"One very disturbing aspect of this corporate propaganda — about public schools’ failure to prepare students for the workforce — is its acceptance, indeed wholesale swallowing, of the corporate-centric education, by teachers’ union leaders. Coles quotes Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, that “today’s public school teachers are on the front lines of our collective efforts to compete in the global economy.” This parallels a US Chamber of Commerce vice president’s view that “a first-class education system is the only way for Americans to compete … in the global economy.” The National Education Association advocates preparing “the next generation for new careers for this new global economy.” No matter that most of those new careers in the US will be in the service sector, scarcely requiring a high school diploma.
Coles argues that in “the global economy ideology, ‘dog eat dog’ is a reigning necessity … with schools defined as … critical for providing … skills that will determine which dog will prevail.” But students must never name or study capitalism. Why? Because, Coles answers, “consider the problem of legitimizing an economic system that is a disaster for billions of people worldwide.” To that system, in which low-wage hard work not requiring an advanced degree constitutes most people’s employment (if they are “lucky” enough to get it), the billionaire response is: “blame yourselves, blame the schools, but don’t blame us or our global economy.” So we get what Coles calls “education … in which a student could be very competent in a technical skill but understand virtually nothing about the context of that skill, the global economy.”
