Did you get a robo-call yesterday from schoolchoiceweek.com?
I did; and as innocuous as the approach was, the underlying dog whistle was ear-splitting.
So I took a little stroll around the web, first visiting the touted website which offered little more than honey-covered affirmations of how concerned we all are that our kids should have the best possible opportunities to learn.
I didn't choose to immediately jump down one of the rabbit holes that capture data from the innocent, but instead returned to my Google search where I learned that the site was directly linked to another site belonging to "Students for Liberty" which was seeking student bloggers to write about School Choice Week.
That site was considerably more revealing, as it included video clips of Dr. Eward Hughes of "The Atlas Society for Objectivism" and Michael Strong of "FLOW," both devoted to themes of libertarianism and capitalism; and it made the following call to college students:
The philosophy of liberty is in jeopardy today. The older generations have let us down, and there seem to be few short-term solutions. Our hope for a free society lies in the future. The best investment one can make to promote liberty today is in the youth, particularly in students...The problem is significant, but the solution is clear: There is a need for an organization to counter the climate of authoritarianism on campus by directly supporting students dedicated to liberty.
A little more digging and I came up with the usual suspects: the Koch Brothers, of course. It seems that promotion of the second annual School Choice Week is being funded by the now familiar Americans for Prosperity.
Americans for Prosperity, the Koch-financed lobby group, is pushing a national school choice week and the opening event will be simulcast in Arkansas, with the devoted gathering tonight at Lt. Gov. Mark Darr's pizza joint in Rogers...
There will be much railing about the nasty unions - though only three of the 200 or so Arkansas districts have negotiating agreements with unions. It's all about "choice" - the focus-group tested phrase by which the Kochs are pushing for school vouchers in the United States.
"School choice," "neighborhood schools," both are stealth messages that encode an agenda of segregation and defunding for public education.
And gutting public education would also effectively hamstring th teacher's unions, a major source of support for the Democratic Pary and progressive policy in general.
What do the Koch Brothers have in mind for education in America? The voucher system they favor would quickly move a privileged segment of the population out of public schools, further eroding the quality of public education by undermining its funding strategy.
With educational failure thus ensured for most poorer Americans who, even with vouchers, would be unable to afford private education in an environment of rising prices, an ample low-wage workforce and captive consumer-class would be ensured to the the Koch Brothers constituents.
Public school failure would further curtail the number of poorer Americans who could access higher education; and an uneducated majority is extremely pliant when it comes to the political agendas of the right.
Last May, the St. Petersburg Times reported that the Koch Foundation had pledged $1.5 million for positions in Florida State University's economics department. "In return," wrote Times reporter Kris Hundley, Koch representatives "get to screen and sign off on any hires for a new program promoting 'political economy and free enterprise.'" In total, FSU received a pledge of $6.5 million over the course of six years from the Koch Foundation.
