Is Reality Extinct For Charter School Advocates?

In many ways it is. Blind dogmatic repetition of false, outdated, and capital-centered ideas and views has long been the norm for charter school proponents. Retrogressive ideas took hold long ago.

But reality also vanished long ago for most politicians, the media, the rich, corporate “leaders,” and higher education “leaders.”

Disinformation, lies, bromides, propaganda, and gaslighting, all turbocharged by Artificial Intelligence, have become the norm today. Every time someone hears, sees, or reads something these days they have to ask if it is fake or real.

Naturally, human cognition and relations have taken a big hit in recent years due to greater control exercised by oligarchs over society, the economy, the state, and all institutions. The intense monopolization of economic and political power in such few hands is disastrous for more than 95% of people. The vast majority are marginalized and disempowered.

Among other things, such an outdated set-up determines which ideas and views are permitted and which are suppressed in society. Certain habits ensue from this set-up as well.

The dictionary gives the following definitions of “perseverate:”

“to recur or repeat continually”

“to intently focus one’s attention on a thought or thoughts: fixate”

“to have or display an involuntary repetitive behavior or thought”

Charter school advocates perseverate non-stop. They continually and involuntarily repeat and fixate on the same stale narrative about charter schools and rarely abandon anticonsciousness. This brings them safety and comfort.

Charter school advocates are not interested in uncomfortable facts or inconvenient truths about charter schools. They do not engage in conscious acts of finding out what is really happening in the charter school sector. Nor do they encourage others to systematically investigate charter schools, let alone fight for a pro-social alternative. Conscious participation and research are replaced with egocentrism and ready-made answers.

Everyone is supposed to blindly accept the view that charter schools are great in 50 ways and if there are problems or criticisms these should be overlooked or trivialized. For example, when it is pointed out that charter schools fail and close every week, leaving thousands of people stunned and abandoned, a common response from charter school supporters is that this is appropriate and normal. After all, businesses open and close every day. Why, they ask, are traditional public schools allowed to fail but not be closed down? There are 10 problems with this “logic.” One problem is that the American public school system did not fail, it is being methodically destroyed by the same neoliberals who are creating failed charter schools and pitting people against each other. Why, moreover, are so many charter schools failing and closing if they are supposedly superior to traditional public schools? Why isn’t the private sector delivering better results than the public sector? Why are competition and consumerism failing so many people? Is it really possible to disguise frequent failure, closure, and destruction as something positive and healthy? How debased must consciousness become for such antisocial thinking to arise? Such is the expression of harsh class antagonisms in society.

Security for charter school advocates is derived from repeating dead platitudes and wishing away class interests and contradictions. From this perspective, there are no neoliberals or privatizers pursuing antisocial interests and agendas.

Common platitudes and capital-centered beliefs emanating from charter school proponents include:

·        “Public education is a monopoly.”

·        “Competition improves outcomes.”

·        “Families are consumers.”

·        “Education is a business.”

·        “Student achievement is the product.”

·        “The private sector does everything better than the public sector.”

·        “Fending for yourself (“parent empowerment”) is civilized and virtuous.”

·        “Education is an opportunity, not a right.”

No thinking or consciousness is allowed outside of this petrified ahistorical cocoon. Commodity logic is the end-all and be-all. Human-centered thinking and arrangements are alien. No analysis is needed. There is too much profit and ontological security at stake to tolerate even one iota of truth or any countervailing ideas. In this way, incoherence and prejudice conquer consciousness.

When anticonsciousness kicks in, one literally cannot see or sense certain phenomena. Different or contradictory ideas and views do not make sense; they cannot be grasped. Development, motion, and change are not recognized. One remains static and trapped in comfortable ready-made ideas and views. In general, such an individual cannot be reasoned with. Only when the individual experiences some sort of discomfort, change, crisis, or contradiction is there any hope for some sort of growth and development. Only then can the individual become alive. But this is not guaranteed either. Blind acceptance of ready-made ideas can only be overcome with conscious rejection, real confrontation, and non-stop investigation.

Even after charter schools come and go, even after they eventually depart the scene of history one of these days, the force of anticonsciousness will persist with some and take the form of cheap nostalgia. The force of the old will remain a strong pull for many because the elimination of security derived from one’s ahistorical cocoon brings with it too much crisis and pain. Hanging on to the past brings with it a degree of solace.

In the meantime, history will continue to unfold and favor those who fight for democratic renewal, modern definitions, new thinking, and a society which defends the rights of all.

Shawgi Tell (PhD) is author of the book Charter School Report Card. He can be reached at stell5@naz.edu