The bigotry of low expectations in Florida

From School Matters by Judy Rubin

With the ink barely dry on the outcome of the Presidential election in Florida, the FL school Board is now looking for new and innovative ways to keep the FCAT,  virtual schools and private money machine rolling. This way Jeb Bush's buddies. K-12 and other for-profit education outfits who make their money off the backs of the poorest and most vulnerable children and their teachers can keep their wheels greased till 2018 under this proposal.

The soft bigotry of low expectations used by these privatizers and profiteers for the past decade to push test and punishment and hold teachers accountable for the failures of Wall Street and politicians, is now being used by the actual bigots to keep things running smoothly for their bottom line.

With new proficiency targets for poor black and brown children, their no excuses mythology that they worked so hard to create for three decades has to be replaced with some other malarkey as our Vice President would say. I would say bullshit. The corporate education and testing industrial complex's powerfully financed propaganda machine is finding new and creative ways to maintain their hold on bankrupt corporate education policies that have done nothing to help close the achievement gap, the economic gap or the racial gap.

It's truly breathtaking how these people manage to think up more insidious ways to make money by pitting children against one another, divide teachers and blackmail administrations while wreaking havoc on the nation's public schools. 

http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2012/11/the-hard-bigotry-of-low-expectations-in.html