The heroine of my
novel, Blank Slate, is hunched in an
air duct; her knotty muscles are taut. She’s a dark-eyed, intense—pretty-in-a-living-off-the-grid-way.
(As evidenced by The Hunger Games, if
your heroine is a survivalist, her hot bod is a given.) She looks down into a
boardroom: burnished table, ergonomic chairs, muted wall-to-wall carpeting. The
people arrayed around the table have hair coiffed into fancy, futuristic
curlicues; they wear suits that were tailored by the pincers of tiny robots.
A
man stands, right below her, at the head of the table. He’s got white hair and a
grandfatherly mien; he’s half docile geek, half benevolent cosmopolite. You
could imagine him graciously ushering a movie star through his art collection,
or calculating stock options with the quick whir-tick of his brain. This man is
a philanthropist, an altruist. He lavishes cash upon the most needy students in
the country. No ghetto has gone un-capitalized by him. No photogenic low-income
youngster has been missed by his infinite largesse. He’s the cerebral cortex of
education think-tanks, the magnanimous patron of our inept, antiquated American
education system.
If
you’re thinking, “This guy couldn’t possibly be the villain of Blank Slate!” you clearly have never
read a dystopian young adult novel—or any
dystopian novel, for that matter. Despite my limited imagination, dreaming up a
bad guy was the easiest part of the writing process for Blank Slate, since both the genre and
the audience pretty much scripted that role for
me.
Dystopian novels
are inherently distrustful of authority and power. And young adults are naturally—often
rightly—distrustful of authority and power; I know this because I’m a teacher,
and hence, I occasionally am the
authority and power that kids distrust. The
Hunger Games sold a bazillion copies
because of its (read with my intended tone of resentment and envy) fast-paced,
breathless, energetic plot. But it also sold a bazillion copies because kids
know instinctively that not everyone in the hegemony—no matter how benevolent
they seem—is actually interested in equity. They know that not every grownup is
looking out for their best interests, and yet they’re forced to rely upon
grownups. And in this way, kids experience daily what most of us grownups—with
our mortgages and our bank accounts—forget.
If
only the citizenry of Philadelphia had the cynicism and suspicion of the
16-year-olds sitting in my classroom. Then maybe we wouldn’t have fallen for
the same destructive agenda—not once, but four times over.
When I was working
on Blank Slate, I actually didn’t
model the antagonist on the millionaire Eli Broad, who runs an elite “academy”
for superintendants—specifically superintendants of struggling urban districts—out
of his California mansion. However, I should
have, since the policies that he inculcates have directly—and catastrophically—
impacted the School District of Philadelphia for the past ten years. From the controversial
Vallas to the dictatorial Ackerman to our current leader, the bland and
cipher-like Dr. Hite, our last four Superintendants have been “graduates” of
Broad’s “program.” Every time Philadelphia gets a new Superintendant, it’s
billed as an overhaul of the existing system. But in actuality, each of these
“new visions” is merely a different face for the same ideological agenda:
standardized testing, school closure, and privatization.
Let’s
return, though, to the tension-filled scene, as our heroine is on the cusp of a
disastrous sneeze. (Indulge me here, as this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to
writing an “action” scene for the book…) The villain, who never had a name in the
novel, but whom I will now subtly call Scheli
Schbroad, slides a device that looks
like an i-pad across the table.
“Ladies
and gentlemen,” he says. “The final phase is complete. I present to you: the
perfected Slate!” Now, I had no idea what the “final phase” was, nor did I have
a clear outline of what the previous “phases” could’ve possibly been. But I knew
what the latent purpose of this “efficient, modern, self-directed” technology
would be. Standing in the boardroom, Scheli Schbroad would deliver a
not-so-latent Big Reveal. This would be the archetypal Big Reveal, typical of
arch villains—from Bond bad guys to comic book nemeses—everywhere. Not only
would it provide a (laughably spurious) way to move my (tenuous) plot forward,
it would also give me a chance to insert some lecturing exhortations about my
specific paranoias. Schbroad’s confession would be something like the
following:
“This
electronic delivery of educational materials seems visionary and cutting-edge.
Everyone believes that it delivers equal educational opportunities and
eliminates bullying. In fact, it will actually impede critical thinking skills,
fragment communities, and—extra bonus!—create additional cash-flow to the
private sector! MWHAHAHAHA!”
With
snappy dialogue like that, it’s hard to imagine why the book was a failure. I
know that my allegory is completely
subtle, but the virtual, Slate-based education system is meant to represent the
burgeoning business of cyber charter schools. How did this idea dawn on me? As
I began writing Blank Slate, the
banner at the top of Thesaurus.com was constantly generating ads that pictured
grumpy-looking teens glowering from behind their rebellious haircuts, with
slogans like “No More Bad Grades!”
Again,
just as any teenager can tell from the get-go that President Snow is up to no
good, it’s patently apparent that, behind their gargantuan advertising budgets,
there’s something shady about cyber charter schools. It’s well-documented that cyber
charters provide sub-par instruction, abuse their employees, and (ironically) lack
the “accountability” that corporate reform types constantly tout. Additionally,
they are rife with corruption, relentless in their lobbying efforts, and
clearly beholden to special interests. Who are these special interests? Well, primary among them is the Walton family, otherwise known as the heirs to the Walmart
fortune. The fact that the anti-union, poverty-creating, relentlessly
opportunistic Walmart corporation is actively bankrolling these charter schools
induces Phillip K. Dick levels of paranoia in me. However, as demonstrated by recent events, reality can often be stranger than—or at least a mirror of—paranoia.
There’s one
question that Blank Slate couldn’t
answer, that this series of posts can’t conclusively answer either: Why are capitalist moguls suddenly so
interested in determining the future of the urban poor? In Blank Slate, our heroine (her eyes watering as she swallows that
sneeze) might glimpse a convenient pie chart or PowerPoint that answers this
question. But I’m not entirely sure what would be on that graphic display of Machiavellian intentions. I’ll end,
though, with two possibilities.
1) The least diabolical explanation
is that people like Broad and the Waltons simply adulate the private sector.
They might just believe, in their hearts, that free-market competition is the
solution to the country’s current “education crisis.” After all, the private sector worked for them. For these
millionaires, the private sector has been a kind master, rewarding them for all
of their hard work. Now, they feel an obligation to serve this master by
feeding the children of America to it.
2) Alternately, when funding
programs and individuals who make catastrophic decisions for children, these
folks know exactly what they are doing.
They know full well that their pet projects will erode critical thinking and stifle
vibrant learning communities. How else will people be duped into buying the
crappy tract housing and equally sub-par plastic shit that built their empires?
How else will they create blind and easily-exploited workers, and the 99% that enables their 1% existence? If fewer people are educated for critical reading,
critical writing, and critical thought, who will be left to criticize the monstrous
behemoth of unchecked capitalism?
Who—like
the unnamed heroine of Blank Slate—will
be crouched in an air duct, ready to take these bastards down?
