Arthur Camins, Director, Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education at Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey, recognizes that the nation’s public schools and their educators have been targets of a false narrative of failure. He argues that it is necessary not only to refute the propaganda campaign but to propose better ideas to strengthen public schools and our democracy.

He writes:

“There are real persistent problems in education. Today, failure narratives are the strategy-of-choice for groups who want to privatize education, undermine unions, disempower workers, and open profitable markets for educational technology, testing materials and publically funded, but privately managed charter schools that are unencumbered by government regulation. However, what is said is a smoke screen for what it intended.

“Let’s open up schools as profit centers,” “We don’t trust communities to make democratic decisions about their schools,” and “Let’s get taxpayers to fund some charter schools…