Varmits In The Pantry

Here in Michigan Governor Snyder has been meeting to plan out the future of public education (in secret up until a few days ago) with a group of 20 some individuals, most of whom were not educators. The group apparently called themselves the Skunk Works, an allusion to Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Development Programs which was born in June of 1943 and brought to life aeronautical innovations like the P38 Lightening, the F-104 Starfighter, the SR-71 Blackbird, the F-117 Nighthawk and the F-22 Raptor, to name a few.  As you may imagine, their work was conducted in secret as well.

Developing strategic and tactical military hardware though, is not the same as improving public education, so I would like to suggested another, more natural allusion for this group and that is Mephitis mephitis, or the common striped skunk, often referred to as a polecat because quite frankly what Snyder is doing stinks. Commenting on the nature of the polecat, Mark Twain once observed:

From the beginning of time the polecats have quite honestly and naively regarded themselves as representing in the animal kingdom what the rose represents in the vegetable kingdom. This is because they do not examine.

Because they do not examine. Nor do these Michigan skunks want to be examined because they are busily at work driving the last nail of commodification in the casket that will house public education. It will then be buried in a grave of bafflespeak about innovation and high achievement over which will be placed a tombstone that reads "Here Lies Public Schools. Many Sacrifice For The Profit Of Few."

Of course in a state where even the Superintendent of Public Instruction can say, in public, with a straight face,  "Education for education’s sake is silly" it shouldn't surprise anyone that the resource Thomas Jefferson looked to "for ameliorating the condition, promoting the virtue, and advancing the happiness of man," should be turned into an ATM machine for the connected few. Writing in the Detroit News, Dale Hansen describes the true motives of this Skunk Works precisely:

“Skunk works” was the code name give to secret meetings between the governor and a group of 20 individuals...Not surprisingly, the skunk works project aims to take more money away from public schools and funnel it to private organizations using what smacks of a voucher program.

For a little bit of historical perspective, the last time even a modified voucher proposal was brought before Michigan voters (in 2000) it was turned down by 68% of those casting ballots.

You can see the need for secrecy.

If we could just call an intermission to this little school improvement Kabuki for a moment and look at the facts, it is clear we know what the primary cause of low school performance is. We've known it for over forty years. Mr. Hansen again:

Ironically it is the very capitalism that Republicans hold up as the answer to our lagging test scores that is the problem. Data shows that the biggest problem with education is poverty. If you do an apples to apples comparison using test results from American schools with 10 percent or less impoverished students, the U.S. comes out on top. In schools with a 10-25 percent of the student body living below the poverty line the U.S. is third best in the world.

But poverty is about what people don't have. What's driving this bunch of skunks is about what schools do have, namely money, and they want it. In Governor Snyder's defense though, he doesn't seem concerned about poverty in any regard, not just among school children, so in this he is at least being consistent.

The Lockheed Martin Skunk Works was secret as a matter of national security. I would argue that public schools are also a matter of national security and clandestine groups plotting secretly to dismantle and sell them piece by piece are not different in design from terrorist cells, for they also plot the downfall of the nation. The fact that Snyder's group wants to do it with an accounting ledger rather than a bomb is only a difference of degree.