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The "Shock Doctrine" Comes to Your Neighborhood Classroom
Corporate reformers use the fiscal crisis and campaign contributions to hype an unproven school agenda
"Let's hope the fiscal crisis doesn't get better too soon. It'll slow down reform." -- Tom Watkins, a consultant, summarizes the corporate education reform movement's current strategy to the Sunday New York Times.
(Monkey Business Images via Shutterstock)
The Shock Doctrine, as articulated by journalist Naomi Klein, describes the process by which corporate interests use catastrophes as instruments to maximize their profit. Sometimes the events they use are natural (earthquakes), sometimes they are human-created (the 9/11 attacks) and sometimes they are a bit of both (hurricanes made stronger by human-intensified global climate change). Regardless of the particular cataclysm, though, the Shock Doctrine suggests that in the aftermath of a calamity, there is always corporate method in the smoldering madness - a method based in Disaster Capitalism.
Though Klein's book provides much evidence of the Shock Doctrine, the Disaster Capitalists rarely come out and acknowledge their strategy. That's why Watkins' outburst of candor, buried in this front-page New York Times article yesterday, is so important: It shows that the recession and its corresponding shock to school budgets is being used by corporations to maximize revenues, all under the gauzy banner of "reform."
Some background: The Times piece follows a recent Education Week report showing that as U.S. school systems are laying off teachers, letting schoolhouses crumble, and increasing class sizes, high-tech firms are hitting the public-subsidy jackpot thanks to corporate "reformers'" successful push for more "data-driven" standardized tests (more on that in a second) and more technology in the classrooms. Essentially, as the overall spending pie for public schools is shrinking, the piece of the pie for high-tech companies -- who make big campaign contributions to education policymakers -- is getting much bigger, while the piece of the pie for traditional education (teachers, school infrastructure, text books, etc.) is getting smaller.
The Times on Sunday added some key -- and somehow, largely overlooked -- context to this reportage: namely, that the spending shift isn't producing better achievement results on the very standardized tests the high-tech industry celebrates and makes money off of. "In a nutshell," reports the Times, "schools are spending billions on technology, even as they cut budgets and lay off teachers, with little proof that this approach is improving basic learning."
The paper adds that the successful "pressure to push technology into the classroom without proof of its value has deep roots" going back more than a decade, which raises the fundamental question: Why? Why would this push be so successful in changing education policy if there is little hard evidence that it is the right move to improve student achievement?
The answer goes back -- as it so often does -- to corporate power and the Shock Doctrine.
Tech companies give the politicians who set education policy lots of campaign contributions, and in exchange, those politicians have returned the favor by citing tough economic times over the last decade as a rationale to wage an aggressive attack on traditional public education. That attack has included everything from demonizing teachers; to siphoning public money to privately administered schools; to funneling more of the money still left in public schools to private high-tech companies.
This trend is no accidental convergence of economic disaster and high-minded policy. On the contrary, it is a deliberate strategy by corporate executives and their political puppets, a strategy that uses the disaster of recession-era budget cuts as a means of justifying radical policies, knowing that the disaster will have shellshocked observers asking far fewer questions about data and actual results. As the Times sums it up, the recession's "resource squeeze presents an opportunity" for corporate interests.
Or as Watkins explains, social pain is an opportunity: "Let's hope the fiscal crisis doesn't get better too soon. It'll slow down reform."
For sheer weapons-grade assholishness, Watkins' publicly wishing for a crushing recession to continue ranks up there with such gems as "bring them on" and "let them eat cake."
However, the real news here is that a Disaster Capitalist has spoken the unspoken and clearly articulated the Shock Doctrine in all its hideous glory. In this case, he has told us what the "reform" movement to demonize teachers, undermine public education, and generate private profits from public schools is really all about: It is about using the shock of a fiscal crisis to enact a radical, unproven but highly profitable agenda that corporate forces fully know they cannot pass under non-emergency circumstances, when objective scrutiny would be much more intense. Indeed, corporate "reformers"are so reliant on the Shock Doctrine to glaze over uncomfortable questions about their agenda, that they are now praying that the shock of recession continues.
The Times article does a good job of raising questions, forcing the corporate "reform" movement to resort to a revealing kind of hypocrisy. Check out the response from the Obama administration -- which has been one of the leaders of the corporate "reform" movement -- when confronted with data showing that its push for technology isn't raising student achievement:
Karen Cator, director of the office of educational technology in the United States Department of Education, said standardized test scores were an inadequate measure of the value of technology in schools. Ms. Cator, a former executive at Apple Computer, said that better measurement tools were needed but, in the meantime, schools knew what students needed.
"In places where we've had a large implementing of technology and scores are flat, I see that as great," she said. "Test scores are the same, but look at all the other things students are doing: learning to use the Internet to research, learning to organize their work, learning to use professional writing tools, learning to collaborate with others." (emphasis added)
Cator, of course, is making the argument that supporters of traditional public education have been making against corporate "reformers" for years -- namely, that standardized tests cannot be the primary tool to measure overall educational achievement, because they do not measure other equally important skills. And the fact that she is selectively making it in defense of her former technology industry tells us a lot about how public policy is really made in America.
Recall that this statement against standardized testing comes from the same Obama administration that has been pushing for more standardized testing -- the same Obama administration that wants to use standardized testing as a key metric for withholding federal aid from "failing" schools and for firing teachers. That's right, somehow, according to the Obama administration, standardized tests are the perfect tool to judge and punish struggling schools and the teachers who work with low-income kids, but they can't be used to similarly judge technology products that are making Obama's high-tech donors lots of cash.
In this oxymoron, we see who the corporate "reformers" in government really believe they work for, and whom they shape public policy on behalf of. It's not the average parent or student or voter. It's the Disaster Capitalists, who now have their sights set on your local schoolhouse.
Note: Steven Brill, the author of the new book "Class Warfare," and Dana Goldstein, the Nation magazine's education reporter, will be debating these and other education issues on my KKZN-AM760 radio show at 9 a.m. ET on Sept. 7. Stream it live or podcast it at sirota.am760.net.
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86 Comments so far
Show All"Let's hope the fiscal crisis doesn't get better too soon. It'll slow down reform."
And the corollary:
"Let's hope the War on Terror doesn't end anytime soon. It'll slow down profits."
If as a society we've grown inured to the killing of innocent people for profit, we shouldn't really be surprised at the sacrificing of children's futures for profit.
Once you crossed that final hurdle of taking innocent life for gain - as our elite psychopaths have done repeatedly - then there really isn't much that's NOT on the table, is there?
Ripping off kids and stealing their education?
Big deal, our commandos were handcuffing and shooting children in the head in Iraq.
All part and parcel of the same mentality.
polycarpe,
Excellent analogy. Unfortunately, so, so true.
OYE
In addition to exploiting disasters caused by nature and from abroad, corporations and the politicians they own also create crisis where none exist in order to transfer resources from 98% of us to the wealthiest 2%.
Much of the European debt "crisis" and the recent US debt ceiling "crisis" are examples of this.
Yes. They have become masters at creating the problem (as 9-11 and the subsequent 'War on Terror'), and then offering the solution.
POLY: While I think you made a good case for where this amorality is going, I once again object to the use of the word WE (You said "We, as a society") because it suggests a consensus where there is none. And even IF a majority of citizens were behind these wars, the pro-bankster fiscal priorities, the idiot one-size-fits-all testing, the lack of investment in green infrastructure & energy, etc... mostly what that would prove is the efficacy of propaganda.
If citizens are being LIED to 24/7, by the most comprehensive propaganda machine in all the world, then their opinions, or what polls "reveal" is mostly feedback on the data that' s been plugged into the system artificially!
Even in this forum, intelligent posters are willing to toss their barbs at public school, mistaking what's wrong with it for the powers behind making it fail!
Or as an article 2 days ago put it: the remedy for bad government is not no government. In parallel, the remedy for "bad" public school is not NO public school or limiting access to public education.
Scary, how ideas get twisted around in ways that even Progressives (or those who allege to be) end up agreeing with Right Wing Memes and agendas!
Great article and good comment by Polycarpe. Our children are the biggest victims in the twisted workings of this sick country. Children are more likely to go hungry and go without healthcare. America has completely lost its humanity (or at least its understanding of what humanity should be.)
Interesting article. But thanks mostly for my new favorite phrase, "weapons-grade assholishness".
I love that too, and it's not going to stop me from bringing this article to the attention of my town's new school superintendant and making sure these issues are addressed at the local school board.
you & anyone else who wants to read about a great school system, A+ for Finland Smithsonian Magazine Sept 2011 issue-----gives a great in-depth analysis of their thinking about what ed. should be, & of course the folks who designed the system were not Politicians Corporations or Retired Military----but shockingly, designed by wait for it..............educators & teachers----this article absolutely puts our ed reformers to sham for their complete lack of any moral vision. Get this, the Finnish society actually cares about what happens to their youth by providing a great ed.-------
I think anyone who is morally outraged at this further degrading of society should arm themselves w/this knowledge. Also, until & unless Public Education becomes highly esteemed, as in Finland, teachers are viewed on par w/Doctors & Attorneys, by our societal values there will never be genuine reform, as history has proven.
Second that about the Smithsonian article.
Here's the link: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/Why-Are-Finlands-Schools-Successful.html
At the very end of the article it is mentioned that as more immigrants pour into the cities in Finland, there is a trend of affluent parents removing their children to other schools. Anyone in the US can relate to that problem. Finland schools' answer is to build more impressive programs at these city schools to keep them integrated.
The oligarchs might get what they wish for and destroy public education, which might be the best thing to happen to the working class. At the time of the revolution, we had no public school system, but almost 100% literacy. Why? Because people cared about learning, about the adventure of life.
If we didn't stuff children into age segregated gulags, many more would learn. Real education reform requires us to tear down the corporate structured schools, designed to produce millions of mindless worker bees, and replace them with schools designed to enrich the lives of children.
Oh yeah that's great, let's go back to an 18th century agrarian society! When people say that "we had nearly a 100% literacy rate" they must mean white males. Slaves were largely forbidden to read and back around the revolution slaves were a much higher % of the population than one might expect.
No, the enforced collapse of public schools in a society where math, science and advanced language skills are essential to the ability of an individual to hack out a living is NOT a good thing. Kindly show me another society on the planet where public schools are gutted and the result is health and happiness for the working class.
I hate to be the one to break this to you, but the only reason we left 18th century agrarianism behind was some unlucky asshole discovered oil and figured out uses for it.
Do I need to point out to you the damage that has been done to people, society, and the world ever since that discovery? I mean, there's lots of evidence cited for it right here at this website. All that handwringing about global warming? There you go.
You don't need public schools to gain math, science, and advanced language skills. Sometime when you're bored, crack a book written back in the 18th century. See if you can slog through it without a dictionary. Get a book written either by a man or a woman, you will have the same experience.
The working class is not healthy and happy NOW. The schools are used as weapons against them to alienate their kids from them and it doesn't get them any better the employment. How many of the working class have high school diplomas? So why are they working class?
You're not asking yourself the right questions. You probably should figure out what those are and try again.
By the way, one of the reasons I homeschool my daughter is I don't want these corporate idiots brainwashing her. Another reason is I don't want the fundies taking over her school system and enforcing Christianity on her. See how this works?
"You don't need public schools to gain math, science, and advanced language skills."
Most kids do. Yours likely does as well. Or are you a professional scientist or mathematician who has given up your professional career to teach your daughter..?
"The schools are used as weapons against them..."
Public school taught me to play the violin, taught me to speak German, taught me advanced math and science that my high school dropout parents could never have taught me. Public school got me into a top-ranked university and opened up the world to me. Maybe you had a bad school experience but you didn't have to.
I'm sure glad you didn't raise me, I'd be a non-union day laborer without my excellent public school education.
"See how this works?"
No, I don't see how withdrawing your child from all school systems is going to bump corporations and Christian zealots out of same. How does that work exactly?
Do you think that most teachers WANT corporations telling them how to teach? You need to meet some teachers. They don't want to harm your daughter, they want to teach her things, and at the high school level or maybe earlier things which quite honestly you don't know. You speak a few languages fluently, you know the Krebs cycle, you know college prep stats and calc? You a physics and chemistry whiz, you know how to play any musical instrument your daughter might take an interest in?
EVERY homeschooler I've ever met has severely limited the horizons of their children. If you fools want to handicap your own children that's fine, but don't attack the schools that functional. secure parents who realize that their kids need a real education are using.
Thank-you for your comment. I appreciate your voice of intelligent reason in this forum. Too much of the US left seems to suffer this same peculiar hostility to science and techncal analysis that the US right does. It seems to be an affliction of USAns in general.
I myself fondly remember the enthusiasm of my geology, biology and physics and maths and German teachers back in high school. There is no way home schooling, or even more apalling, these commercial "cyber charter schools" could achieve what they did.
pjd412,
"There is no way home schooling, or even more apalling, these commercial "cyber charter schools" could achieve what they did." Exactly, what these canned educational reforms, standardized curriculum, computer training-note I didn't say learning-programs are meant to do is to "train" people not "educate" them. Teaching and learning requires human interaction that is spontaneous and learning that is pertinent to the students. Students know that they are guinea pigs in these educational standardized reforms and reject them. I see it everyday.
Yeah. Don't teach them any concepts - they might learn to think :)
I agree, too, Actual Leftist. It's amazing that intelligent people in this forum confuse the purposely damaging corporate influence over education with education's supposed failings. That's buying into (lock, stock, & barrel) the corporate, right wing meme.
Since when does a for profit ANYTHING do IT better? Even in terms of the Make War State, the private soldier gets paid 4X what the typical soldier gets paid, and for what, no accountability? Read up on the privatization of prisons and how Wackenhut really has grown with the War on Drugs, so that recreational drug use is criminalized to finance the prison-state.
Whenever the "privateers" show up, hardly recognized as the 21st century pirates they really are thanks to their expensive stylish suits, and talk about how much better they will run once-public services, Rage, Rage, against the dying of the Light! It's a lie, and a tremendously expensive one, at that.
I am VERY grateful for my public education. Sure, it lacked certain things, but my interest in learning was never put to sleep.
We mistake the idiom of an era, the tone of the times, with education's seeming present failings. The world, led by the US, has become inordinately dense in its materialistic focus in recent decades. The poetry, music, "free love," and wish to live in harmony with nature and one another, let's call it the "Dream of the 60's," got tossed... and in its place, the corporate media began to shape appetites and create (as Dr. Seuss put it) an endless stream of Thneeds. And everyone of them COSTS!
When I was a kid, homes cost $25,000-40,000. Now the same ones cost $250,000-400,000. Have salaries and wages, but for the top "echelon" gone up 10X? With money, or capital, the driving fuel of our society, EVERY institution has been forced to adapt to its metrics. This is a key reason why, what Chris Hedges defines as the once Liberal Institutions, have appeared to sell out. If property & housing go up 10X, so do rents and leases. It costs tons to run operations these days.
The system is self-destructing because money is an illusion, an artificial construct, and when real flesh and blood (casualties of war), and real ecosystems (those necessary for the sustainability of species) become endlessly forfeited to this system of manmade, false values, it cannot remain intact. (The center cannot hold, style.)
So the lack of $ moving around will be the thing that takes the corporate behemoth down. When Wallmart decides it's no longer profitable to operate their huge mega center in certain regions, it'll close shop; and slowly, the old mom & pop operations will return to fill the gap... kind of like fungus growing on a fallen tree.
Everything in the manifest world is prone to cycles. Thankfully, this God awful one too, shall pass!
OYE & PDJ: I agree with you on the public education issue. Thank you for your posts.
First of all, the oligarchs could not care less about public education. Their goal is to make money in any way they can, and education is the current fad.
Although it may be true that the literacy rate at the time of the revolution was nearly 100%, I suspect that figure dropped appreciably in the next generation, as large numbers of people moved across the mountains to settle the Northwest Territory. It is not likely that many of the "Natty Bumpos" of the time were literate.
Your suggestions about restructuring education sound like the things Ivan Illich recommended decades ago. But it is not clear what sort of structure would produce what you and he want.
I would go a step further, sheepherder, and note that the oligarchs probably do care about public education, that is they care about dismantiling it, not only for the reason that it is an "entitlement" and no one deserves education unless they can afford it (of course only the affluent could thus afford it) but for the added reason that education tends to help the rabble ask important questions or think independently.
No, public education is the one most important factor of EQUAL OPPORTUNITY. Without it, blatant classism.
That is not to say public education couldn't stand some reforms, like keeping corporate creep far far away from it.
DONNA LOU: Well-said, and excellent points.
I would also question the 100% literacy statistic. Certainly it didn't include Black citizens, or probably many women.
You are correct. I gave the links on that some time ago. The Literacy measurements only measured white males. Women and Blacks were excluded from the census.
.
IS it true that the US literacy rate in the 1700's was nearly 100%?
Source?
There is something unbelievable about it. What about the Appalacian farmers and whiskey-rebels in western Pennsylvania? The African slaves? A great majority of the New England colonial population - indentured servants, sailors and dockworkers, and working class laborers of all sorts?
Indeed. For one thing, I doubt statistics of that sort were kept at the time -- after all, the early American Republic was a libertarian paradise, with no silly gummint social programs worried about literacy. For another, if you weren't a white male property owner, you didn't exist.
tomcarberry,
I doubt the accuracy of your statement of near 100% literacy. See the following abstract of: The History of Literacy in America: An Introduction, by Kaestle, Carl F.
A review of the development of literacy in American national life provides both a picture of two centuries during which the strong association of literacy with mainstream cultural values was largely unexamined and unchallenged, and a realization that illiteracy is inextricably related to problems of discrimination and alienation in the workplace, in commercial media, in persistent popular attitudes, and in various youth subcultures. Literacy can be studied historically in at least three different ways: by establishing trends in crude literacy; by moving beyond crude literacy to functional literacy; and by asking related questions about the purposes of literacy--its cultural content and its economic functions. Crude literacy statistics reveal that the relationship of schooling and literacy in America is not a simple cause and effect relationship, that literacy reflects social stratification and educational opportunity, and that the national illiteracy rate shrank from 20% in 1870 to less than 3% in 1940, with major population divergences appearing in white/black, native/immigrant, and North/South figures. There is a need for additional study of the extent, quality, and content of popular literacy and of the historical purposes of literacy as applied to its liberating or constraining effects on intellectual enrichment, political efficacy, and economic improvement.
OYE
When the union busters bring back the joy of the 10-12 hour workday which still doesn't provide for basic subsistence, how will people be able to educate themselves?
@tomcarberry:
>>"At the time of the revolution, we had no public school system, but almost 100% literacy."<< Excuse me, we had 100% literacy at the time of the revolution? Maybe 100% literacy amongst the founding fathers but slaves, the poor, most women, most working Americans had no formal education. They were too busy trying to survive to have any time for education. Where the hell are you getting a 100% literacy rate for the US in the 1700s? I would guess that the literacy rate was quite low for that time period.
The current US adult literacy rate is 99.0% according to the UN Development Program report of 2009.
That 99% figure is risible too. How low a standard was set for "literacy"?
As noted over on the population threads I used to handle this sort of data for a living.
UNESCO - which may well be the source of a UNDP stat on literacy - keeps a stat called "functional literacy." This is a probably a step below what one might have in mind for general successful ability to use text in an industrialized society.
This is very specifically defined in UNESCO literature as % of people aged 15 and older who do have a written form of their primary language being able to write a simple sentence about their daily life in that language.
I expect that some US government department is communicating such a stat to UNESCO directly using lord knows what other standard; I find it hard to believe that UNESCO arrived at this through sampling the US population. Unfortunately many international data points are provided by national governments and are taken as gospel, although not so much in the developing world. Once again it's the West that gets away with doing what it pleases.
I can't imagine that even at this level that the US is 99% "functionally literate." Just a few months ago I helped a grown man pick out flavors of cat food because it was evident he couldn't read the cans. He did not sound to be an immigrant.
Yes. I don't know what your political persuasion is but I agree with this. Public education was already in the toilet. Parents, teachers, and administrators have already been wringing hands over this for decades. I'm a little tired of leftists (and I consider myself one) being obtuse about this issue. Leftists should have been concerned all this time that not only does the social and cultural structure of the public school inhibit real learning, but it is also used as an instrument of mind and behavior control.
My people lived this firsthand. It was deemed that despite our state constitutional right to speak Cajun French, that wasn't good enough and we had to have our French beaten out of us. Around the time that was happening, World War Two started. Because we were bilingual or French-speaking (most of us were bilingual at that time), we were useful in the European theater as interpreters. I lost my great-uncle that way. But that wasn't good enough reason to leave us alone. Now it comes out that people who can speak more than one language tend to have higher IQs and tend to be better thinkers--too late for us, whoops.
They did the same thing to the American Indians. Took the kids out of the families and sent them to school. It was the only way they could truly kill off their indigenousness. They had to destroy the culture. This was LIBERAL REFORMERS doing this because they thought it kinder than mass slaughter.
Then school was used to convert us all to good little consumers and corporate workerbots. Now it's being used to fine-tune both those efforts. It's the same thing, different generation. It's never about educating us. It's about manufacturing us, in a great big giant kid factory.
Conservatives take advantage of this as well as liberals so don't be fooled. Schools are what they use to try to destroy the teaching of evolution. If you never heard of it in school then you won't be interested in it afterward. And the parents believe all this tripe about schools being the only place a kid can be educated, so they don't follow up at home. Plays right into the conservatives' hands.
" Leftists should have been concerned all this time that not only does the social and cultural structure of the public school inhibit real learning, but it is also used as an instrument of mind and behavior control."
More of this crap.
Why is it that the homeschooling crowd argue both of these things at once:
1) Public schools aren't good at teaching anything
BUT ALSO
2) Public schools are so efficient that it amounts to brainwashing!
Maybe you have to pick one of those things and go with it, instead of both at the same time?
School is a GOOD thing. Once upon a time the left fought to get kids out of working at home or in a factory and get them into school. Now half of you trash the idea of school.
Quite of few of the homeschooling parents (who seem to spend an inordinate amount of time on the internet for people preparing to teach EVERY class to their children!) are doing little more than making their kids do UNCOMPENSATED WORK at home and call that "practical education." I call it child abuse and child labor.
The most insidious way corporate America influences education is that it frames educational issues in the language of business: test scores are like dollars; merit pay for teachers who add more value; competitiveness over cooperation; enhanced "student achievement" (read, productivity) through technology; education as the means to economic advance (as opposed to education as a means to better citizenship, better ecological awareness, better appreciation of the arts, better problem-solving). In short, education is a business with narrowly defined measures of success, objective measures--certainly not measures that connect with such old-fashioned ideas as love of learning, respect for learning or socialization of the young into a caring community made up of diverse populations of human beings.
The result of this narrow focus is that students are pressured to do well on tests they do not care about, that teachers become technicians, that communities once united in support of a common school are splintered into fragments of people who do not care about each other. It is, indeed, Kaliyuga, the age of darkness for education--though I take this as a metaphor and not an actual description. If only we can recover what we have lost...
RIGHT ON drosera.
We need to keep the language of the truth, not only here at CD, but out in our community.
"The most insidious way corporate America influences education is that it frames educational issues in the language of business"
Liberals do this too. They frame it all about an education being for the purpose of getting a better job. It is never about being better able to understand the world you live in and discuss that world with other people and make intelligent decisions about it.
I consider myself a left-winger but there is a certain flavor of left-winger that is way too invested in industrial civilization rather than questioning its very premise. You'd like nothing better than for the production of a standardized machine world to continue, no matter who it has to hurt. I suspect most of you who think that way are from the cities, too.
I've used my better education to challenge things. How is being ignorant of math and science and the trappings of the modern age going to better prepare lefties to argue points about economics and the environment?
WAAAAAYYYY too many people on left-leaning boards, people who clearly are decently well-educated, have fallen into a pit of loathing for any professional educators themselves. Most teachers aren't there to brainwash kids, they are there to help them learn, and they HATE the standardized test nonsense.
Being well-educated in a school system doesn't just get one a job, but opens up CHOICE of career to a person. Tens of millions of people have had the whole world opened up to them in this way, and I'm one of them. Stop trashing that.
"Liberals do this too. They frame it all about an education being for the purpose of getting a better job." I don't. Many liberals don't see education this way. Isn't this a "conservative" point of view?
"... It is never about being better able to understand the world you live in and discuss that world with other people and make intelligent decisions about it." I think you would find many liberals who would agree that this is an integral part of why education matters. That is why there is this debate over undue corporate influence in the schools. "A better job" is not always defined by money earned-- a combination of being interesting, creative, contributing to others, and ethics i.e. are rewards, and often jobs that have these require quality education.
If you notice something about standardized tests [as opposed to teacher written tests &/or essay type tests] - One BIG Reason why they're favored [have become the 'standard'] in the push to corporatize public education, is because they are machine & /or key graded. Often times the 'testers' have little if any knowledge of the subject(s) of the test(s) they are 'overseeing' - but the layout of these tests allows them to be graded in mass via machine &/or key [IE: most professional test monitors are merely CLERKS NOT EDUCATORS].
As recent incidents prove the 'pressure' of these over-hyped tests encourages school teachers & principals [whose jobs are on the line based on the results] to Cheat even more so than students.
One of the most insidious "strengths" of the standardized, multiple-choice test, at least from the perspective of the authoritarian mindset, is that only one of the four answers is "correct." In many cases this is true, of course. But children, year after year, are conditioned to assume that there is only one correct answer to every question, and the "experts" know what it is. Such conditioning, once internalized, makes the population more susceptible to the pronouncements of whoever is above them in the pecking order, from teachers to textbook writers to " political leaders." In this way multiple choice tests work steadily to weaken critical thinking and pave the way to mindless acceptance of what the experts say..
Your point is So True. These tests seem to be designed to artificially create stress [seemingly to test how well one can 'perform' under pressure]. This may be appropriate for college kids & adults but for not for young school children. They also seem geared to make you respond to commands of a perceived 'superior / supervisor' [generally given by someone you don't even know] in an almost robotic fashion - like Sir Yes sir / Mame Yes Mame!
About the push for standardized testing, Nixakliel, is that they provide millions or billions of dollars for private corporate interests.
The mandated state tests for graduating high school provide $taxpayer$ to the companies that issue and score them. :(
Excellent insight, DROSERA.
Another thing about home-schooling is that if John Bradshaw was right, or anywhere in "the ballpark," that 95% of American families are dysfunctional, then school is the only available channel for children experiencing a more "normal" setting. Suppose the parents are bigots, or fundamentalist religious fanatics? Suppose one parent is a raging alcoholic who beats the child? Then the child's only hope of getting a broader understanding would come FROM the public school, and not just the teachers. The social interchange among children from different backgrounds is a very significant part of the education process.
Now some would argue that the schools have lots of kids with violent agendas, or kids into drugs, and they want to shelter their offspring from these influences. The bigger question to ask is: where do these items come from? They are largely the product of a degraded social and cultural environment, the one that provides the many behavioral cues that young people follow. The media's role-modeling serves the commercial model, and if Disaster Capitalism is its mantra, then broken kids make for all sorts of business opportunites. Think prisons & military & the medical institutions!
And to hear Drosera use a term like Kaliyuga means that there's spiritual osmosis taking place in this forum (or school without walls), too. Interesting...
NOTE that the Phony RTTT / NCLB 'Education 'Reform' movement is spearheaded [mainly] by rich Corp white guys w no credentials as Educators [IE: Arne Duncan, Bill Gates, Mike Blomberg, etc], who went [& send their children] to exclusive private schools. They have tactically over-emphasize testing [a Corp Hustle] which gives them the pretext [excuse] for a Corp leveraged [Wall St Bankster type] takeover of Public Education at public expense- while attacking the Teaching profession, whose rank & file are mainly women [& in urban areas mainly Black & Brown Women {so where are the leading so-called 'feminist' orgs on this issue?]. Make no mistake about it - this is NOT like establishing an independent private school system ala Catholic School. Furthermore That a guy like Bill Gates [CEO of MicroSoft] is at the fore-front of this phony 'reform' movement explains the over-hyping of Technology in the Classroom.
From personal experience- What point is there in having assigned computer classes for students prior to say 3rd Grade? It may sound good in theory & look good on paper but the reality is- from K - 1rst grd kids are learning their ABCs & 123s, yet the computer key-board presumes this is already mastered. And most 2nd graders hands are too small to type using home-row key fundamentals - furthermore they would have just mastered their ABCs according to standard ABC...XYZ order- BUT the standard Key-board's lay-out is based on QWERTY key assignments. So it is UN-REALISTIC to think that the average school kid can begin to master this until at-least about 3rd Grade! Prior to that over-hyping computer classes is basically misguided or [in Bill Gates & his ilk's case] JUST A SCAM!
NIxakliel,
Speaking of Gates, on "Jeopardy" reruns this week was teacher competitions, and there were a couple of teachers from these "innovation" public schools (where kids have to apply and be intereviewed to be accepted), including one from "The School of the Future" in NYC, which she boasted is "the best school in the world!" Then, she proceeded to lose the game to two traditional public school teachers.
"Corporate reformers use the fiscal crisis and campaign contributions to hype an unproven school agenda"
Oh, the agenda is proven! Unions broken, money made, poor families screwed. This is the way things are supposed to work with this agenda, and this is the way they do.
If I understand you correctly, you are saying some teachers go into the field for money and pensions, that these teachers seek lower standards to cover up their poor performance, that failures of schooling is the result of the failing of such teachers.
Teaching, like all other professions, has mostly average teachers with a few excellent ones and a few poor ones. Why should it be different? You implicitly suggest we get rid of the "bad" ones. My question is: Where will the good teachers come from? An intelligent person with good people skills may not choose to enter a classroom of thirty-five kids who have not been socialized into respectful behavior and work for rewards that are barely sufficient to pay off college student loans. Perhaps Wall Street Banker might appeal to them more (if they have no moral sense along with their good people skills).
Odd that capitalistic principles apply to rooting out public schools through vouchers and charters, but do not apply to questions of inadequate resources and selecting the best and most creative employees through offering fine salaries, benefits, and decent working conditions. To me that indicates that this corporate obsession with "bad" schools has to do with lining the pockets of corporate interests and nothing more. When a charter school offers starting salaries of 100,000 bucks to candidates and class sizes of twenty or less, I will believe that businessmen are practicing what they preach. Until then I'll just listen to (and ignore) their blah-blah-blah.
Another excellent post, Drosera.
I introduced the idea that if there were to be merit tests for teachers, why not for military "deciders," or government officials, or doctors, or any number of professions?
It is true that the teaching field, like nursing, is dominated by women; and there is a sexist subtest, a sort of corporate version of "Father Knows Best" operating here. It's a perfect meme for authoritarians, as they believe that God is the head of the world, and that HE has appointed the Father, the HEAD of the family. We wonder where the premise for the top-down model began? Or the root concept of hierarchy? It's found in the patriarchal church premise that assigns to the NUMINOUS a human MALE form, and from there, extrapolates "evidence" in support of the Father, as the undisputed family boss. People like Bill Gates just love this!
Obviously there are also financial and political advantages to be gained from attacking the teaching profession, coincidentally (wink, wink) by those who also found it useful to attack Acorn, the poor, the voting rights of Blacks, Unions in general, and now the EPA, along with any attempt to rope in the very forces literally out to destroy us, one ecosystem at a time.
Hollywood need not produce another Horror movie... current events qualify!
Verity Veritas,
At this point, doesn't "poor old corporate America" own everything? You must mean that "poor old corporate America" is really owned by "global corporate."
I would say, from life experience, that not many teachers become teachers just to have their bread buttered. I would say the vast majority of them love education and helping their students love education. Why don't you pay attention to whose bread is getting buttered by rereading the article.
And they are seriously misguided. If more Americans would be willing to raise their own children rather than take on that third job to pay off the credit card they ran up buying that big-screen TV, they'd notice children already love learning. We do not need a professional class to beat, metaphorically or physically, that love into them.
Verity, Verity, Verity (said in my best exasperated teacher voice with one raised eye-brow while shaking my head back and forth),
"For every NCLB there is someone who wants to lower the standards." Please elaborate as I can't understand this sentence. Let's see, "for every NCLB" do you mean educational reform law? And then how does this correlate/correspond to "someone who wants to lower the standards"? Your statement makes no sense to me.
And as one who would like to not only GET RID OF the current usage and meaning of "standards" in education but also grading as it is a harmful practices that causes students to be violated by inaccurately labelling them with specious terms such as "failure" I implore you to read, and not only read but understand N. Wilson's "Educational Standards and the Problem of Error to be found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577 so that you may learn of the perniciousness of standardized testing.
And again, in commenting about the results of public education you throw out the idea that public education is a bunch of money hungry teachers who couldn't care less about "educating" their students. Pure bullshit!
OYE