Reason Writers Around Town: Shikha Dalmia on the Banality of Matt Damon's Cause
The sad thing about the Save Our Schools rally at which Matt Damon came unhinged on Reason.tv was that he was the most sensible speaker there, Reason Foundation Senior Analyst Shikha Dalmia reports in her later column at The Daily. Among the others were Stanford University education professor Linda Darling-Hammond, who aimed a broadside at every ill in American society: poverty, segregation—and volunteer teachers. Then there was Sam Anderson, a founding member of the Black Panther Party, who advocated a Black-Latino alliance to "eradicate the onslaught of privatization" in education. However, she notes:
Notwithstanding its radical billing, SOS is not a force against the establishment but an agent for the status quo… The only radical thing the organization wants is radical unaccountability. Its entire "reform" agenda amounts to: More money, fewer questions.
Read the whole thing here, and check out the Reason.tv video below:
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post comments
MATT DAMON!
I'm Matt Damon, bitch!
Is Charlie Murphy going to do something about his friendship with Matt Damon? Because that would be great.
See this is what we get when you post 860 comments on a lame subject...
You get more of that lame subject!!!
I am severely disappointed by you all.
I should be disappointed in my stupidity... but alas, I'm a fucking moron!
...must...drive... traffic... to... site
Please don't invoke his name... Please don't invoke his name... Please don't invoke his name... Please....
...and volunteer teachers.
How DARE those emmer-effers refuse to profit from...
Wait...what?
True teachers are UNION, you exploiter!
In five volumes.
Yes, it's a vast subject.
How many volumes is her treatise on The Banality of Matt Damon?
with pictures, or without?
Its entire "reform" agenda amounts to: More money, fewer questions.
Accountability is bad, children.
More money, fewer questions?
When did we start talking about Congress again?
Unaccountable teachers create unaccountable students. Who says kids don't learn anything in school?
Unaccountable teachers create unaccountable students. Who says kids don't learn anything in school?
For the record, Damon is wrong about pretty much everything he has said about education in these videos.
However, despite his ignorance of capitalism and free markets, he is currently working with an organization that is using micro-lending to bring proper water systems to Africa so that the locals become more involved in improving their hygiene through ownership of the water systems themselves.
http://water.org/
I'll rip on him for his stupidity with the SOS rally, but he deserves credit for maintaining his ignorance about markets long enough to benefit this program.
The best way to help Africa is to for real capital (not free gifts) to flow into the continent, while these ventures might alleviate some suffering, all these ventures have not actually solved the poverty problem.
True, but the fundamental approach behind Water.org is to get these communities to take more ownership of the problem and directly invest through micro-lending in their infrastructure in order to develop some independence.
I agree that a handout is the exact opposite of what Africa needs, but that's not really the purpose of this program.
Africa's not-so-magic roundabout
Millions of charity dollars are flowing into water pumps driven by children's roundabouts, but is it money down the drain?
One director of an African water charity speaking on condition of anonymity was scathing about how money was wasted. He described how corruption on the ground was rife, giving the example of how some international contractors paid more than $1,000 a day by water charities to drill boreholes had little concern for whether drilling was even appropriate, just as long as they kept themselves in a job. He concluded grimly: "If anyone ever told the truth, no one would give us anything." And this is the catch-22 many good charities find themselves in. They can keep quiet and watch money wasted in massive quantities, or expose the waste and risk damaging charitable giving to the sector as a whole.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comm.....oundabouts
Yeah, see this is the exact OPPOSITE of what Water.org is trying to do.
trying =/= succeeding
They are succeeding. The "Playpumps International" program from the article you mentioned is the opposite of what Water.org is doing. Water.org relies on the communities themselves to invest in the programs directly instead of having some NGO group come in, dig a well and leave.
Check out the link again, you may be impressed.
http://www.water.org
The other day I watched a Discovery Channel show (Dual Survival) where Cody Lundin finds water in the middle of a desert. A fucking desert!
So instead of "Water.org," why not have the barefooted hippie pass some of his expertise to the locals? It would make for a great show, would not cost anybody else any money, and the locals could learn something for a change.
Giving money to charities is part of the free market too, tman.
As the article states, these people are the establishment and are protecting the status quo. To pretend they are fighting against some unjust system, would mean they would have to ignore the last 40 years of politicians they put in power.
I'M MATT DAMON. PEOPLE CALL ME MATT DAMON.
Is tomorrow Me Day again?
Every day is Me Day!!!
If Al Franken can have a decade, you can certainly have a day.
Take two, in fact.
Fucking public school teachers are like abortion; everyone has an opinion on it, and every one of those opinions is 100% one way or the other. The question is, why are some people 100% for the fucking parasites?
Public school teachers for some, miniature American flags for others!
I think it would be awesome if there was a small group of "TEAM EPI" running around.
It would be like a version of "Life of Brian" except instead of trying to run away Epi would simply shoot his followers.
Would the flag be a picture of a Chicago deep dish pizza in a red circle with a line through it?
Cuz that'd be awesome.
Two debates in one. Excellent.
I suggest we abort one of the debates.
It would be a flag with a picture of Michael Bay eating a deep dish pizza in a red circle with a line through it.
Three in one at this point, ProL.
a flag with a picture of Michael Bay riding a high speed rail car with a group of SWAT dudes eating a deep dish pizza in a red circle with a line through it.
This could go on for a while.
His flag is just Warty's massive foreskin, tanned to a buttery softness.
Majestic! Can't you hear it fapping in the wind?
Better yet, the flag is made of cotton. Genetically modified cotton.
The red ink comes from an ethanol base.
Behold! The Warty Flag!
I am pouring Clorox? into my eyes yet I still can't get rid of that mental image.
Threaded with carbon-emitting fibers.
Sewn by gay nuns.
Married gay nuns.
What, and finally give people a decent reason to join RED MEAT or META LUBE?
There's no decent reason for that. Ever.
One Tard, Two Tard, Red Tard, Blue Tard
...and we have new marching song for our trolls. How excellent.
One Tard, Two Tard, Red Tard, Blue Tard
Pee Tard?
With the chorus, "Hoist, hoist, hoist."
I'm holding out for miniature public school teachers for everyone, as long as the miniature teachers are wrapped in American flags.
The whole uproar over the Matt Damon video actually surprised me. Maybe the "teaching is noble/selfless/whatever" meme isn't hammered as hard in Canada? It's just a job, people. The question of whether it should be done by private or public employees just seems like a particularly odd choice of issues to get emotionally invested in.
The teachers are not that selfless as it seems, they keep complaining they are not getting enough money.
It's just a job, people.
It's a job the way the weather is, you know, the weather.
But like the weather, once it got politicized (and sorry, I blame the education system and teachers unions for that) it was no longer a job.
"A "job?" To Hell with you. It's a sacred calling and one that shall never be questioned under any circumstances, no matter the cost or efficacy, thankyewverymuch.
They do God's work in some of the toughest neighborhoods in America.
Sometimes, IRL, a situation arises where I want to use that phrase, but I usually start laughing too hard to properly execute it. It's a real problem.
That Silverman-Damon fucking thing was funny. He should do more things like that.
why are some people 100% for the fucking parasites?
This just occurred to me: there is no discernible relationship between teacher pay and the "service" they provide. They fanatically struggle to maintain this state of affairs, in no small part because it helps to absolve them of evil profit motives. If they could somehow be exposed as being just as evil as insurance companies (maximizing revenues while minimizing outflows) maybe we could shift the debate.
If we could even somehow manage to pay them per student, we'd see how much they really care about small classrooms and "individualized instruction".
Unions and their members are profiteers. In fact, that's the best part about Unions. They get more money for their members and their organizations. What's more American than that? It's the fact that they intrinsicly deny their profiteering by misdirecting to "the children" or "safety" which makes them generally evil.
What other group can get away with striking for higher pay while saying, "It's not about the money!"?
This is rather cheecky, considering that teachers are the hardest working and most underpaid of all recipients of Master's degrees.
And, no one else works off the clock, you know. NO ONE.
"This is rather cheecky, considering that teachers are the hardest working and most underpaid of all recipients of Master's degrees."
Naah.
The cabbie with the MA in Conflict Resolution beats 'em all hollow.
Master's degrees? Since when? Here California all you need is a BA and a fifth year of indoctrination and you've got a credential.
I believe a fair number of districts require MAs to teach now.
Spoken like a true idiot, JW.
I think he was being sarcastic.
You would say that.
How many workshops do you have to attend to get a masters in education?
a flag with a picture of Michael Bay eating a deep dish pizza in a red circle with a line through it.
Needs 'splosions.
All I know is that every time I see footage like this, it makes me think LESS of teachers. It amazes me that they could believe this is helping their causes.
teachers? really? am I living in the 1870's?
robots.
Conflict in the Middle East, poverty in Africa, and teachers bitching about being underpaid and underappreciated.
All these existed before me and they will all still exist after I'm gone.
Talk about your impossible dreams:
1) Eradicate the onslaught of privatization of education; and
2) A Black-Latino "alliance."
That jsut dont make no sense at all dude. Wow.
http://www.anon-vpn.it.tc
"The sad thing about the Save Our Schools rally at which Matt Damon came unhinged on Reason.tv was that he was the most sensible speaker there"
That is bar that is so low that it is indistinguishable from the ground.
Linda Darling Hammond shouldn't be taken seriously by anyone concerned about education.
Can Sikha be my teacher?