Given a choice of whether to send their kids to one of the most dangerous government school systems or to a charter school.
WHEN THE morning bells ring in the Chester-Upland School District, more students in kindergarten through eighth grade are sitting in charter-school classrooms than in all other district schools combined, according to district Superintendent Gregory Thornton.
State Sen. Dominic Pileggi, a charter-school proponent who represents Delaware and Chester counties, says, “It should be a wake-up call to school administrators that when parents are allowed choice, they’re choosing another education provider over what the district is providing.”
Gee, what a surprise. It’s nice to see self-managed (although taxpayer-funded) schools given a chance to succees. However, don’t look for this success to continue on for long. Instead of distancing itself from the leviathan that is the Chester-Upland School District, forces are hard at work to coerce them into conformity.
Annette Anderson, principal of the charter school, said that it’s important for her charter and the district to support one another because the school serves students in kindergarten through second grade only. The charter plans to add 50 more students a year in each grade until it maxes out at fifth grade in 2011. After that, students will head into regular district schools.
“We have a vested interest in the success of the Chester-Upland School District,” she said. “That’s why it’s not a good thing for us to be considered separate. We have to come together.”
So how to save the failing government schools? Teach courses in government beuracracy, of course!
Thornton also wants to divide the district’s high school into three, use the city’s soccer stadium and Harrah’s Chester Casino & Racetrack as learning laboratories and start a class on Chester’s history.
The (Insurgent) Campaign For Liberty
The term ‘insurgent’ has been used (and misused) a whole lot since about ten minutes after the officially announced ‘end’ of the Iraq War.
Lucky for us, the US Army Special Forces Counterinsurgency Field Manual
(the book that ‘Surgin’ General’ Petraeus is said to have ‘written’ on the subject)
contains, along with tips on how to win friends, subvert democracy and destroy due process in an occupied country, a handy field guide to three main types of insurgency.
One of these, in light of the end of Ron Paul’s Republican presidential bid, and the beginning of his new vehicle for change, The Campaign For Liberty, is pretty interesting;
“Foco Insurgency.
A foco (Spanish word meaning focus or focal point) is a single, armed cell that emerges from hidden strongholds in an atmosphere of disintegrating legitimacy. In theory, this cell is the nucleus around which mass popular support rallies. The insurgents build new institutions and establish control on the basis of that support.”
Except for the “armed” part (The Revolution has always been explicitly peaceful and anti-war) and the “establish control” bit, this essentially describes the new strategy – to establish a core group of liberty-loving people and to have them (democratically) infiltrate the current system so that they will be ready to liberate the masses when the corrupt, incompetent Empire falls flat on its face.
“The insurgents build new institutions and establish control on the basis of that support. For a foco insurgency to succeed, government legitimacy must be near total collapse. Timing is critical. The foco must mature at the same time the government loses legitimacy and before any alternative appears. The most famous foco insurgencies were those led by Castro and Che Guevara.”
Bad role models from a philosophical perspective, for sure, but in terms of strategy pretty relevant.
“The distinguishing characteristics of a foco insurgency are The deliberate avoidance of preparatory organizational work. The rationale is based on the premise that most peasants are intimidated by the authorities and will betray any group that cannot defend itself. ”
This part doesn’t apply, because this revolution is peaceful, democratic, and overt, the ‘counter-insurgency’ strategies to this will be completely ineffective. Unfortunately, many other CI strategies are already in place and are well-advanced;
“Restrictions. Rights on the legality of detention or imprisonment of personnel (for example, habeas corpus) may be temporarily suspended. This measure must be taken as a last resort, since it may provide the insurgents with an effective propaganda theme. PRC [Population & Resources Control] measures can also include curfews or blackouts, travel restrictions, and restricted residential areas such as protected villages or resettlement areas. Registration and pass systems and control of … critical supplies such as weapons, food, and fuel are other PRC measures. Checkpoints, searches, roadblocks; surveillance, censorship, and press control…”
You get the picture.
Apparently ‘Counter-Insurgency’ has become ‘Pre-emptive Counter-Insurgency’.
We have our work cut out for us.