“This top-down regulation is duplicative, burdensome and ultimately, a direct attack on American energy production, critical tax revenue for our schools and communities, and thousands of good-paying jobs across the nation,” was the not-so-reasonable response of Republican Sen. Steve Daines, of Montana.
“If Interior was half as interested in new production as it is in new regulation, our nation would be in a far better place,” Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who chairs the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, added.
The Interior Department is characterizing the rules as a compromise (“good for the public…good for industry”). After all, they’re still going to allow fracking to take place on public lands, which some environmentalists would prefer not to happen, and they’re not as strong as some argue they could be. Here, according to the Bureau of Land Management, is what they include:
We are left with two fantasies: that test scores (tests designed and scored by for-profit corporations, again without regard for pedagogical soundness) can be somehow divorced from neighborhood contexts of poverty, immigration status, English language proficiency, etc. And that a great school is “no more than a box and an inspired teacher inside of it.”
It’s easy to see why these fantasies are comforting, and why they have been so useful for certain political ends.
Parents like Michelle and Brett don’t have time to ask big policy questions about school funding inequity and collective responsibility. They — like everyone — want what’s best for their own kid, and believe they are acting on it. They seek out an alternative that they believe they can control — their own school.
When David Garcia finishes his impassioned speech before the overwhelmingly white Sacramento State Ed board, the chairman is savvy enough to recognize Garcia’s political ambitions and ask who will actually be running the proposed charter school.
The members of the Rainbow Coalition look at each other nervously. They have clearly never considered this. Anita, even with her “track record,” stays quiet.
Michelle nervously comes to the podium to declare that she — a mom with some “background in social work” — will be the “main man” at the school. She starts hesitantly, but gets stronger as she concludes: “It’s valuable to all our families who are eager to stay in Eagle Rock. They just need a good reason. This school is that reason. I find it very hard to accept that of the 100 charter schools in the state, not one is in my district when we need it more than most. I want to stick in and fight for my community. I do, but if we don’t get a good school then we are going to be forced to move like so many of our friends have. My kids need this school. Our community really needs this school and I need this school.”
Setting aside the grotesque assertion that Eagle Rock needs an alternative to its neighborhood public schools “more than most,” the notion of “community” put forward by Michelle here encapsulates the most insidious aspect of the charter school movement. With the exception of white middle-class children whose parents enroll them elsewhere, Eagle Rock public school demographics represent the racial and economic diversity of Eagle Rock community very well.
Though it must never be said out loud, this community is too much for the vision of Michelle’s “community.”
Michelle’s liberal conscience prods her to speak appreciatively about color and class diversity, but when that aspect of Eagle Rock’s community collides with her “community,” she wants to use a charter school to regain a sense of control.
The scenario is familiar in LAUSD from some of the charter school skirmishes on the West Side with parents with clout and power arguing for co-locations. This dinner table discussion is familiar to plenty of educated, middle-upper class parents in urban districts who would like to consider a local school — but…
Many are too busy in their own lives to do the true hard work of making public education better, so they leave it to “organizations” with a glossy spiel to do the heavy lifting and then sign up with them. Then they convince themselves that this is the best thing for their kid, and once that decision is made, they have a vested interest in believing it to the point where now they will do the hard work to preserve what they have for their kid.
And the show’s State Board of Education appears to lap it up.
If “Togetherness” showed the slightest shred of self-awareness, we might interpret this subplot as a radical critique of the worst elements of the charter school movement: its hollow rhetoric and pedagogical vacuity, its appeal to narrow self-interest, the way it divides communities and the way the state has embraced all of it uncritically for political (financial) ends.
Instead, it’s clear that the Duplass brothers and their characters are speaking completely un-ironically and obliviously about all their (now cliché) white privilege and entitlement and, yes, racism and classism in defining what constitutes “good” for them. With HBO’s endorsement, they believe (hope) that they are speaking for and to an affluent white audience who are rooting for these characters.
Michelle Pierson’s narcissistic appeal on behalf of the Eagle Rock Charter reveals her entire world view — that she and her kids ARE “the community” — and much of the charter school movement depends on that view.
Like everything else, art plays out on a socio-economic battlefield. You may not watch “Togetherness,” but people who shape the culture and economy do. The Chicago Sun-Times’ Lynn Sweet reports that federal authorities have begun an investigation of Schock, focusing on the Illinois Republican’s business affairs and his alleged misuse of public and campaign funds. Witnesses are set to testify before a grand jury in Springfield next month.
More from Sweet’s report: