Diane Ravitch Uncensored

Since the economic crash of 2008, one driven by rampant, unregulated greed and speculation frighteningly illustrated by the Academy Award winning documentary Inside Job, Wall Street has deftly side-stepped vilification, the superrich walking away with fortunes – and reputations – in tact.   And even more deftly, these same billionaires have successfully framed public servants – and teachers in particular – for the crime, making them appear greedy, lazy fat cats responsible for destroying the economy.

For the last year, the “bad teacher” has become an icon of lazy avarice, an antagonist in a corporate media narrative that shows public education in state of crisis, a crisis on par with global warming as the promotional poster for the Academy Award not-nominated Waiting for Superman suggests, with a cute, attentive kid sitting ready to learn in a school desk amidst a bombed-out wasteland.  This wasteland, though, is not the poverty caused by mass foreclosures, by outsourced jobs, nor by crumbling social services, by the destruction left in the wake of this Inside Job, but rather, by inept, overpaid educators, and the greedy unions who keep them safe from consequence.

Talk about suspension of disbelief.

But this “bad teacher” narrative has been incredibly powerful: it is heavily subsidized by billionaires like Bill Gates, broadcast essentially unchallenged by the corporate media, and tacitly approved by President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan (who invited the kids from WFS to the White House).  And it should thus come as little surprise, as the New York Times reported recently, this ire of teacher against teachers appears to never have been stronger.

“All the money and power is on one side, and they are demoralizing four million teachers,” Distinguished New York University Education professor and George H.W. Bush’s Assistant Secretary of Education for Diane Ravitch wrote me in an email a few months ago.  At the time, Ravitch was promoting her latest book The Death and Life of the Great American School System, which told a very different story from the popular story, one that didn’t fit neatly with corporate script, and thus, one that has made her the target of billionaires like Gates, and has made her unwelcome at the billionaire backed NBC’s Education Nation special.

And while Ravitch was considered the most visible education scholar in the last year according to Frederick Hess of the neo-conservative American Enterprise Institute, Ravitch told me that “My book publisher has tried repeatedly, but I can’t get onto any of the national TV shows to challenge Gates, Rhee, et al.”  As master teacher Anthony Cody demonstrated thoroughly in his popular education blog “Living in Dialogue,” Ravitch has been all but “blacked out” of the national debate, her voice all but censored from the national audience.

Ironically, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker may have given Ravitch her voice back, as she finally appeared on corporate TV this Thursday Night on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

“Maybe we can thank Scott Walker for this,” Ravitch exclaimed when I asked her how she finally broke the media blackout, and was asked onto the Daily Show.

Shortly after Walker (elected in part by Koch Brothers money) tried to dismantle collective bargaining for public employee unions and the subsequent protests exploded, Ravitch penned an immensely popular essay for CNN, “Why America’s teachers are enraged”.  Ravitch spoke on behalf of Wisconsin teachers, but more broadly, for the millions of teachers sagging under the weight of unrelenting scapegoating: “The uprising in Madison is symptomatic of a simmering rage among the nation’s teachers. They have grown angry and demoralized over the past two years as attacks on their profession escalated.” Her words struck a chord, as her article spread like a You Tube video of a cat playing a piano, linking to 44,000 websites.

The chord Ravitch struck, one that got her on NPR and shortly thereafter on the Daily Show, isn’t just about teacher-bashing– though Ravitch told me she attributes her appearance with Jon Stewart in part to the fact that his mother is a teacher.   No, Ravitch is finally uncensored, Ravitch is finally getting corporate air time because it’s now clear that Walker’s attack on public teachers, and the Republican attack on public servants and services in general, is an attack on the public itself.

Ravitch has revealed that the attack on public teachers is another Inside Job, one financed by the super-wealthy, for the benefit of the super-wealthy, to maintain Wall Street at the cost of Main Street.

Yes, Diane, maybe we can thank Scott Walker for this.

Diane Ravitch on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, 3/3/2011