THE WAR ON PUBLIC EDUCATION IS ALSO A WAR ON WOMEN

WOMEN UNITED 4 PUBLIC EDUCATION
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The war on public education is also a war on women.  In 2013 the leading occupation for women in this country was elementary and middle school teachers. 

Over the last 5 years we have seen a drop and a halt in a field which women play a prominent role.

75.2% of total employees  (2008)  

 74.3% of total employees (2009)

73.8% of total employees (2010)   

73.6% of total employees  (2011)

73.6% of total employees (2012)

Public education and teachers are under attack in this country.  An occupation that houses predominantly women is the direct target of a male-dominated system.  Is the drop and halt of this profession as seen in the statistics above due to economics? That may be partly responsible. But, as the gender-defining roles within our society become even more blurred, we feel that those in power are feeling the potential loss of their hierarchical stature and are seeking to retain their positions.    The people found at the helm of the warship , which are  using public education as a means to an end , are all white males of immense privilege.  Here is a sample:

The masters of pushing vouchers, charters, and privatization are the Koch Brothers.  They are white male whose net fortune is $43 Billion. The Walton Foundation, a white wealthy family who runs Walmart have a net fortune of $152 Billion. Eli Broad, another white male who net worth $7.2 Billion opened the Broad Academy, which trains Superintendents to run schools like business models. In fact,  one of his illustrious graduates, John Deasy, just resigned in a cloud of mismanagement as the Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent. Rupert Murdoch another white male whose net fortune is $12.5 billion sought to join in partnership with InBloom to steal our children’s data and sell it to 3^rd party vendors.  We are also going to include Bill Gates, a white male whose net fortune is $82.4 Billion because he is sadly behind the machine that is the Common Core and abusive  high stakes testing that comes with it. 

We cannot, of course, forget Arne Duncan, a white male, who continues to insult women, specifically mothers and grandmothers, and we are sure most of the men running ALEC are white males of privilege (that will probably be another blog post in the future).  Here are a few you may NOT know:   Rex Sinquefield, a white male, who  will not divulge his billion dollar net worth has led a well-funded effort to privatize public education in Missouri.  Mike Bloomberg, white male with a net worth of $33 Billion created a Leadership Academy for instant Superintendents and Principals who run schools like CEO’s.  He also was mayor of New York City and ran the NYC school system like a dictator, creating the false narrative of the NYC Miracle.   David Welch, our last highlighted white male, who also won’t divulge his multi-million dollar net worth financed the Vergara case in

California that is attempting to strip teachers of their due process rights. 

We are guessing that you SEE the army seeking to destroy, privatize, and capitalize on a public education system that employs over 73% women.  The army waging this war is an army of white men of privilege who have some very deep money pockets. They use false rhetoric in their propaganda against America’s teachers and public education.  They sadly find women like Campbell Brown, Michelle Rhee, and even Whoopi Goldberg to shill their fake stories and spew their rhetoric.   They want to take away the rights of teachers to speak freely for children in schools with their attacks on a teacher’s right to due process. They don’t want women to speak freely or be able to offer their opinions on the education of children.  They want to destroy public education and replace it with corporate education so that they can pay teachers meager wages and exploit their labor. They want to standardize our education system so that their corporations can create the tools that standardize OUR CHILDREN.  They want women to be quiet as they abuse, blame, and punish their children, as they close their schools, and fleece their public education system until it runs it into the arms of privatization.  As Diane Ravitch so eloquently says time and time again, “they have the money, but we have the people.”  We will not go quietly, we will fight every step of the way because we recognize that part of this war you wage on public education is a war on women in this country.  We will not be silenced!