversed the Public Education Commission’s ruling to terminate the charters of three of Matthews clients.
You can read the documents about Matthews and the other items commented on below at: http://www.independentsourcepac.org.
Matthews only changed the name of her law firm, Matthews Fox, the day before she started full time with the state, but did not terminate her role as an officer of the law firm. So Matthews is regulating her CURRENT clients who pay her firm $175 per hour, and not just her “former” clients.
As to the privatization, one needs to look at Matthews and Skandera’s effort to make an end run around NM education requirements of how much face time a teacher and student must have and also to make an end run around the student to teacher ratio. Why? K12, Inc.– the Maryland based company, that sells distance learning curriculum (just touted by Skandera in a SF New Mexican article) because K12, Inc. does not meet New Mexicorequirements for either teacher/student face time or student to teacher ratio. And has never been approved to provide instruction in this state.
K12, Inc gave $5,000 to Susana Martinez and was rewarded by Sen. Vernon Asbil, who tried to rewrite NM legislation to allow K12, Inc. to broadcast it’s curriculum to NM despite not conforming to NM law. Fortunately, that was blocked. K12, Inc. has only 23% of it’s staff as teachers. The rest are salesman and marketers. Yet, the top officers in the company make well over $300,000 a year plus get stock options. Oh yeah, K12, Inc. acknowledged in an SEC filing that it’s program does not increase student scores, at all.
Teach for America, just got $400,000 of our tax dollars, to try to fix the failings of it’s five week “teacher” training– more accurately described as a “temp teacher program” since 80% dropout of teaching by the third year in the program.
Republicans should be up in arms. Especially, since TFA double billed the taxpayers $110,000 for service long since provided, but then got caught and had to return the money.
Is this what NM public education should be about? Matthews should be removed from her job for conflict of interest and corruption and Skandera should be sent packing for trying to send our tax dollars to Maryland and New York and for promoting a lawyer/lobbyist with serious conflicts of interest to head her alternative education platform.
This has to be the craziest piece I have ever read! The 5 minutes it took to read this I will never get back, period….
If this doesn’t expose Emanuele Corso for what he is then nothing will.
Maybe these “big businesses” are tired of sending jobs and companies overseas to people who can actually think about doing something. All the sunsets and symphonies are useless if you are out of work and starving. Your example of “self esteem” type education has produced the very results we are suffering from today. Our country is worse off today than it was 25 years ago and that rests totally at the feet of the failed education system. The very system Mr. Corso continues to be an apologist for. For some reason he wants us to believe that the teachers unions are somehow better and more pure then the very businesses that rely on the products of public education? Once again this just continues to expose the far left agenda of folks like Mr. Corso and the rest of the “educrates” that would rather protect their income than have a real discussion of true reform, the type of reform that will help get this country back to the position in the world we once held.
Mr. Corso has written a strong article. I have concerns about outside money influening policy in New Mexico, no matter whose agenda it is, whether it be on the left or on the right. I was educated through the New Mexico public education system at all levels. My four children were educated in New Mexico at all levels of public education. From time to time, I had issues with certain things. In general, I was satisfied with my education, less satisfied with my children’s education. I am very glad for the past ten years, that I have had zero children in the public education system. It appears to me that the only safe haven for responsible parents these days would be to home school their own children. I like the thought of vouchers, and, I like the thought of a tax credit for those that would home school their own children. I sympathize with Mr. Corso’s issues, however, I do not see a resolution to the situation simply by removing Ms. Skandera, the current secretary designate of education in New Mexico. In all honesty, I would prefer a person from New Mexico rather than Florida to run this department. I also prefer someone who has been an educator previously. Ms. Skandera may have a place in the New Mexico department of education, however, perhaps it might not be secretary designate. She does bring to the table the matter of holding some folks feet to the fire, which is good, in most cases. The so called agenda that Mr. Corso eludes to is troubling. It’s a tough call. Parents have a choice. Keep the kids home if they don’t like the system.