The school-reform scam
Never mind the palæocon racism; it’s like dirt when panning for gold

Evidently, the point of being a school reformer these days is to become known as a school reformer, not to actually reform the school. What matters is that you publicly proclaim that you believe the schools can be fixed.

The UK equivalent is for politicians to loudly proclaim that they ‘believe in’ the National Health Service. Just as the US belief in public school education is compatible/synonymous with indifference to the quality of schooling, so a belief in the UK NHS is compatible/synonymous with indifference to the quality of health services.

He likely isn’t looking to get re-elected. He and his wife are looking for a good face-saving way to get out of Denver and get back East where they can get on the Obama foundation/NGO gravy train.

It is unlikely that Bennet can make more money as a financial-industry scam artist — lots of unemployed bankers these days — but they can at least get set up in DC for the DC party circuit for a couple years as a respectable “Mr. Senator” and not “Mr. Failed School Reformer”.

People like Bennet meddle around in underclass systems in order to prove their social credentials. In olden times this was done through a missionary stint or by putting in extra work at the church. In reality people like Bennet, Gates or even Obama don’t give a f for the underclass.

Hollywood taught me that the reason students don’t perform well in school is unattractive teachers.

Maybe this “fix the urban schools” rite of passage is just a modern version of medieval self-flagellation. If I recall right, the and gentry whipped themselves bloody once or twice a year before going back to exploiting the productive peasantry.

Don’t forget that one can get credit for being a state-school reformer while sending one’s own children to private schools. E.g. Caroline Kennedy.

The trail of radical Yankee do-gooder destruction goes back hundreds of years. They. Must. Bring. The. Planet. Under. Control.

What is odd about Bennet is he made his money consolidating bankrupt movie theaters. It looked like he tried the same strategy to fix schools and it did not work.

And the first question that any Congressmen should ask him is where does his children go to school. If he says private school, the next question should be what policies will the Obama Administration do to make public schools more like the schools that Bennet’s children attend.

Thomas Jefferson to Monsieur Dupont de Nemours, Poplar Forest, April 24, 1816: “In the Constitution of Spain, as proposed by the late Cortes, there was a principle entirely new to me, and not noticed in yours, that no person, born after that day, should ever acquire the rights of citizenship until he could read and write. It is impossible sufficiently to estimate the wisdom of this provision.”

Labels: England, history, politics