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City Lights

(25,171 posts)
Fri Jan 13, 2012, 10:11 AM Jan 2012

Sirota: America’s dangerously removed elite

Friday, Jan 13, 2012 1:00 PM UTC

It's easy to cut public education funding when your kids go to private school. Just ask Christie and Emanuel
By David Sirota

Last week, my local Twittersphere momentarily erupted with allegations that Denver’s public school superintendent, Tom Boasberg, is sending his kids to a private school that eschews high-stakes testing. Boasberg, an icon of the national movement pushing high-stakes testing and undermining traditional public education, eventually defended himself by insisting that his kids attended that special school only during preschool and that they now attend a public school. Yet his spokesman admitted that the school is not in Denver but in Boulder, Colo., one of America’s wealthiest enclaves.

Boasberg, you see, refuses to live in the district that he governs. Though having no background in education administration, this longtime telecom executive used his connections to get appointed Denver superintendent, and he now acts like a king. From the confines of his distant castle in Boulder, he issues edicts to his low-income fiefdom — decrees demonizing teachers, shutting down neighborhood schools over community objections and promoting privately administered charter schools. Meanwhile, he makes sure his own royal family is insulated in a wealthy district that doesn’t experience his destructive policies.

No doubt this is but a microcosmic story in a country whose patrician overlords are regularly conjuring the feudalism of Europe circa the Middle Ages. Today, our mayors deploy police against homeless people and protesters; our governors demand crushing budget cuts from the confines of their taxpayer-funded mansions; our Congress exempts itself from insider-trading laws and provides itself healthcare benefits denied to others; and our nation’s capital has become one of the world’s wealthiest cities, despite the recession.

Taken together, we see that there really are “Two Americas,” as the saying goes — and that’s no accident. It’s the result of a permanent elite that is removing itself from the rest of the nation. Nowhere is this more obvious than in education — a realm in which this elite physically separates itself from us mere serfs. As the head of one of the country’s largest urban school districts, Boasberg is a perfect example of this — but he is only one example.

Read the entire piece at Salon.com

16 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Sirota: America’s dangerously removed elite (Original Post) City Lights Jan 2012 OP
Excuse me, but Sirota's full of shit. Robb Jan 2012 #1
Lets have a citation on that Robb merkins Jan 2012 #3
The first paragraph at your link will do nicely. Robb Jan 2012 #4
Bennet is another Charter School snake oil salesman arendt Jan 2012 #6
Where is this line in either link? MFrohike Jan 2012 #8
Denver Public Schools' website: Robb Jan 2012 #11
Cool MFrohike Jan 2012 #14
You're licky! Glen Bos Jan 2012 #15
He lives in Boulder and commutes to Denver. That's the point of the article. yardwork Jan 2012 #16
Thank you for this info! David Sirota is one of our most reliable political/social analysts... Peace Patriot Jan 2012 #2
I'll pay closer attention when he fact-checks a little more carefully. Robb Jan 2012 #5
I'll pay closer attention to you when you stop smearing people arendt Jan 2012 #7
I'd advise you back your own smear off. Robb Jan 2012 #12
great post ge626dfil Jan 2012 #9
This is news? cbrer Jan 2012 #10
Amen Mosaic Jan 2012 #13

Robb

(39,665 posts)
1. Excuse me, but Sirota's full of shit.
Fri Jan 13, 2012, 10:43 AM
Jan 2012

Last edited Fri Jan 13, 2012, 11:37 AM - Edit history (1)

Boasberg was CFO for the Denver School District for years before being unanimously appointed super by the school board.

Boulder is also the best liberal haven in a damn purple state. I don't know who's feeding Sirota his Colorado talking points, but he sounds like an idiot.

Robb

(39,665 posts)
4. The first paragraph at your link will do nicely.
Fri Jan 13, 2012, 06:32 PM
Jan 2012
Formerly, Boasberg served as Chief Operating Officer for the district since April 2007.


It was COO, not CFO. My point stands. Boasberg was tapped by the previous DPS superintendent Bennet -- now the Democratic Senator from Colorado.

Edited to add: Looks like he sent his kids to a Waldorf preschool. And since they've been in Boulder Public Schools. Because they live in Boulder and he commutes to Denver.

O the humanity.

arendt

(5,078 posts)
6. Bennet is another Charter School snake oil salesman
Sat Jan 14, 2012, 12:00 AM
Jan 2012

So it is just another nail in Boasberg's coffin that he was appointed by Bennet.

Bennet is just another semi-rich suck up, like Rahm Emmanuel, who sees a chance to get richer by sending the middle class to a chop shop. An education chop shop in this case.

You're baseless smear of Sirota and your defense of these Charter School crooks tells me all I need to know about you.

MFrohike

(1,980 posts)
8. Where is this line in either link?
Sat Jan 14, 2012, 12:50 AM
Jan 2012

I used control-f for both 2007 and formerly and could not find it in the text of either.

yardwork

(61,417 posts)
16. He lives in Boulder and commutes to Denver. That's the point of the article.
Sat Jan 14, 2012, 06:21 PM
Jan 2012

As superintendent of schools in Denver, he's making policies that won't affect his family.

Peace Patriot

(24,010 posts)
2. Thank you for this info! David Sirota is one of our most reliable political/social analysts...
Fri Jan 13, 2012, 12:44 PM
Jan 2012

...and when he says that the elite is not only removing its children to elite schools where they receive a REAL education (not characterized by destructive, mind-numbing testing)--something that oligarchs have been notorious for, for, oh, thousands of years--but are ALSO seeking to destroy a good education for us serfs, we need to pay particular attention. Some of us were already aware of this traitorous effort to destroy public education; some of us were not. We all need to be aware of it and we further need to know that it is a fascist/corporate top priority not just to loot and destroy all "common good" social programs in the U.S.A., but also--and possibly primarily--to promote ignorance, stupidity and slavishness in our population.

 

cbrer

(1,831 posts)
10. This is news?
Sat Jan 14, 2012, 01:14 AM
Jan 2012

The filtration, stratification, and delineating of American people has been going on for a long time. When we finally decide that it's OVER, and we're going to build a truly representative nation, THAT will be news.

Power to the People.

Mosaic

(1,451 posts)
13. Amen
Sat Jan 14, 2012, 12:41 PM
Jan 2012

Many of us have been awake for a very long time. May 2012 be the year of REAL change, not Obama style change.

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