Class Warfare: The Assault on Canada's Schools(speech excerpt)

By Maude Barlow
FromThe British Columbia Teachers' Federation.ca
1995

Many myths are gaining cheap currency. Dropout rates are terrible. Johnny can't read. Canada is falling behind internationally. Our schools aren't turning out scientists and mathematicians. That none of these myths is substantiated by fact is lost in the school reform zeal. In the absence of a cogent alternative for what ails our society, schools and educators are the new target. The diagnosis: schools are failing because they are monopolies exempt from competition. The remedy: force schools to act more like businesses and they will turn around.

There is compelling evidence that we are experiencing a systematic, intentional and purposeful effort to restructure schools in precisely the same ways other Canadian institutions not devoted to increasing profit have been transformed and disfigured. The big players are big businesses, mostly transnational corporations, following a global agenda. They are aided by a confluence of interests with the ideological right and Christian fundamentalists. These efforts are well on their way to success; if Canadians do not wake up to what is going on, our debate about the finer points of educational philosophy will be irrelevant.

THE COMPETITIVE ECONOMY
The targeting of public education is part of a larger picture. We are currently living through an unprecedented assault at every level of government in Canada on our public sector, public institutions, and world-class social programs. This assault is leading to the privatization and Americanization of our social services, including education. In the name of 'choice,' governments are openly discussing publicly-funded for-profit schools, allowing unprecedented corporate intrusions in the classroom, and attacking teachers and other frontline educators as adversaries of 'advancement.'

The ideology behind this assault views the nation-state as the cause, rather than the solution to its citizens' problems. Everyone is a consumer; students, parents, and those who will employ the final product - value added children whose future utility in the world of work can and must be measured. Proponents of this ideology insist that liberty and democracy require the unlimited right to consumer choice, even if it will destroy the public systems upon which Canada was built.

Public schools do not preach competition; they do not cut their losses, exploit their advantages, or publicize their strategic plans. Established to meet collective goals of democracy and equality, public schools have little in common with the new theology of individualistic consumerism and competitiveness that characterizes the global economy and has taken deep root in North America. This fact, and the steady erosion of public funding for education, has made our public schools very vulnerable; for today, if you are out of the marketplace, you are out of the loop.

THE MYTHS
The vulnerability of public education, aided unwittingly by the passive stance of its gatekeepers, has left it open to false and continuous charges of failure so toxic that it reduces the public's faith in its own judgement. In the most recent U.S. Gallup poll, 72% of parents gave their own children's schools an A or B; when asked about the nation's schools overall, positive ratings fell to 22%. Canadians continue to be lied to about the costs and benefits of education, the number of graduates we produce and their quality, their level of literacy, the drop-out rate, our standing in international comparative testing, how students are evaluated, the training and preparation of teachers, the length of the school year...and on and on.

While many, particularly in the media, now repeat these myths innocently enough because they have heard them so many times, others who should know better are using them for personal advantage. The workbook published to accompany Lloyd Axworthy's social security review claims that there are over 7 million adult illiterates in Canada (the same workbook also blames social programs for high unemployment.) Senator Joyce Fairbairn, in kicking off Literacy Week, recently claimed that 38% of us can't cope because of illiteracy. The magazine Western Report, a strong proponent of for-profit schools, claims that a million more illiterate young people will be released into the job market by the year 2000; for this prediction to be true, more than one third of each class in the country would have to be illiterate!

The biblical source of this disinformation is the Economic Council of Canada which misrepresented a Stats Canada Literacy survey and has been repeatedly quoted by business lobbies to "prove" that public education is failing. Not only did this survey never claim that 38% of the population is illiterate, it emphasized that it is those over 55, educated in a different time, and often in a different place, who make up the bulk of those at the lower end of the literacy scale. In fact, only about 6% of Canadians aged 16 to 34 have limited reading skills, and half of this group was not born in Canada.

A recent federal Liberal party fundraiser echoes another so- called "fact" that is repeated like a mantra by the business community and the school reform movement: our drop-out rate is over 30%. In fact, the most recent Stats Canada figures on our drop-out rate are a real compliment to our public educators: 18% in 1991, compared to 48% in 1971, and 60% in 1956. The list goes on: Canada does not spend more than all other countries on education - our spending on elementary and secondary education is the fourth-lowest of the OECD countries; Canada does very well in international testing - scores that are used to prove the opposite compare the majority of Canada's students with a small group of students from countries that test selectively.

THE REALITY
These false accusations help to deflect public debate from the real problems facing Canada's schools, and derail the kind of school reform we really need.

Gerald Caplan, co-chair of the Ontario Royal Commission on Learning, refers repeatedly to the "40% factor" - the estimated 40% of all Ontario students who come to school with one or more problems so severe that ordinary assumptions about their ability to progress make no sense. Eighty-nine% of children under the age of 7 who live with single-parent mothers live in poverty. Says the Globe and Mail's Michael Valpy, "Our schools, in every community, and to an unprecedented degree, are being expected to cope with physically and emotionally unhealthy children, neglected children, children whose parents lack the time and energy to be with them, substance-abusing children, children with minimal social skills, children from a vast range of bruised, stressed and fragile families."

But government economic policies are not only not confronting this reality, they show an increasing callousness toward those who cannot make it in the new society. Repeated Stats Canada reports show that we are developing an entrenched underclass in Canada. During the 1980s, the income gap between high and low-end workers and between generations grew dramatically and the problem will accelerate through the 1990s. The United Nations, while ranking Canada as the best place to live in the world, warns that our country is doing very badly in terms of income distribution. On the "income distribution-adjusted index," Canada fell seven places in the last year.

As a result, Canadians are experiencing a profound demographic and class-based shift in our population. Once shaped like an egg, with a large middle class, our country now resembles a pear, with fewer Canadian families and companies holding the bulk of wealth at the top, and more Canadians falling relentlessly toward the bottom. The rich are getting richer, paying fewer taxes, and are the almost exclusive beneficiaries of the recovery.

Rather than deal with the growing class divisions of our society, many find it easier to trash schools. Blame education for our economic ills, and the social and economic policies that are failing our young can be left intact. Blame the schools for unemployment, and the corporate sector is off the hook. Destabilize the public's faith in education, and then our schools can be molded to reflect the values of the new economy. And there are those very ready to take up the task. Says a former Xerox CEO, "It is time for business to take ownership of the schools."

THE GLOBAL ECONOMY
It is important to understand that Canada is not undergoing these changes alone. As globalization relentlessly proceeds, the monoculture of its values is reflected everywhere.

The world is experiencing a social and economic watershed transformation as great as the agricultural and industrial revolutions - the third great transitional wave of modern history. Nation-state authority is being replaced by transnational corporations operating outside national law and protected by global trade agreements.

Of the world's 100 largest economies, [over 50] are now transnational corporations. That means that about 136 countries are substantially smaller than the giant companies - like Mitsubishi, American Express, Cargill and Northern Telecom.

In every sector, companies are merging to kill competition and only a handful will dominate the large sectors, like airlines, banking, pharmaceutical, and oil companies. Ford's economy is bigger than Saudi Arabia's and Norway's. Philip Morris's annual sales exceed New Zealand's GDP. These companies seek what they call a global level playing field; they want to be free to move across borders with little interference; be governed by the lowest common standards and regulations regarding food safety, the environment, or social security; and they want governments to get out of the way.

Governments everywhere - including ours - are complying. Because they can no longer tax the huge profits from big business, they are left bankrupt and are implementing the kinds of economic "reforms" that will attract corporate investment. They are setting about to divest themselves of the responsibility to set standards, laws, and regulations, turning social and economic decisions over to the free market. This is not ideology, they assure us. Ideology is dead, replaced by pragmatics.

In developing countries, programs called "Structural Adjustment" are imposed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund as condition for debt relief. They force nations to dramatically cut back on public health and education spending, as well as deregulate their public sector, lower protection for workers, and establish corporate-friendly policies for transnational corporations. UNICEF says that at least half a million Third World children have died as a result of this program and the poorest have paid their debt with the health of their young.

Quite simply, the so-called economic "boom" cited to support the world-wide ascendance of market ideology is, in fact, fueled by deep inequities, excessive consumerism by the world's economic elite, and ecological crime. In every nation of the world, a "global south" is appearing, as the majority of citizens are left out of the emerging economy. Mexico, where working wages have dropped 60% in a decade, where one quarter of the population lives in abject, street-level poverty, where almost 50% of the population is un- or -marginally employed, boasts that it has boosted its number of world-class billionaires from 1 to 24 in just 7 years. These 24 people have a combined wealth greater than the poorest 33 million Mexicans. For this economic "miracle," Mexico has been admitted to the OECD, and former president Salinas is the front runner to become the first head of the World Trade Organization that will replace the GATT.

EDUCATION FALLS INTO LINE
The triumph of unfettered capitalism has had a dramatic effect on education everywhere in the world. The substantial progress made to educate the world's young -an effort spanning from the 1950s to the late 1970s - is in retreat. In 1970, universal education was the first priority of publicly-funded social programs in most OECD countries and a fundamental goal in the developing world. Now, however, governments everywhere are shutting schools, slashing teacher salaries, and severely cutting back on funding for public education.

There are 900 million people in the world today who cannot read and write, two-thirds of them women. An estimated 400 million school-age children will never have an education. There has been a steady decline in the growth of public education spending in all OECD countries since 1975. In Canada, as a percentage of the GDP, public education expenditure dropped from 10.2% in 1970 to 6.7% in 1991.

While there are, of course, many reasons for this, the clear trend that emerged in my research was that as countries all over the world shift to a market economy, they lose their commitment to equality and universality in education, and instead, are turning to their schools to produce the workforce for the new global economy. As our societies are becoming more pear-or- pyramid-shaped, they are adapting their education systems to reflect a new class division. Governments are restructuring education in order to ensure that those at the top have access to the best education possible; however, in the name of deficit fighting, they are diverting public funds to the private sector.

Goals and priorities for education in a world that accepts this economic model are different from the goals and priorities for a world seeking equality. As education is becoming a marketable product, it is becoming available only to those who can afford it.

No where is this more evident than in the U.S. The United States of America houses the best and some of the worst public schools in the world. The children attending these schools are subject to what educator Jonathan Kozol calls "savage inequalities" based on race and class. The disparity is greater in 1994 than it was in the 1960s, when the effort to eliminate racial and class inequality began. The startling difference in the quality of education offered to Americans of different ethnic and economic backgrounds mirrors deep class divisions.

In my research, I found public schools that offer fencing, horticulture in designer greenhouses, elective courses in Nobel winners, aeronautics, music suites, computer language courses, and university-bound graduate rates of 90%. I found other public schools with raw sewage and dead rats in the cafeterias, 20 year- old textbooks, classes held in boiler rooms and closets, classes without teachers, no art, music, or physical ed, and drop out rates of over 50%. One school board used a standard text that boasted, "some day, man will walk on the moon."

Education Professor Emeritus Arthur G. Wirth of Washington University describes the future of education in America: "Well- educated elites will withdraw further into their secure enclaves, living a life with excellent health care, challenging work, effective schools, global travel, and international electronic linkages. The urban and rural poor will live largely out of sight in their decaying communities. The despair and hopelessness of their children will be facts of life. "

BIG BUSINESS TO THE RESCUE
Enter big business. All over the United States and in many other parts of the world, impoverished schools are turning to corporations to supply them with the technology and curriculum they can no longer buy. Children in New Zealand now write exams on corporate letterhead. The European Community has directed that all 300,000 schools, 4 million teachers, and 67 million pupils in the European Community be placed in "partnerships" with transnational corporations within the decade. What does their involvement mean for schools and children?

A grade nine student in a California high school flicks off the light. NBC 'Newshour' music fills the room. Award-winning former NBC anchor Jim Hartz, appears: "We've made hasty conclusions about what is good for the environment," Hartz intones, sitting in what appears to be a newsroom. "We're here to explore the facts." The 'facts' he gives the students are that plastics are ecologically "ideal material" - to produce, recycle, burn or toss in landfills. "The experts all agree that polystyrene plastics [styrofoam] rate well on environmental criteria." "Polystyrene, Plastics and the Environment" is owned, produced, and distributed free of charge to schools by Mobil Corporation, one of the world's largest manufacturers of plastics.

Procter & Gamble provides a full environmental curriculum called "Decision Earth." It teaches that "clear-cutting removes all trees to create new habitats for wildlife. It opens the floor to sunshine, thus stimulating growth and providing food for animals. " Convicted polluter Louisiana Pacific, a giant forest products company now moving into Canada, assures students in another program that clearcutting paves the way for "supertrees." The American Softdrink Association assures kids not to worry so much about sugar in its curriculum program; soft drinks are a part of a balanced diet. Orvill Redenbacher is listed by his popcorn company, along with Louis Pasteur and George Washington Carver, as one of the history's all-time greatest inventors in another school book.

"They're ready to spend and we can reach them!" advertises one company. "Kids spend 40% of each day in the classroom where traditional advertising can't reach them. Now you can enter the classroom through custom-made learning materials created with your specific marketing objectives in mind." 'Consumer Kids,' a two-day workshop in Toronto, offers corporate executives workshops on 'Marketing in the School System' and 'How to Grow Your Customers From Childhood.' A Madison Avenue company promises to help develop brand loyalty even before "a girl becomes a serious shopper. To put your product in her hands, call us." "His first day job is in kindergarten" says another.

Burger King academies - fully accredited quasi-private high schools - are now operating in 14 U.S. cities. At a high school in Boulder, Colorado, McDonald's supplies not only the food, but also the curriculum. Students study McDonald's inventory, payroll, and ordering procedure in math; McDonald's menu plans in home economics; and its marketing practices in business class. McDonald's also sponsors a school program on nutrition in which it claims the Big Mac represents all four food groups, the vegetable component being the exposed lettuce leaf.

These companies are vying with Dunkin' Donuts, Pizza Hut, Dairy Queen, and Taco Bell for the $5 billion U.S. market of the National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs. Pizza Hut engineered the exemption of its meat-topped pies from meat- inspection regulations that apply to all U.S. federally funded school lunches.

Entrepreneur Chris Whittle's Channel One televises daily commercial news and advertising called infotainment or edutainment - to more than 12,000 junior and high schools all over America - 40 per cent of the nation's students. Whittle Communications charges $200,000 for each thirty-second commercial spot; advertisers are willing to pay for a captive audience. The contracts state that 90 per cent of the children in a school must watch the program 90 per cent of the time; each program must be watched in its entirety - a show cannot be interrupted - and the teacher does not have the right to turn it off.

What is this all about? What does big business want from our schools? I believe there are three factors.

The ideological allegiance of the young to their values
They want to influence young people on transnational corporate views of the environment, the economy, and the role of the state. Environmental concerns and abuses are covered over. Transnational business values of competition and privatization are openly conveyed in these materials, as are attacks on the "welfare" state, public "dependency" on social programs and the whole notion of co-operation and equality.

In effect, children are being raised not to question the dominant values of a corporate-driven society, one in which government, and therefore, democracy, has a greatly reduced role. They are being taught to be self-reliant, individualistic, competitive and entrepreneurial.

Access to young consumers and the education "industry"
Public education and health are the last remaining areas of public enterprise ripe for the profits of privatization. As it is now, education in Canada is big business -larger than the mining, forestry, food, beverage, rubber, plastics, and clothing industry combined. As future jobs for our children remain scarce, education will increasingly be viewed as an added competitive advantage in the workforce. The growth potential for educational "services" will continue to expand, and parents will be ready to spend private money to give their kids an edge.

The fabled "information highway" is causing the furious merging of cable, retail, television, phone and computer sectors. It will be delivering all sorts of educational materials and these industry giants are already poised to work with schools to bring their products into the classroom. They are also actively lobbying for the deregulation of Canadian content and public accessibility rules.

And then there are the hearts and minds of millions of young consumers. Already children are saturated with ads. Since children's TV was deregulated a decade age, 85% of it is brought to us courtesy of toy companies. The goal is brand identification at a young age. And kids have more purchasing power than ever. In the U. S .,the direct income of children is $9 billion a year, and children aged twelve and under now annually influence $132 billion in purchases.

The commercialization of the classroom and the corporate intrusion into education is producing a generation of children who are, in Ralph Nader's words, "growing up corporate." Bereft of childhood, they are treated as consumers-in-training, pre- workers, future entrepreneurs, the consumers of tomorrow.

A workforce for the new economy
During the federal election, both Jean Chretien and Kim Campbell repeated a common current complaint of big business in Canada and the U.S.: there is a serious mismatch between the skills young people have and job vacancies. Schools have failed to produce the workforce business needs and must be transformed to do so. The subtext here is that educators are responsible for high unemployment. Both politicians cited the oft-quoted figure of 300,000 to describe this skills shortage "crisis" until a sharp- eyed reporter challenged them for the source of the number. It turns out that this was simply the current job vacancy rate and was in no way proof of a skills mismatch.

In fact, closer examination reveals the opposite. Canada is producing a glut of engineers, scientists and mathematicians. UNESCO says we're first in the G7 countries in graduates in these areas per population. While growth in post-secondary education far outstripped general population growth in the last decade, an examination of the so-called "new economy" sectors supposedly crying out for workers found a substantial drop in job openings. The Canadian Council on Social Development recently reported that the number of poor families in which salary earners have a post secondary education has doubled in the last decade. And in a recent survey of 5,000 Canadian manufacturers, less than one-half of 1% said that a shortage of unskilled workers is a problem.

The truth is that job growth in taking place almost exclusively in the contingency workforce jobs that are low paid, part time, with minimal benefits, and no security.