Incredible insight by Vietnam on standardized testing echoes experienced educators in the US

I have long maintained that it is the goal of Wall Street and the 3rd way to beat independent thinking out of American students so that they are more compliant, obedient and less likely to challenge authority, therefore, more likely to work for lower wages. The US emphasis on standardized testing is creating class divisions leading to an elite monoculture driving disparity in the US to the levels we typically encounter in Asia.

"Nguyen Vinh Hien, Deputy Minister of Education and Training, told Tuoi Tre (youth) newspaper on Friday that the Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, does not assess students' overall competence...

"Even though PISA's 2012 results, announced early this week, ranked Vietnam over many wealthy western countries, including the US, in math and science, "we have to be honest and admit that if fully assessed, Vietnamese students' capacity is still poor," Hien said....

"Dr. Giap Van Duong also wrote in the newspaper that compared to "the four pillars of education" prescribed by UNESCO--learning to know, learning to do, learning to live together, and learning to be--PISA targets only a small part of the first pillar.

Duong holds doctorates in physics and used to work with universities in England and Austria.

"He said PISA tests were limited because they use 15-year-olds as their subjects. At that age, students are still immature and their knowledge is far from meeting the demand of practical fields like business, administration, culture, and arts, he said.

"If the test targeted older people such as 20-year-old university students or 30-year-olds who are working, Vietnam's results would "definitely" be much lower, according to Duong.

"In fact, many Vietnamese students fail to land a job after graduation. When they study overseas, many have difficulties in meeting the requirements of advanced education systems like team-work, problem solving and creativity, he said."

"Duong went on to quote the Asian Productivity Organization's 2012 report as saying that Vietnamese people's productivity is about 20 times lower than that of American people."

Duong added:

"Vietnamese education's focus is on learning to pass exams. The whole system operates to serve only one purpose: exams."

"Students here take exams to enroll in the first grade, the sixth-grade, the tenth-grade, and then universities, and every exam is "tense" and "competitive," the scholar said.

"The tradition of learning to pass exams" is typical of Confucian education systems and is also found in other Asian countries like China, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea, he said.

All these countries ranked high in PISA tests, although their development is on par with or lower than that of the US and western countries.

This indicated that the tradition probably affected the tests' results, Duong said.

"He noted that among countries with Confucian traditions, Vietnam ranked the lowest, so there was no reason to be happy about the country's ranking."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/diane-ravitch/vietnam-wallops-us-on-tes_b_7290682.html

Let's clear the air around TPP

This is what free trade means:

TPP: Just do it?

We need TPP to compete with the China threat we created when we signed a trade deal to ship

millions of US jobs and technology to low-wage, unregulated labor markets in China.

Now you understand free trade.

TPP isn't secret, you just have to be one of these corporate persons...

Section of TPP describing benefits to American families has been leaked...

With National Surplus, Shell Oil Given Green Light To Destroy Last Of Alaskan Wilderness

Any guesses as to how this is going to turn out?

NE Patriots Rumored to Tap Chris Christie as Next Cheating Coordinator

BOSTON -- With his presidential prospects completely deflated, Chris Christie is said to be negotiating with the New England Patriots for a top spot as head cheating coordinator. The position has been vacant since the Pats previous cheating coordinator was fired after disappointing 2014 season. While other candidates are still being considered, Christie's credentials are rumored to carry the most weight.

Sources close to Coach Bill Belichick say the Pats coach is impressed with Christie's consistent cheating performance on and off the field. Christie is the 2014 Detoilet Douche Award winner and the current record holder for the most cheats of any politician, previously held by former Governor of New Jersey, Jon Corzine.

TPP has strong regulations and enforcement provisions? Bullshit. Here's why...

The USA let Wall Street steal trillions of dollars through racketeering and systemic fraud. It happened right under our noses.

Who was regulating Wall Street? No one.

And ultimately, who paid the price for the deliberate neglect and incompetence of regulators? Certainly not the perpetrators of the crime. They're too big to fail.

So, then, who was punished for the criminal indiscretions of our ruling class?

THE MIDDLE CLASS AND BELOW. WE PAID WITH OUR SALARIES, JOBS AND OPPORTUNITY TO GET AHEAD.,

That's who is going to pay for TPP.

Now the same people who brought us the largest organized criminal fraud in world history are crowing about all the great regulations in TPP.

Bullshit. You can put on a gas mask and the fumes from the TPP lies will still choke you to death.

Corporations send jobs to Asia because the only strong regulations in Vietnam, China, Indonesia, Singapore, etc are those that limit wages, individual freedoms and worker's rights.

The USA cannot afford to hire food inspectors to inspect the meat we serve children in schools and patients in hospitals.

We can't afford to regulate the money laundering fueling our corrupt election process.

We can't afford to regulate our off-shore drilling, fracking and nuclear power plants.

We can't afford inspectors for our failing bridges and other crumbling components of our national infrastructure.

We can't afford oversight of our police and prison systems.

We can't afford oversight of our corrupt health care and education systems.

We can't even oversee the CIA and NSA to prevent decades of violent war.

And we can't even get our largest corporations to pay taxes.

And our trade deals in China and India? We can't afford to monitor those either.

It isn't about education or competitiveness. TPP is about shipping jobs to Vietnam - $5/day.

That's the average salary in Vietnam.

TPP isn't about our lack of education or competitive skills.

It's about crushing our resistance to living on $5 a day.

The difference in worker salary between US and Vietnam is pure tax-reduced profit in the pockets of CEOs.

Nothing you can learn in school will explain why TPP is a good deal for anyone but Wall Street billionaires.

Perhaps that's the motive behind our corporate sponsored education initiatives.

Dumb us down to $5/day.