In 2018, I wrote an article for Tipping Points called, “Update Available: Why Big Tech is in the Business of Education Reform.” At the time, Big Tech was using progressive sounding buzz words like “creativity,” “collaboration,” and “student-centered” as a smokescreen. They did not want to actually change the power dynamics within conventional education but instead, they wanted to sell products to families, teachers, and school districts. And not just to sell products, but to reform curriculum to prioritize teaching the skills they wanted in their future workforce. The double goal was to make short term profits through their products and ensure long term profits through maintaining a labor supply that met their corporations’ needs.
It has become clear that reactionary politics have also become the dominant cultural force, one that many in Big Tech have eagerly adopted. Mark Zuckerberg’s (co-founder and CEO of Meta Platforms) and Jeff Bezos’s (founder and executive chairman of Amazon) desire and support for “anti-woke” language is a profit-making turn first and foremost. Big Tech has said goodbye to the progressive sounding buzzwords and said hello to far right lingo. Anyone can rationalize away any behavior or choices in order to continue to be powerful and wealthy. When profit is your moral center, anything promising you gold is your new compass.
I can imagine that if Vice President Kamala Harris had won the 2024 Presidential Election, the Big Tech Tycoons would be pledging money to her and marking her historic win with celebrations of diversity. But while the autopsy of the Harris campaign has found no consensus among legacy media and the internet, the far right’s win is indisputable. And the far right now includes Big Tech. Bezos, Zuckerberg and now obviously Elon Musk (CEO of Tesla among other roles), are more powerful, and of course richer, than they were in 2018. Musk, by all accounts, has tremendous control over the federal government. And his aim is making as much profit as possible. Musk and the current administration are doing this through destroying social safety net programs, rolling back safety regulations, increasing tax cuts for the 1% and exerting fascist tactics like arrest and deportation against those they deem as enemies. (Not to mention turning the White House into a car dealership).
Big Tech’s commitment to “disruption” and to “break things and move fast” fits perfectly within a fascist ideology. Corporations are run as authoritarian organizations. At their heart, they are anti-democratic. The logic of capitalism is the logic of empire building. Corporations’ practices are intertwined with colonialism and the work of empire expansion. As Aimé Césaire, the late Martiniquais writer and politician, succinctly summed up, “fascism is colonialism turned inward.” Musk’s and others’ embrace of a strong man dictator perfectly aligns with their own vision of themselves as CEO.
Where does this current political reality leave education? The situation is indeed looking dire. With talks about dismantling the Department of Education and cutting life-saving programs like SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), WIC (Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children) and Medicaid, it seems like public education and other services are on their way to be privatized or outright abolished. Many people who are pursuing unconventional education due to religious or conservative political reasons may be unbothered or even actively supporting the ideas around cutting departments and programs related to public education and social services. But these cuts will have a negative impact even on those who are outside of conventional education.
...purposefully underfunding public services is a disaster
Privatizing public services only helps those who are making the profit. In her excellent book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education, Diane Ravitch outlines that privatizing public education across the board has no real positive impact on students, families, educators or wider communities. And in many cases, there is evidence that this could mean less money and fewer resources and opportunities for children in poverty, disabled children, children with chronic illnesses and mental health issues. I have seen these impacts and more firsthand by talking to educators whose school districts were impacted by charter schools and voucher programs.
As the writer Naomi Klein points out, there is a strategy to privatization. The first step is to intentionally weaken a public service, then shout how inefficient it is, then finally sweep in to “save” it by privatizing it. This strategy is often used during natural disasters, which is why Klein calls it “Disaster Capitalism”. Using disasters and chaos to make a profit is not something new. And while we may think of disasters as naturally occurring phenomena like hurricanes, purposefully underfunding public services is a disaster. It may be manufactured, but it is no less damaging. As Blindboy, the well-known Irish podcaster states, “Neoliberal capitalism” has found a way to “commodify misery.” Whether it be underfunded schools, or the housing crisis, these disasters become an investment opportunity for the wealthy through very specific policies. Policies that have one aim, taking public money and infrastructure and shoveling it into private corporations’ control.
...now is not the time to ignore these attacks, or to align yourself with these harmful policies to take funding away
While some of us may no longer work in public school systems – and may have plenty of critiques on the ways they can oppress children – we must not make the mistake that the current administration’s attack on public education is a good faith critique regarding children’s rights or workers’ rights. Dismantling the Department of Education has nothing to do with helping children, inside or outside the system. Musk and his ilk see public education’s meager budgets as just something to gobble up for themselves. And then when schools inevitably struggle under these budget cuts, watch out for the “Tesla Online Curriculum” to start getting peddled our way.
The professional grifters, wannabe mob bosses, dictatorship-worshiping tech billionaires, infomercial hawking conspiracists and white supremacists are at the helm of things. It often appears they take glee in oppression and celebrate cruelty. It feels like we are in a huge disaster because we are. The question for the majority of Americans is now, what can we do? The organization Mutual Aid Disaster Relief may have some lessons for us all. One of their principles is, “Listen to the people most impacted.”
When it comes to education, let’s listen to children, teenagers, teachers, staff and families. Even if you aren’t a part of your local public school system, now is not the time to ignore these attacks, or to align yourself with these harmful policies to take funding away. Capitalism and its minions are causing these disasters, it’s critical that we both name the cause and find solutions.
I have seen first-hand how unconventional education spaces provide insights, practices and lessons that can help us in this moment. Places like Agile Learning Center in New York City, Village Free School in Portland, Oregon, Youth Initiative High School in Viroqua, WI, and Pacific High school in Sitka, Alaska all showed me the truth of the quote “care is the antidote to violence.” These powerful words by American writer and academic Saidiya Hartman continue to guide me in my own practice of unconventional education and how I show up in the world that feels like it’s drowning in disasters. We know how to build thriving communities that are resilient and how to create spaces where liberation emerges.
If you are feeling hopeless, overwhelmed, or unsure what to do, look to Self-Directed Education as a map. Let it be a guide showing you how collaboration can build community across differences, how to embrace the messiness of democracy and move through conflict with grace. We need to start organizing and harnessing our own power to not just stop these disasters, but to build a world where care, not profit, is our compass, pointing the way forward.
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