This article by Michael Brenner, a professor of international relations at the University of Pittsburgh, is a trenchant summary of the relentless attack on public education launched by the Obama administration and backed by billions of federal and private dollars.

Brenner begins:

“A feature of the Obama presidency has been his campaign against the American public school system, eating way at the foundations of elementary education. That means the erosion of an institution that has been one of the keystones of the Republic. The project to remake it as a mixed public/private hybrid is inspired by a discredited dogma that charter schools perform better. This article of faith serves an alliance of interests — ideological and commercial — for whom the White House has been point man. A President whose tenure in office is best known for indecision, temporizing and vacillation has been relentless since day one in using the…