The Corporate Reform Action Pack!

Sabrina Stevens Shupe Blog



Huffington Post: The Ultimate Measure of a Teacher?

The War on Teachers

I am so weary of all the never-ending bashing and trashing of teachers by politicians, corporations, and foundations and the news media.  In my humble opinion it is destructive to our local communities and, quite simply, a smoke-screen for corporate control and greed in terms of selling privatization, textbooks, tests,  content management systems, charter schools, and for maintaining a huge and ever-growing disparity in income and wealth in the United States of America.  Poverty and incivility are the issues that need to be discussed. 

Check out these resources:


Diane Ravitch: The Death and Life of the Great American School System


Anthony Cody: "The REAL Thieves of Hope:  America's War on Teachers

Gary Stager: Education Nation and Ideological Blindness


Diane Ravitch:  "Why Michelle Rhee and Adrian Fenty Lost"


Linda Darling-Hammond: "Restoring Our Schools"


Linda Darling-Hammond: "Only a Teacher"

Thomas Friedman: "We're No. 1(1)!" 

Larry Ferlazzo: Attacks on Teachers and Non-Charter Schools Continue


Common Dreams:  "What Up with All the Teacher Bashing"

Teachers' Letters to Obama

David B. Cohen: Booker Outclasses Winfrey on Education 

David Goldstein: Grading 'Waiting for Superman'

Texas, CCSS & Corporate Political Control

I'm so glad I live in Maine and not Texas. After doing a bit of research, I realize how much political control there is in determining how schooling is delivered in that state. And the sad part of it is that there seems to be increased collusion between corporate textbook publishers and politicians. There even seems to be an attempt to shut down any use of open source materials in teaching unless it has been approved at the State level. From my perspective, this is big government and corporations mandating what parents and teachers should think and say. How did this happen in a state known for the independence of thought and the self-reliance of its citizens?

Sadly, what is happening in Texas seems to be happening to the rest of the country as well through the Common Core State Standards in which politicians and corporations are determining what is to be taught in our local schools in an attempt to commodify and standardize as though people were simply widgets and cogs in a machine rather than complicated, but warm human beings.

Oddly enough, some Texans are speaking of the CCSS as being a plot by progressives to indoctrinate children. The truth of the matter is that CCSS is being promoted by conservatives and liberals alike. It is being pushed by the Business Round Table, politicians, and many conservative think tanks and foundations, as well as huge textbook publishing companies.

Who should control education in the United States? Local citizens, educators, and school boards . . . or rich and powerful state and national entities and interests?

What do you think?

Cartoon Credit

Corporations, Democracy & Schooling

In Life Inc., Douglas Rushkoff speaks of the dominance of corporations and how we all accept this as a given, not questioning motives or the effects on our humanity. This of course gets into the question, asked previously here, of whom schools are for? What should the purpose of schools be?

Life Inc. The Movie from Douglas Rushkoff on Vimeo.

Amazon: Life Inc.: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take It Back

Alfie Kohn: The 500 Pound Gorilla: The Corporate Role in the High-stakes Obsession & Other Methods of Turning Education into a Business

Reclaim Democracy.org: Corporations and Our Schools

The Ninth Annual Report on Schoolhouse Commercialism Trends: 2005 - 2006

Consumers Union: Captive Kids: A Report on Commercial Pressures on Kids at Schools

PTAs and Commercialism in Schools

Deborah Meier: Democracy-friendly Education

Meier: What Does It Take to Build a School for Democracy?

Meier: Educating a Democracy