Corporate Public Schools! It's Going to be Great!

Last week I visited the first completely corporate public school system in the country. For years, corporate crusaders have been claiming that breaking the “public school monopoly” and bringing business efficiency to education will only improve results.

So it was that I found myself seated in the office of the superintendent of the Enron City Schools in Enron, Texas.

Glancing out a window, I couldn’t help but notice three oil wells pumping on the front lawn of the administration building.

The superintendent, Henry Clay Frick, explained. “Here in Enron, we believe business principles applied to education will always bring good. So we have a lucrative deal with British Petroleum to pump oil from under the schools.

“Yeah, what could go wrong with that,” I replied, faking a smile.

Frick wondered if I might like a tour and led the way out to the parking lot and we jumped in his Lamborghini. I asked how an administrator could afford such a beautiful automobile. He admitted corporate education was different. First, there were no pesky unions demanding raises or fringe benefits for teachers. “In Enron, we pay for talent,” he explained. “Our top executives earn more because, frankly, they work harder.”

When I asked how much more, Frick said his district copied the K-12 Inc. model, a successful for-profit charter school chain. “Our eight top executives earn a combined $21.37 million,”

I do some quick calculating. If the average Texas teacher earns $50,179, then administrators made as much as 426 classroom teachers.

“It’s not easy running an efficient corporate school system,” Frick claimed as we pulled up in front of the high school. “We need money to lobby politicians, so sometimes we have to cut costs in other ways. Luckily, almost all our money comes from state coffers, so when we pay lobbyists, taxpayers foot the bill.”

“How much do you budget for lobbying?”

“We’re not quite where we need to be,” Frick replied. “We’re competing with for-profit charter operators like David Brennan, who runs White Hat Schools in Ohio, and who hopes to expand into every state. In the last eight years he’s donated $3.8 million to fifty-one politicians.”

Moments later, we enter the building. Admittedly, Enron High is neat and clean. The janitor sweeping the hall is obviously a “special needs” individual.

“We in Enron are committed to helping those who require a hand up, not a handout,” Frick says, following my gaze. “All our janitors are severely handicapped—supplied to us by Henry’s Turkey Service.”

“Aren’t they the guys that shipped disabled workers to Iowa for thirty years to work in meat packing plants?”

“Exactly,” Frick agreed. “And we use their system. We house our janitors in a bunkhouse behind the school. We charge rent, charge for meals….”

“How much do they earn when you subtract for food and lodging?”

“Oh, I would estimate about the same as the Iowa workers,” Frick says. “Around forty cents an hour.”

We head down the hall. Stopping a moment, I listen as an American history class goes over material that is expected to be on the next round of standardized tests. There are probably a hundred students crammed into the room. Frick is happy to explain. “Pack ‘em in, we say here in Enron. It’s the same as the airlines. “We even charge a $50 fee if students want to bring book bags to class.”

I offer a wan smile.

I notice a plaque over the door of the history room. It turns out the school copies the business model of the San Francisco 49ers. That means selling naming rights to everything you might imagine. This class meets in the Axe Body Wash Room. There’s also the Reynolds Tobacco Media Center and the Flo-Max Faculty Men’s Restroom. (Frick says later the school is thinking about requiring students to wear uniforms, and he is working hard on an exclusive contract with the Abercrombie and Fitch people.)

Frick soon asks if I would like to tour any of his other schools, and fifteen minutes later we pull up in front of Lehman Brothers Elementary School, I notice a maintenance worker resting a moment beside a lawn tractor. I stop to ask what he most enjoys about working for Enron Schools. He stares at me blankly.

“Oh, that’s Juan,” Frick nudges me. “We need to make a profit, you know. Don’t say I told you, but we hire all kinds of undocumented workers. Man, if you pay them under the table, those guys work cheap!”

“We’re just like the Gulen chain of charter schools,” Frick adds with a laugh. This time, I don’t even try to fake a smile.

As you tour the Enron Schools, you have to be impressed. A stop in the cafeteria at lunch reveals another truth. Junk food = big money. Students may no longer bring food from home. It’s like going to a movie theater. You can order a large Coke for $4.50. (It looks like they’re handing you a bucket.) Or maybe you’d like the special: hamburgers—only $3.50. Frick winks as we go through the line and advises me to skip the burgers.

(He admits later that the meat came from a company that was perhaps bending a few regulations and selling meat from diseased cows.)

Our last stop for the day takes us to Michael Milken Middle School. Frick is proud of the new system and outlines a few of the ways a profit can be squeezed when it comes to students. Each school has an office set aside for a representative of Pearson, the successful maker of standardized tests. Huge piles of cash are there to be grabbed—so one business scratches the back of another—and Pearson sends state education commissioners and Enron leaders to cool education conferences in places like Rio de Janeiro. And what do you know! Pearson now holds the contract to supply more and more tests to Texas schools.

“There’s some huge money right there,” Frick grins. “The Pearson contract is worth $468 million per year.”

Time is growing short, so we hurry along. I see barrels of toxic chemicals stacked in a corner of the art room. Safety costs money. So Enron cuts corners when it must. To cover their tracks they copy the Massey Energy model, meaning there are two sets of safety books, one for company use and the other to dupe inspectors. True: occasionally a few people get blown to bits, but what’s a corporate school supposed to do? Not make gigantic profits?

“We’ve pretty much monetized everything,” Frick says as we finally head back to his office. “If parents can’t pay fees or afford school supplies, we encourage them to take out payday loans. I’m proud to say we’ve copied First Premier Bank of South Dakota when it comes to lunch charges. We allow families to open accounts but cap charge limits at $300. They pay $95 to create the account and a $75 annual service fee.”

“So...you’d be looking at an APR of…67%?”

“We’ve also adopted the discipline system of the Noble Charter Schools up in Chicago,” Frick says, changing the subject. “We charge students who get into trouble for ‘discipline packets.’ What a corporate business model! Noble pulled down $188,000 in discipline fines and fees in just one school year.

“You probably noticed how few discipline problems we have, too,” Frick continued. “We’ve been following the Jansen Pharmaceutical Model. If our nurse thinks a child has behavioral issues she makes sure that child is given a prescription for anti-psychotic drugs. 

“Man, sales are up!”

“Isn’t there evidence some of these drugs have dangerous side effects and that children may die as a result?”

I think Frick suddenly realizes I may be some sort of commie agitator. “Jansen keeps only the finest doctors (and our school nurse) on its payroll and those doctors issue reports to show that these drugs are completely safe,” he says defensively. “And, naturally, our well-compensated school nurse agrees. Just because some Arkansas court fined Jansen $1.2 billion dollars for lying….”

Frick’s voice trails off. I glance at my watch and see it’s really time to go. I thank him for his time and ask one final question.

“Is there any way you think you can still improve profit margins in the Enron City Schools?”

He puzzles over the matter a moment. “If only we could copy the cost-cutting methods of Apple Inc., which operates a number of factories in China.”

“You mean,” I grimace, “violating overtime rules, child labor, workers penned in behind barbed wire….”

“Child labor...if only,” Frick says wistfully. This time he doesn’t smile. “You want cheaper iPads—or cheaper education—you have to make tough decisions.” He gets a faraway look and I hear him mutter, “There must be a way to outsource jobs in American education….”

I bid a goodbye and soon find myself driving north on Interstate-35, back toward Cincinnati, Ohio. “I have seen the future of corporate education,” I tell myself, paraphrasing Lincoln Steffens. “And it works.”

Really, this is going to be great.

Logo for the Enron Public Schools: Endless possibilities...for profiting!

If Only Goldman Sachs Ran the Public Schools!

Alright, teachers: You’ve heard what the right-wing crowd has been shouting. The public school monopoly is bad! Teachers’ unions and tenure only protect lazy workers. Taxpayers get fleeced and the nation’s schools fail badly.

Only business methods can save the children.

That’s the argument, anyway. But I wonder:  why does anyone believe cash-crazy corporations will actually care about kids?

If we say that public schools should follow a “business model” then what is that model? We already know how one version works with for-profit colleges. They’d enroll cows in physics classes if only the cows would agree to pay the tuition.

What about the business model of JPMorgan, currently working on a deal with the Justice Department to provide $4 billion in relief to all the homeowners the company shafted in regard to their mortgages? The company is also considering an agreement that would involve $7 billion in penalties.

If you figure the average public school teacher today earns $56,000, this one company is about to admit to questionable practices equal to the annual salary of 196,428 educators—with a little left over to hire some substitutes.

Introducing business methods in the schools sounds wonderful if all you ever do is watch Fox News. But with business methods you get “business ethics.” And where business is involved the greatest good is piling up the greatest profit. Consider, for example, nine Japanese automotive parts manufacturers now having pleaded guilty to price fixing in the U. S. market. They are set to pay $740 million in criminal fines, bringing their total bill to $1.6 billion.

That’s another 28,571 teachers.

How about copying the drug companies, who sell their outstanding products for use on our children? Plenty of models to follow here: Johnson and Johnson, fined $70 million in 2011 for bribing doctors (and double points for doctors who took kickbacks). That fine alone would pay the average annual salaries of 1,000 school nurses.

Even better, in 2012, J & J paid a fine of $1.2 billion for deceptive marketing of Risperdal. Did we mention that our drug might increase the risks of suicide in teens?

No? We didn’t?

Sorry about your daughter.

You can pile up great examples just from the drug companies: GlaxoSmithKline hit for $3 billion in 2012 to settle claims of marketing antidepressants illegally and withholding information about health risks of one of its diabetes medications. Or: Bristol Myers Squibb, fined $515 million for marketing Abilify to treat behavior problems in children—then hiding evidence of potentially fatal side effects—oh, and getting doctors on board to push prescriptions anyway, offering “kickbacks and expensive vacations to luxury resorts.”

In fact, if you total up the ten biggest fines paid by the drug companies (Amgen, Merck, Pfizer and others) you have $11.579 billion.

Just for fun, let’s call that enough to pay 3,879 school nurses, 5,542 school counselors and another 196,428 teachers.

Need a few art instructors? How about copying the business model of Glafira Rosales, a New York City art dealer, who stood the concept of “artist” on its head and sold 63 fake art masterworks for a cool $80 million. That’s small potatoes compared to Merck or Pfizer but still enough to hire 1,429 elementary school art teachers.

Speaking of art, how about Steven A. Cohen of SAC Capital Advisors? That man does love his Picassos—spending $155 million recently to buy one of his pieces. Cohen’s company is under investigation and his hedge fund is looking at $2 billion in penalties for shady dealings. So far, SAC has paid a mere $616 million in fines, but even if we stick with that lower figure we can hire another 11,000 fifth grade science teachers.

Here’s one of my favorites—a lesson in ethics teachers might discuss with students next time they do character education. This past summer Henry’s Turkey Service was ordered to pay a judgment of $240 million in back wages after a jury found the company guilty of profiting for decades by supplying mentally disabled workers to an Iowa turkey plant at wages of 41 cents per hour. Even more impressive, ethics-wise, this was the company’s third trip to court, including a 2009 ruling that closed down a rundown Iowa bunkhouse where 32 employees lived. Those men had been there since the 1970s and hadn’t had a raise in all the time they were employed by the company.

The fine Henry’s paid equals the salaries of 4,286 special education teachers.

Another fine example of the business model we might copy in the schools would be Massey Energy. The company was docked $209 million recently for its role in the deaths of twenty-nine West Virginia miners in 2010. These deaths were ruled “entirely preventable” and found to be a result of a decision by top executives to keep two sets of safety records, one for the company and one to fake out federal safety inspectors.

Maybe schools could follow the business strategy of West Fertilizer Incorporated. The firm decided not to notify Homeland Security that it was storing 270 tons of volatile ammonium nitrate, even though the law requires a company to report if it has even a single ton. In April the company blew up its own facility and a good part of nearby West, Texas, and fifteen people were killed. And yes, three of four schools in the West Independent School District were flattened or irreparably damaged.

How about Wal-Mart: docked $81 million this past spring for dumping hazardous materials in local sewers and waterways?

And who can forget the awesome job done by British Petroleum in the Gulf of Mexico? Eleven workers were killed—and the company paid $4.525 billion in penalties, while Trans Ocean, also held partially responsible for the disaster, was billed $1.4 billion.

What about Wal-Mart (again) facing charges of bribing foreign officials under the Federal Corrupt Practices Act? No word on penalties yet: but in similar cases Siemens paid $800 million, Halliburton $579 million and BAE Systems $400 million.

Throw in Bernard Ebbers who once earned enough to be able to afford a $6,000 shower curtain and then got busted for engineering an $11 billion Ponzi scheme. Don’t forget Bernie Madoff, mastermind of the “scam of the century.” His machinations led to the loss of another $50 billion. Then you had Ken Lay who ran Enron into the ground and just so happened to wipe out $60 billion dollars in stock market value.

Many of the investors these scumbags cheated were…yes…public school workers.

Hey, what about News Corporation—which hopes to get into the business of selling computer tablets and software to America’s kids? Rupert Murdoch’s company admitted bribing London police officers to get tips and coughed up $139 million to settle just some of hundreds of charges of phone hacking of private cell phones, including that of a teenage murder victim.

Why not ask our physical education teachers to copy the methods of that business juggernaut, the National Football League? If you missed that heart-warming story recently, the NFL agreed last month to pay $750 million in damages to former players and their families related to catastrophic head injuries.

Honestly, it’s going to be really hard for schools to decide which business model to choose from. How about HSBC, the banking giant? The company was just ordered to pay a penalty of $1.92 billion for “allowing itself to be used to launder a river of money flowing out of Mexico and [for] other banking lapses.”

There’s always UBS, a Swiss bank, if you prefer—considering that the company was fined $780 million by the United States government, after officials admitted offering shelter to thousands of tax cheats—and fined again, $450 million, for rigging interest rates. Then there’s Bank of America, hit for $2.4 billion for questionable operations.

Can we also agree that where the “business model” is concerned the entire pornography industry is doing a bang-up job of creating jobs and profits! That’s another $10 to $14 billion.

Add up all these examples and you have $135.271 billion, not to mention some tasty pesticides in your drinking water and thousands of young women swallowed up annually as part of the booming sex trade.

Enough to pay another 2,415,556 teachers.

Let us count the ways to cheat in business! You have Kia and Hyundai faking gas mileage figures. Halliburton admits destroying evidence related to the company’s role in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Novartis is under investigation both for bribing Chinese doctors and providing kickbacks to doctors in this country.

Certainly, the public schools are going to have a hard time topping the creative tactics of Goldman Sachs. This brilliant business model gives new meaning to the words: “The wheels on the bus go round and round.”

In 2010 Goldman bought up critical aluminum-storage facilities in Detroit and went into business supplying car manufacturers and beverage companies. In case you missed this story of hard-working business folk doing what business folk do best, you might not know that delays in aluminum shipments grew from six weeks to sixteen months. Goldman claimed to be hamstrung by a shortage of forklifts and drivers. Unfortunately, there were only enough forklifts and drivers to load 1,000 tons of aluminum in Warehouse A and ship it over to Warehouse B and unload. Then Warehouse B loaded and shipped another stack of 1,000 tons of aluminum over to Warehouse C and unloaded. Then C loaded and shipped a third stack of 1,000 tons to Warehouse A, and then the company filled out the paperwork to show that, hey, they shipped the 3,000 tons of aluminum required every day under an agreement with producers.

Naturally, prices rose and Goldman is estimated to have made an extra $5 billion in profit.

If schools here in Ohio would only copy Goldman’s strategy they could stop wasting time asking voters to pass levies!

Finally, the public schools might copy apparel companies like The Gap, which buys jeans from factories in Bangladesh because workers there—including children—earn a minimum wage of $37 a month and don’t have much recourse if they get crushed in collapsing factories.

What the heck! Why not let American businesses take over the public schools—and then we can even bring back child labor!

Remember, when it comes to putting profits before children, or children before profits, we already have plenty of examples to tell us how American companies might choose.


Author’s note: My father was a small businessman and the most honest individual I have ever known. I realize many business people are honest, upright individuals.

The same is true of most teachers.

Still, it’s a myth that the business model can save U. S. education.


Extra Credit Reading: You might also like: “Privatizing the Public Schools and the Loch Ness Monster Bonus.”

A Perfect Mesh of Common Core Curriculum and New Technology in the Classroom

TWELVE YEARS AFTER I POSTED THIS, THE SATIRE SEEMS EVEN BETTER THAN WHEN I FIRST WROTE IT.

AND STANDARDIZED TEST SCORES HAVE GONE DOWN.

(September 20, 2025.)

A Greek temple of knowledge!
Socrates, Plato and Aristotle managed
without Common Core.

We visit a typical American classroom in the not too distant future.

 

EVILTEACH! HORRORKNOWLEDGE! 

April 1, 2025:  Two highly paid consultants, one from Wireless Generation, a leading company in the sale of education software, the other from Pearson, a major player in the testing industry, are seated in the back of John Galt’s seventh grade American history class. Neither consultant has ever taught. Yet they are here to assess how new technology, guaranteed to boost standardized test scores and company profits, is functioning. Did we just say, “Boost test scores and company profits?” 

We meant: “To enhance true learning.” 

Several surveillance cameras, all set to follow Galt’s every move, are running in the room. This is part of the push to improve schools by holding teachers totally accountable. Because let’s face it. The only person who matters in the room is the teacher. 

That’s what school reformers like to say. 

In this class every child has a computer, purchased from Amplify, a division of Wireless Generation. (Corporate motto: No Dollar Left Behind.) Galt and his students are hooked to a series of electrodes. Today, the class is trying to hold a discussion about the battle for women’s rights in the 1800s. 

“Mr. Galt,” a student named Dagney inquires, “I’ve been wondering. Who were the leaders in the fight for equality?” 

“One would be Susan B. Anthony,” Galt responds gingerly. He consults his computer to be sure Anthony is specifically mentioned in the Common Core Curriculum. She is. “Susan B. Anthony may be on the standardized test,” Galt says. “The other leader, who will not be on the test, would be Elizzzz…” 

Before he can finish his sentence, the electrodes attached to his scalp deliver a powerful shock. The smell of singed hair fills the room. 

(He was going to say: Elizabeth Cady Stanton.) 

Every student receives a flashing red warning on their screen: DANGER! MATERIAL NOT INCLUDED ON STANDARDIZED TEST! DANGER! 

A voice similar to HAL, the deranged computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey, delivers the message verbally, as well.

 

Joaquin, seated in the desk closest to the door, waits for Galt to recover. He raises a hand to add to the discussion. “I can’t understand why women weren’t granted equal rights when the U.S. Constitution was first written. My grandmother told...” 

The poor boy should have known better! 

A loud buzzing noise, followed by Joaquin’s spastic jerking, and another computer warning, teaches Joaquin and all his curious classmates an important lesson. If it can’t be tested … it isn’t education. 

Carolyn wants to know: “What year did women finally win the right to vote?” 

ZAPPPPPP. Another shock for a foolish student. Again, computers flash warning: DANGER! MATERIAL NOT INCLUDED ON STANDARDIZED TEST! DANGER! 

Galt wants to answer. He wants to say “1920,” and note that his mother was in kindergarten by the time men got around to deciding that women were capable of voting. He wants to say to the girls in the room, “Just think. In all the long centuries of human history the dumbest man walking the face of the earth had more rights than any woman.” Galt had used this line for years – before Common Core – and remembers how it always riled up the ladies and got them interested. Now he knows if it’s not on the test, it doesn’t matter. Considering that Ohio enacted laws in 2013 to tie teacher pay to test scores, maybe it’s for the best. Still, he’s a professional. He wants his kids to learn. 

“It wasn’t just women who couldn’t vote,” he says. “Poor white men.…” 

That’s as far as he gets. Another shock is administered, and Galt jumps where he stands like a fish on an electrified line. 

He’s a stubborn man where learning is involved. He tries again, disguising his reply: “No vote. Pale skin. Poor…” ZAPPPPPP. The computer gets wise to what he’s up to and delivers a jolt. 

The consultant from Pearson makes a note: “May need to increase voltage.”

 

Perhaps in his confusion, Galt forgets where he is, in a modern U.S. classroom with all the reforms of recent years welded firmly into place. He forgets he’s expected to follow what is virtually a script. He is going to tell students that in the summer of 1964, Congress debated a massive civil rights bill designed to guarantee equal treatment to people of all races, religions, and ethnic backgrounds. He is going to explain that Representative Howard W. Smith from Virginia stepped forward to block the legislation. Smith feared a world in which blacks might win equal rights. (Galt is also thinking he may bring up the Loring v. Virginia case, which overturned state laws against interracial marriage three years later.) As Galt knows, Smith devised a clever ruse to derail the bill. He suggested on the floor of the House that the word “sex” be added to the bill. 

Surely, he imagined, no sane person could vote for a bill which granted equal rights to blacks and women!  

Galt is going to tell this story because he thinks it reveals the ludicrous nature of prejudice in all its forms. He tries to get it out by talking fast – telling the story at preternatural speed – and the cameras and electrodes and computer are baffled for precious seconds. He gets in “summer of 1964” and “Howard W. Smith” but when he mentions the word “sex” the system catches up and gives him a mighty shock. 

When the smoke round his head clears Galt sees a brave seventh grader in the front row put up a hand. The boy wants to ask a question about gay marriage and discrimination. But he decides it’s not worth the risk and lowers his hand. 

Galt tells the class he needs to sit. You know, recover his wits. He consults his materials, prepared over the course of forty-five years in the classroom, and tries to figure out what he’s allowed to cover. He has a lengthy reading prepared on the fight for women’s rights but realizes that on a standardized test there won’t be more than a single question on this topic. Should he include extra material? If his classes learn , but what they learn isn’t tested, does that count as learning? 

If someone asks a question in the forest and the tree falls on his head and no one hears the answer, does it matter? 

Isn’t that how the riddle goes? 

Maybe there’s still some way to slip this reading past the Common Core censors. He knows, over the years, that students have always found it interesting. 

It reads in part: 

The ideal woman [in the 1800s] was a wife and mother. And wives must be content within this sphere. One expert on women, a man, by chance, argued that bed-making was “good exercise.” He continued: “There is more to be learned about pouring out tea and coffee than most young ladies are willing to believe.” 

“A woman is a nobody,” one newspaper commented. “A wife is everything.”   

The handout Galt has always used continues in that vein for ten pages. One writer compares men to elm trees and women to ivy vines. They need a man to lean on for support. The husband controls all property, including his wife’s paycheck (if any). Judges uphold the right of husbands to beat their wives for nagging. A Massachusetts judge does order a husband not use a stick any bigger around than his thumb. 

At this point, in an era before standardized everything, standardized tests, standardized texts, standardized humanity, Galt would have illustrated the point by picking up his pointer and whipping it through the air. The “whooshing” noise would make it clear how much damage a rod of similar thickness might do. 

Now, Galt knows better. Too much depth. Depth has nothing to do with Common Core Curriculum. Depth of knowledge can’t be tested. 

He remembers how he used to tell classes about that writer in 1850, who wrote about elm trees and ivy vines, and warned that without a man, a woman was doomed to fall in the dust. The girls who played sports always laughed at that story … but again, it’s not going to be on any Pearson test. 

No sense telling it now. 

Then Galt thinks about all the damage fools who claim to be fixing education do and it makes him angry to the core. (Irony intended.) Like all good teachers, he has dedicated himself to imparting all the knowledge he can. He is determined to broaden today’s discussion. He will tell his classes how it was for women in this country even in the 1960s and 70s. He will explain how his old high school tried to start a girl’s track team in 1967, and how almost everyone thought the idea was absurd. Only two girls showed up for tryouts. Galt will emphasize how much attitudes – what we think we can do and what we think we cannot do – shape our lives. He believes this is a lesson he can impart to students. He feels it in his bones. 

He feels the lesson matters. 

They will discuss the idea that women were once considered too delicate to run long distances. He will throw out the example of Paula Radcliffe, who set the record for women in 2003, running the London Marathon in 2 hours and 15 minutes, a pace of 5:09 per mile. He will circle back again to the idea that women are weak like ivy vines. He thinks he can plant a seed, hint to all the girls that they should take on any challenge … and Galt will make it clear the same attitude equally applies to boys. 

“When I was in high school,” he begins. 

ZAAAAP. 

“They said girls were too weak.…” 

ZAAAAAAAAAAP! 

“Paula Radcliffe.…” 

ZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!! 

Student computers are now blinking wildly: DANGER! NON-STANDARDIZED LEARNING! EVILTEACH! HORRORKNOWLEDGE! ACADEMICKILL! DANGER! DANGER! 

By now Galt is prone on the floor. He looks bad. He raises his head slightly and gasps. “Women … not … ivy vines.…” 

ZZZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!

 

* 

The consultants shoot each other knowing looks. The Pearson rep makes a note to include one question on the standardized test about Susan B. Anthony. After all, you want the tests to align with the Common Core Curriculum. 

Oh hell, who cares! Pearson is making hundreds of millions of dollars annually designing more and more standardized tests. 

The consultant from Amplify is happy, too. Galt is out cold. Now the kids have no choice but to rely on their computers for some warm student-machine interaction. 

It’s U.S. education for the future.

Somehow this image seems more fitting
when we talk about
school reform today.