I’m a classroom teacher and I see ed reform hurting kids every day. Common Core was botched and cost taxpayers billions but the cost to kids who came to be disillusioned in school is immeasurable. Just ask the students

The talking point “trapped in failing schools” is code for “let’s privatize education” which is an awful idea, because outcomes have less to do with teachers and schools than home circumstances and flawed metrics.

The people that say “trapped in failing schools” (usually paid off politicians, astroturfers or people working in the privatization industry) are asking us NOT to fix our schools, rather forget them, replace them and to embrace charters, vouchers and middleman profiteers.

They are saying they give up, they have no answers. I chose instead to teach in a school specifically for overaged youth in the South Bronx. Imagine if all these “philanthropists” rolled up their sleeves and went into a real school and saw the actual situation?

They’d see blight in impoverished areas and schools that are “hard to staff”, but they’d also see the vast majority of teachers ready and able to teach, but often unable to because of absence or disruption by high need students not “buying in” to school.

We can blame this on the academic instructor, but that’s like trying to fix a car with a broken motor by giving it a new paint job.

If all the rich ed reform privatizers caught in Wikileaks buying access so they can tinker with schools and teachers would instead use their wealth to fight income inequality and help provide jobs with living wages in these areas, there would be much more motivation for disillusioned kids to try hard in schools.