Scary.
The graduate students at Harvard and Chris Christie get ready to take on the political thugs - teachers.
I would like to point out that this supposed "consensus" on education comes from the ruling classes and their corporate pols, but the people they govern - you know, the parents, students and teachers - well, there the consensus is the exact opposite.
Looks like the People's Republic of Harvard has been taken over by Microsoft, Goldman Sachs and the Koch Brothers.
The idea that Harvard and other Ivy League schools are progressive places is a false one, mostly spread by Republican types for political advantage.
ReplyDeleteAs I wrote in NYC Educator on September 7th, 2010 (http://nyceducator.com/2010_09_01 ), there is a sordid history of Harvard students, and college students in general, working as union busters. In probably the most notorious example, Harvard students were inducted into the Massachusetts state militia and armed to try and break the famous "Bread and Roses" strike in Lawrence in 1913. Closer to home, Columbia students were used as strikebreakers during a street car strike in 1905.
The eager young union busting edupreneurs that Christie entertained yesterday are just the latest expression of a longstanding class antagonism that is incubated and practiced at these institutions. Harvard's Program in Educational Policy and Governance (PEPG), affiliated with the Kennedy School of Government, is a training academy (Rhee is an alumnus) for educational attack dogs and privateers.
It's also no wonder these schools also have a history of land grabs and abusive behavior toward the communities in which they are located.
Good for you, RBE, for helping to expose this.