Educator suspects that regimented reforms not for learning, but preparation to be employees...

[madfloridian]

in a competitive global economy.

Alfie Kohn is adamant that the new reforms going on in schools now are not about more real "learning", but that there is a different goal in mind. I agree there is more regimentation, more unquestioning obedience is demanded in many schools. Almost a ritualistic reciting of facts in many cases.

Don't get me wrong, memorization is necessary, rote is good to a certain extent. But too much of it and only factual learning takes place. There are other kinds of learning, concepts, ideals...that are often forgotten now.

While reading the interview by Alfie Kohn, I thought of a movie over 20 years ago. It was called Gung-Ho. It was about changing the way workers performed. It was just a movie then, and was considered a comedy. It did not seem that funny to me even then because as a teacher I translated those methods to a classroom setting, and I did not like what I saw.

Here is a brief synopsis of the movie from 1986.

In a town in the Midwest United States, the car factory has been shut, leaving the town economically distressed. A Japanese comapny, Assan Motors, has purchased the factory, but will need to be convinced that it is worth re-opening. Hunt Stevenson goes to Japan to make a presentation to Assan's management, and the result is that Assan sends a management team to America and the factory is re-opened, although the workers will earn a substantially lower wage than they had before the factory had originally closed. Still, Hunt is a hero for having convinced management to re-open.

The culture clash is severe, as Japanese management demands far more regimentation and output than the workers are used to, and unpaid overtime is expected when output falls short of productivity standards. Management has little regard for the workers and the quality of their lives, focusing on productivity alone. The workers become agitated and their relationship with management becomes adversarial. Hunt, acting as employee liaison, tries to smooth it over, but is unable, and when a worker intentionally knocks over one of the Japanese managers during a comapny baseball game, the situation appears beyond repair.

Now back to Alfie's interview with Fair's Counter Spin.

It's called by the almost Orwellian term: “school reform.” But what that means, in effect, is a corporate-style approach to management of school systems, in which the goal is not to help children learn but to prepare them to be employees who will help corporations become competitive in a global economy. And it involves very specific and prescriptive standards for what kids at a given grade level and in a given subject must be taught. It involves a sort of back-to-basics approach to teaching, and most of all, it involves constant multiple choice testing, so that if the test scores go up, that's a good thing, if they go down, that's a bad thing, without any understanding that higher test scores often undermine the quality of teaching and learning.

Yes, it is prescriptive teaching and learning. By the time I retired we had to use almost verbatim the words in the prescribed learning system. In my earlier years we were able to use teachable moments and build on them. There was time to connect and reach out to the students, delve deeper than the surface memorization they would need for the fill in the blanks testing.

We could follow a theme, but we could make our own lesson plans. We could be creative as we were taught to be while teaching. Things have changed and are changing more.

In the interview with FAIR's Counter Spin just before Arne Duncan's appointment as Secretary of Education...Alfie Kohn, educator, pointed out how the media managed to talk about "real" reform praising such programs as NCLB...while in another breath associating teachers'unions with the "status quo". The status quo being the bad thing.

So all of the major newspapers editorialized right around the same time in early December and in almost identical language contrasting the bad old status quo, people who are in bed with the unions, on the one hand, and on the other hand bold reformers, and reform here again means intensification of things like the No Child Left Behind Act and the like.

.."CS: Yeah we've heard this before: social security reform, welfare reform, the language is important and putting these educators and activists into these categories isn't really new, is it? This is something that we've been seeing for, what, 20 years?

AK: Yes, I think in the last couple of years there's been, it's almost as if everybody on the right got the same memo that said from now on we must call what we're doing to kids the "get tough on unions, on teachers, on students to raise the bar. We must now call this reform,” so that anybody who opposes this agenda is by definition anti-reform, and stuck in the status quo. I mean, one of these people actually on a TV show accused me of being an apologist for the status quo, and I'm pretty darn radical, frankly.

They discuss that there is simply no talk even among Democrats of doing away with NCLB, even though the program is almost universally detested.

CS: No Child Left Behind, for example, seems to enjoy very little criticism in the media because it's part of this "reform agenda." There doesn't seem to be much room to say No Child Left Behind should be scrapped, even among a lot of Democrats.

AK: That's right. That's right. And this goes back some years now. Ironically there are some conservatives who resent the federal government being this involved in telling local school districts what they must do. And you ended up with people like Hillary Clinton and John Edwards and Ted Kennedy demanding one-size-fits-all testing on an annual basis. When No Child Left Behind was first announced in the very early part of this decade, Ted Kennedy followed George Bush around at his side to endorse it together. The only opposition you get is around funding. You know, I speak for a lot of educators when I say I don't want this assault on good teaching and local autonomy fully funded. But, you know, this is what passes for opposition in this country, is when, you know, if George Bush had said we're going to go around and hit every kid in the head, hard, with a hammer, but thank goodness we have Ted Kennedy to stand up and say "Yes, but who's going to pay for the hammer?" You know, that's the extent of the opposition.

The No Child Left Behind will continue. Duncan will push to have it funded, he says.

In fact there will be more testing of students in the plans of Arne Duncan.

Testing, more testing, and then charter schools

Everything I have seen and learned since Duncan came to office has supported Secretary Spellings' admiring comments about Secretary Duncan. It turns out that Duncan, like the Bush administration, adores testing, charter schools, merit pay, and entrepreneurs. Part of the stimulus money, he told Sam Dillon of The New York Times, will be used so that states can develop data systems, which will enable them to tie individual student test scores to individual teachers, greasing the way for merit pay. Another part of the stimulus plan will support charters and entrepreneurs.

The other day I posted a column by Herbert Kohl in which he pleaded with Duncan to reconsider so much of the testing.

I’m worried about the direction you’re taking education policy. In a recent interview with NEA Today, you said you read my book “36 Children” in high school and wrote an essay about it in college. “The book had a big impact on me,” you said, adding that it gave you “tremendous hope” to address the “challenges that teachers in tough communities face.”

But I’m afraid your emphasis on testing is only going to increase those challenges, especially in tough communities.

..."I wanted to let the students’ creativity and intelligence spring forth. And I wanted to provide interesting and complex curriculum that integrated the arts and sciences and utilized the students’ own culture and experiences to inspire learning. I discovered then, early in my teaching career, that offering ideas, experiences and activities that engage students is the best way to teach them. My career over the past 45 years has confirmed this.

Alfie Kohn has continued to be strong in his opposition to so much standardized testing:

Alfie Kohn on standardized testing

From June:

"…no thoughtful educator could ever claim that we need standardized tests to tell us which students need help and which schools are in trouble. We have those data, and we have anecdotal evidence just from walking through schools.

What the tests do is measure what matters least and then distort the curriculum so that schools become giant test prep centers. In fact, the resistance to this over-testing of American children has been growing among rich and poor, black and white. There have been boycotts of the tests among parents last spring, not only in wealthy Scarsdale, New York, but in a Tucson, Arizona, inner city barrio school, in New York City schools that feature primarily African- American students, in Boston, and so on. Parents, like teachers, are beginning to realize that this top- down heavy-handed movement is not in the interests of children. It’s a desire on the part of politicians and corporate officials to show how tough they can get with teachers and with kids.

Exactly it's the get tough, zero tolerance, take no prisoners attitude that is winning the day. It has nothing to do with deep learning experiences.

We have plenty of data. What we don’t need is the pseudo-data that comes from timed, multiple-choice tests that tend to get kids to memorize facts they’re going to forget anyway and to drive some of the best curriculum out of the schools. I can’t emphasize this too strongly.

It’s not just that the tests are unhelpful, it’s that across the country, kids are now losing recess, they’re losing the chance to read good books, we’re losing discussion of current events, music and the arts, high-quality electives, as the schools become absolutely set to try to jump through the hoops because they have bribes and threats leveled against them to raise scores, not to raise the quality of learning."

Losing art, music, recess, physical education to jump through the hoop for test scores which are really not indicative of the kind of learning that students retain.

They are applying business tactics to the children in public schools now. They are forgetting that they are not automated in their thinking, yet they are using methods that assume it.

Like Gung-Ho, the goal is productivity. I am thinking that is not a very good goal for real teaching and learning that takes place deep inside the mind.

[Nikki Stone1]

1. A study from Britain demonstrated that standardized tests actually decreased student motivation

to actually learn anything.

And I think that may be the point of these tests: To destroy real interest in learning. Learning means you can think differently and challenge the status quo.

[madfloridian]

2. Learning enables one to "challenge the status quo."

Very good point.

I wish the public could be audience to a drill in the classroom near testing time for the FCAT. We even gathered in the auditorium to chant and get excited about testing.

We would go over every tactic for a multiple choice test, every thing to remember on writing the essay.

It was out of control.

[Nikki Stone1]

5. It also is meaningless outside the context of the public school system

What a waste of students' time.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

3. This has been going on for decades.

Read Jonathon Kozol and Thomas Szasz.

[madfloridian]

4. I know. But Arne Duncan is in place now to bring it all together.

And now that I am retired I can write freely about it.

It's like the final piece of the education corporatization puzzle.

[Deja Q]

45. First Amendement - you needn't have waited.

[lostnfound]

50. The 'Education Trust' wanted to stomp out all that American independence

John Taylor Gatto, the Underground History of American Education, traces it back to around 1900-1910. And now we have factory schools too big for individuality; and long school days and homework that preclude kids from having too much in the way of real life experiences.

[Trillo]

6. Perhaps it's simpler than that: competition.

Is the primary purpose of any modern public or private school in the U.S. to foster competition (set the students against each other). What better primer is there to the dregs, or public face, of capitalism itself, particularly the portion of capitalism reserved for the masses.

Endless, even meaningless, testing would seem to dovetail nicely with that goal.

[exboyfil]

8. I hate to say this but a bigger problem than testing is the fact

that kids are not engaged in their learning. Don't say it is because of testing because my daughter did a whole lot of other things in the classes in which she had disruptive peers than testing. In Social Studies and English we had map drawing, we had coloring projects, we had lots of different reports, we had group projects (read my daughter doing 80% of the work for a group of 5), they wrote and performed plays, they wrote poems, and they did posters.

They only completed two novel length books inside the class for the year in 7th grade (The Outsiders and its sequel). My daughter learned nothing about how to write an essay (I was shocked given how good a student she is). They occasionally stumbled across grammar (but they could not take the books home to study because they only had one copy).

This is a Blue Ribbon school too. The biggest problem is kids who should be taking advantage of a very expensive education but are failing to do so.

Parents have to supplement their children's education. I have a list of essay contests in which I am going to have my daughters enter. I don't care if they win, but they are going to learn how to do the research for and write an essay.

[madfloridian]

11. Well, glad to see you just made a good point for not blaming teachers for everything.

And that's a good thing to see at DU.

In all the years I taught, the very best students were those with active and involved parents who took responsibility for their kids education.

However, it does not negate my concerns about the constant infernal testing and practice testing and more practice testing. Hours of learning involving art, music, reading of literature all gone down the drain for testing.

[LWolf]

20. And...Using test scores

as part of teacher evaluation, and/or as part of a "merit pay" system, as this administration is pushing, pits teachers against each other. Which does absolutely nothing to benefit students.

[alcibiades_mystery]

7. LOL

No shit.

[Fumesucker]

9. The origins of the term Gung Ho are interesting.. and a touch disturbing I think..

http://www.chinapage.com/word/gungho.html

This unofficial motto of the US Marine Corps is an abbreviation for the Mandarin Gongye Hezhoushe, or industrial cooperative. The term was used in China, starting in 1938, to refer to small, industrial operations that were being established in rural China to replace the industrial centers that had been captured by the Japanese. The phrase was clipped to the initial characters of the two words, gung ho (or gung he, as it would be transliterated today), which means "work together." This clipping became a slogan for the industrial cooperative movement.

Enter Lt. Col. Evans Carlson, US Marine Corps. Carlson was a military attache in the US embassy to China in the late-30s. In China, Carlson reported on both the operations of the Chinese army in the field as well as the country's industrial capacity and was favorably impressed by the industrial cooperatives. When he returned to the States and the US entered WWII, Carlson was appointed commander of the 2nd Marine Raider Battalion. Recalling his time in China, Carlson chose gung ho as the motto for his elite battalion and by late 1942 was widely adopted throughout the Marine Corps as an expression of spirit and "can do" attitude.

So the term "Gung Ho" now becomes a slang term meaning "Can Do."

[Skidmore]

10. Well, duh....

[redqueen]

12. Precisely. (nt)

[starroute]

13. I'm not sure memorization is *ever* necessary

The OP says half-apologetically, "Don't get me wrong, memorization is necessary, rote is good to a certain extent." I'm not convinced that is true.

I took a number of foreign languages in college. Typically the first semester would involve a lot of memorization of verb endings and basic vocabulary while the second semester would focus more on reading and comprehension, often of fairly difficult texts.

One year, I took a language course where I memorized like crazy the first semester and got an A -- but the second semester I only got a B. The next year I took a different language -- but I had a heavier workload from other courses so I didn't pace up and down the hallway chanting verb endings as much during the first semester and I only got a C. The second semester, however, I got a B again.

The lesson I took away from this is that memorizing may help you get up to speed a little faster at the start but in the long run it has nothing to do with real learning.

I remember a lot of stuff I learned in school -- but I don't think I remember a damn thing I memorized. So what was the point?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

15. I remember a lot of things I memorized in math class, even though I'm a bit of a math dunce,

and I know about 2,000 kanji, as well as lots of facts about history. (Historical facts need to be learned in context.) I used to know Luther's Small Catechism, but these days I can only get as far as the explanations of the Ten Commandments, although I still remember bits of the explanations of the Lord's Prayer and Apostles' Creed.

My parents' education involved a lot of memorization, and they could recite lengthy poems and speeches from Shakespeare, even decades later.

I think that memorizing literature was a means of language enrichment.

[starroute]

36. Anything you learn in context is not by rote

When I was in high school, I decided I wanted to be able to recite the names and dates of all the US presidents. Since I already knew a lot of them in context, it didn't seem like it would be that hard to memorize the rest -- and it wasn't. On the other hand, I've long forgotten everything I memorized, while I still remember all the parts I'd already known from context.

That is, I can make my way through the 20th century with ease and reel off the first bunch from George Washington to Martin Van Buren. But I couldn't tell you now what Zachary Taylor's dates were if my life depended on it, and I would struggle mightily with Benjamin Harrison and Rutherford B. Hayes.

Learning songs and poetry and Shakespearean soliloquies is something else again, though. You may get the words down originally by repetition, but once you've learned them they seem to click into place on a subconscious level and you've got them for life. It's kind of like riding a bicycle that way.

But even with those, memorization isn't necessarily the best way to learn -- repeated listening is probably far more effective. That's why every one of us walks around with a head full of 1950's advertising jingles, or 1970's cartoon theme songs, or 1990's pop hits that play through compulsively in our heads whenever anything triggers them. It's just how we're wired.

Even when it comes to mathematics, we're likely to remember the times table just because we still use it on a semi-regular basis. But I sure don't remember how to extract a cube root or calculate the volume of a sphere. And facts are even more slippery than procedures -- I'm still good for 3.14159265 and 1.414, but all those other basic irrational numbers have flown.

So I say again that rote memorization is at best an inferior way to accomplish something that could be better achieved through actual learning and at worst an utter waste of time.

[Hardrada]

64. From my Lutheran background, I still recall apposite Bible verses,

some of the Cathechism, and the hymns. You forgot the hymns perhaps. I can still recall and sing lots of hymns I learned through decades of repetition.
Hymns in Norwegian too. And German. I was raised by my grandparents and had perhaps an older school of teachers also so I know a LOT of poetry and will now and then perplex people by rattling through various Odes and Sonnets and patriotic verse and stuff like "Sail on, sail on, O Ship of State/ Sail,on o Union strong and great./Humanity with all its fears, with all its hopes for future years/is hanging breathless on the fate..."

O and Latin: "Psallite Unigenito/Christo Dei Filio/Redemptori Domino/Seid
in Praesepio."

& so on & so on. Yes, we had to memorize.

[madfloridian]

27. There has to be some.

Mostly in the math area. Hard to do advanced math without having multiplication tables memorized.

[PVnRT]

33. Yes, it is

Unless you want to look up everything in a reference book, you need to memorize it. The question lies in how it is done.

There are standard anions and cations in chemistry (CO₃^-1 for carbonate, for example) that, if you don't memorize them, you have very little chance of understandig what is being talked about. Same thing goes for other disciplines.

[Trillo]

65. Interesting observation, I'll take it as face value and presume it's true.

If memory is a pre-requiste for learning, then should schools be creating any experiences in any students that the students may not wish to remember?

It seems there's a very real danger that school itself becomes associated with "learning", as well as with "teachers", so if "school" is overwhelmingly punishing for some, then why should those students and former students remember? To continue the pain of punishment into a life-long process of grief, sort of a life-sentence, so to say?

[HughBeaumont]

14. I like his book "The Homework Myth".

http://www.amazon.com/Homework-Myth-Kids-Much-Thing/dp/0738211117/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251130940&sr=8-7

As a step-parent who had to watch a frustrated son with ADHD put up with hours upon hours of homework and projects every night, I just failed to see the value of the busywork. Schools are corporate farm clubs from the word GO. All it did was make him hate school and hate learning.

[madfloridian]

18. So many parents are impressed by long hours of homework.

You would be surprised how many would come to me saying where is all their homework? This was 2nd grade. I had sent out info on how much time to spend on spelling, math, other things appropriate for that grade. It was not a long time at all.

But they had heard how a private religious school here demanded that students and parents do 4 hours of homework every night...and it impressed them.

The paper featured that school, and it made many parents feel that was the only way to learn. They did not care that the school's achievement was academically inferior to the public school system, nor did they care that many teachers were not certified.

The word private made them think it was better, and nothing we said mattered much.

It's the result of decades of denigrating teachers. The propaganda worked well.

[HughBeaumont]

41. Lengthy homework times would actually make me skeptical of the school, not attracted to it.

It seems to say more about the quality of the teacher and the cirriculum in terms of how well their kid learns in class. I'm not saying all homework is unnecessary, but not when it's turning your kid's schooling into a day and night affair.

When parents have to help with miles of homework, it creates a frustrated and angry relationship between the two parties. It also takes away from constructive time spent with the child.

It also makes me wonder if these parents that laud long homework times are the kind that pretty much want their children to be occupied and stay out of their way after work.

[Mariana]

54. We gave my stepdaughter permission to blow off homework

if it was just busywork assigned for the purpose of eating up her free time. If it was material she hadn't mastered yet, or if it counted heavily toward her grade, she did it. Screw the rest. She was getting physically ill from the stress and lack of sleep. And she was a good student with no disabilities. I don't even want to think about what a kid with something like ADHD or a slower learner went through.

We only cared that she passed her classes and that she actually learned the material. Her grades took a hit but it didn't matter. She got her bachelor's in 3 1/2 years and is an RN now.

[Romulox]

16. What can a bankrupt society teach its kids? How to replicate failure.

They do an excellent job at that!

[Jakes Progress]

17. I always think of barbara bush

when this come up. She is the prefect example of the neocon elite. Inherited money and position. Lots of smile and grandmotherly hair for the public, but just try to do anything that would make here spawn have to work on a level playing field and she will eat you alive. She has the scariest eyes I have ever seen. They make cheney's eyes look angelic.

The point of the education that the corporate elite want your children to have is that they don't want your children to challenge their children's natural inheritance of the country's wealth. No independent thought. No creative process. And certainly no clear view of history. They want good worker drones who can do math and read instructions. Read instructions but not construct meaning and connections. You know sort of what you see on the big ticket tests.

Every parent with a bumper sticker that praises his or her child's school for "Academic Achievement" based on test scores might just as well grind up their children to feed the corporate mill. They have bought into and aid the enslavement of our children and grandchildren.

[seafan]

21. Remember Barbara Bush's Katrina donations steered specifically to son Neil's educational software

So we will never forget...



The Bush Family 'Reading First' Scam-- George, Jeb, Neil and Ma Bush



Isn't it *funny* how this whole family concern themselves with *literacy*?

"The illiteracy level of our children are appalling."--- George W. Bush

"Rarely is the question asked: is our children learning?"--- George W. Bush

"One of the great things about books is sometimes there are some fantastic pictures."--- George W. Bush

LINK

September 11, 2001

"Why should we hear about body bags and deaths," Barbara Bush said on ABC's "Good Morning America" on March 18, 2003. "Oh, I mean, it's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?"

We have long been scammed by this family and their ancestors.

[LWolf]

19. Alfie Kohn is correct, of course.

It's too bad Obama didn't choose him to be Secretary of Ed. Then we know we'd get a system that fully supported students, teachers, and learning.

All of the authoritarian regimentation, threats, bullying, bribes, and punishments work, not only to reinforce the public misconceptions, but to drive out higher-level thinking. To create a large force of low-level, low-pay workers and a larger force of voters who don't think independently, but who wait to be told how to vote, and then do so obediently.

If we want to change that-if we want a system that creates independent thinkers, learners, and choice makers, then we are going to have to wrest control of the system away from the business model.

[madfloridian]

22. A few years before I retired...we started to have weird in-service meetings.

Well, weirder than usual. These would start with a business leader from the community being in charge. There would be chants, slogans, and we would have to do rah rah kind of chanting. It drove us nuts, it was stupid, and they did not last long.

They just substituted stupid for weird....and we would have meetings where they would give out long long sheets and pages of info. Instead of letting us read it they read it to us and then adjourned the meetings.

There ceased to be much real input from us several years ago. Even if they divided us into the popular groups and subgroups...they told us what to talk about and how to approach it.

They forgot all about the children years ago...they forgot about real education.

[LWolf]

44. I've been in meetings like those.

There is nothing more frustrating for a room full of teachers than to be kept from the ever-present mountain of duties so that they can sit and listen to someone read mostly irrelevant information that they've already got a copy of.

[The2ndWheel]

29. Odd choice of words

"If we want to change that-if we want a system that creates independent thinkers, learners, and choice makers, then we are going to have to wrest control of the system away from the business model."

A system? The system? Right off the bat, there is no choice to be made by those who you will be teaching how to choose.

Create independent thinkers? Systematically?

Then you also want control of that single system.

It's also interesting the way we refer to ourselves as products of the school system, and not in a disparaging way.

[LWolf]

42. Systems don't have to be one-size-fits-all.

And yes, public education in the U.S. is a whole web of different systems.

Some are necessary. Some are corrupt. Some are dysfunctional. But anything you replace them with...will still be systems.

And there is abundance of choice available in a good public education system.

A system has parts that work together to create a whole.

Not every part has to be the same for every state, district, school, grade level, or classroom. All the parts just have to work together effectively.

Choosing which parts, and how they will fit together, is part of what educators do.

It's also part of what learners do.

And there is certainly no barrier to creating independent thinkers in an education system, unless the system is deliberately constructed to prevent independent thinking. Which the current system is.

You seem to understand the term "system" differently, and in a more limited way, than I do.

[waiting for hope]

46. +1 - nice rebuttal.

[The2ndWheel]

61. Yeah, we're looking at the same system two different ways

We're not effectively working together.

[CubicleGuy]

23. Do a web search for...

"The Theory of Education in the United States" by Albert Jay Nock.

He knew, in 1931, that education in the US had already ceased to exist by that point in time. We have substituted "training" for "education".

The purpose of education is to teach people to think. We have very little use for thinkers today. What we want, what the economic conditions dictate, is that we raise up workers who know how to follow directions.

Insofar as the education system of today accomplishes this goal, then we can say that the education system is a resounding success.

[elleng]

24. Linda Darling-Hammond SHOULD be Ed. Secy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_Darling-Hammond

[hobbit709]

25. The corporations want good little worker drones.

They want them to be able to read, write and count on a good enough level to follow instructions.
They DO NOT want any critical thinking skills because a thinking serf is an uppity serf.
They certainly don't want them to know anything about the history and government structure as devised by the founding fathers because then they might realize that the owner class is screwing them over royal.

I saw this coming years ago and I got into trouble more than once in high school because I questioned something-this was in 1968.

As I tell people,"I come from a long line of surly peasants"

[Manifestor_of_Light]

39. Hey Hobbit!

SERFS UP!

[pattmarty]

26. I have always been of the opinion that from the earliest when I was........

.......in grade school (in the mid 50's) that the schooling (and, by the way, I was in a "catholic" grade school, at the time considered better than public schools) for the majority of the kids was intended to give you the "3 r's" which with a dollar will get you a job at a fast food place or a service place such as Home Depot, Best Buy etc. This is not new. What is new is where it is absolutely the minimum today For example, when I was in grade school (from 52-60) I learned spelling and geography. Look at a lot of website boards and you will see how really bad the spelling has become. The same for geography, most people don't know their states capitol and can't find MAJOR countries on a fucking map. Folks, our education system (if you can even call it that anymore) is in the shitter and a fucking clown like Arne Duncan ain't gonna fix it.

[TygrBright]

28. This is not new, although it may be 'news' to many.

A substantial share of the rationale for public schooling has always rested on the idea of creating a functional work force.

There has historically been an ideological struggle at the heart of the public education movement, between those who believe in "educating citizens" and those who believe in "educating workers."

The compromise was to create an education system that attempted both, by offering both "The Three Rs" (basic skills that make a worker useful,) and the dreaded "Liberal Arts" studies of history, art, civics, social studies, etc. (skills that enable critical thinking and independent decision making.)

Ever since, those who believed that any education other than "functional skills" like reading, math, etc., was frivolous or worse, dangerous, have been trying to sabotage the public education system in an effort to get it to fail, so that it can be reconstituted as a factory turning out minimally-skilled, compliant laborers. Their methods have included (just in my lifetime) starving the system of funds, driving dedicated teachers and administrators out altogether, instigating parents to make conflicting, unrealistic, and counter-productive demands, insinuating themselves into the classroom by 'philanthropically' providing materials and equipment, and now creating the whole testing frenzy.

They have come alarmingly close to success, but fortunately so far a higher education system that continues to turn out a high percentage of dedicated, passionate, idealistic teachers has been an effective speed bump.

But only, alas, a speed bump. Until we heal many elements of our sick society, and re-prioritize the education of our children at the level it belongs, the system will limp along on life support.

sadly,
Bright

[bridgit]

30. Education needs to start teaching to the strengths and talents of students...

Need to layout your design or idea that you will have one day? Teach/Learn drafting or rendering. Like numbers? Teach/Learn to stack them. Like people? Teach/Learn compassion in civil governance. Like music? Teach/Learn music, etc, or, or...haven't American oligarchs and the top 1% already determined that this is way smarter than we will need to be in "a competitive global economy" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5REkqDUX-wo&feature=PlayList&p=F08A5B37863BF1F8&index=11&playnext=8&playnext_from=PL

http://www.whywaldorfworks.org/08_TeacherPrep/index.asp

[PVnRT]

34. That would be great, if class sizes weren't 30+

[supernova]

31. That has always been the goal of american education

It's to churn out good little obedient factory drones. Think about it. The regimented hours, so much time on language, so much time on math, so much time on history.

The goal of our educational system has always been to condition people to accept monotonous busywork, not teach us to think and act creatively.

[GreenPartyVoter]

32. My dad has been saying that for that last 20 odd years. He was on the school boards when I

was a kid and my mom was a teacher in another town.

[Orsino]

35. Public education run by conservatives quickly turns into daycare...

...and sucky daycare at that. Many educators try valiantly to make it something better, but the funding isn't there.

[AngryAmish]

37. What is wrong with trying to make everyone hireable?

As the old saying goes half of the people have IQs below 100. These folks are not going to become your doctors, engineers or statisticians. They need to live useful lives. If they are not educated to a minimum standard then no employer will want them - period.

Do we want a permanent underclass that not only has trouble with higher level reasoning but do not know enough of the basics to write a sentance, read a book or do simple math? That is cruel. And what are we to do with them?

Many of the jobs that used to be manual labor are going away and being replaced by robots. Hell, by the time I die there will be very few airline pilots since robots are doing most of that job already. Truck drivers also.

So we can argue about the ways to get there. I happen to think the 3 Rs are useful. But I may be wrong and am amenable to being proven wrong. The social justice model of schooling is indeed a cruel joke being played on our children.

Finally, I went to a pretty good school and know people who did go to the best schools. Do you think the rich kids are taught anything but how to take the tests well? Learning how to test is very important.

[madfloridian]

38. Since that is not what I said....there is no way to answer you.

Like apples and oranges.

[Mithreal]

51. "useful lives"? Every person needs to be given opportunities

and support to be as successful as he or she can be.

Those folks with lower than average IQs as you say have more potential than you suggest.

[pattmarty]

60. Easy. Make it mandatory for K-16 education in this country...................

..............AND, if someone does not want to go the extra 4 yrs to a "college", then they could go to a "trade" school. We should be looking at what is working in the rest of the world and using what is and discarding what doesn't (kinda like healthcare). It ain't brain surgery, it's an easy fix, it just takes the money and more importantly the "guts".

[SoCalDem]

40. Remember the old metal ice cube trays?

A high school teacher I had in high school used to explain public education to us with it..

He had it on his desk, with an orange, a lemon, an apple, a pear etc.. a fruit for each "cube slot"..

then he asked students to come up and push a fruit into a slot.. Of course we all laughed and a few actually came to the desk & "tried"

Then he put a blender on the desk, plugged it in, and put a piece of fruit into it and poured the fruit into the slot..

lightbulb!

[Mariana]

55. OMG, that's brilliant. nt.

[Solly Mack]

43. (duh)

K&R

[waiting for hope]

47. Happy to K&R -

:applause:

[roody]

48. The drive for data is to feed the corporations what little

money there is for schools.

[teacher gal]

49. K&R n/t

[amborin]

52. DUH! Everything is! Being on time, discipline, regimentation, etc...n/t

[Odin2005]

53. Public education was always for making nationalistic corporate cogs.

[sabrina 1]

56. When I have more time, I would like to write

more about this as this is my field and I completely agree with the OP that schools are preparing children to be good employees, preferably people who are good at following directions, but not so good at thinking for themselves.

In poor areas also, they are brought to prisons on field trips, as the thinking is they will either end up there anyhow, or will make great prison guards. Our economy is based more and more on military and law enforcement so we have to find fodder for the system and staff to keep it running. No private school student paying big fees is ever taken to a prison on a field trip. Keep them in their place, seems to be the motto. Instead of giving them the tools to rise above poverty and reach their potential whatever it may be.

Just wanted to mention, and I don't have time to look for the info right now, but NCLB was written by businessmen, not be educators.

A lot of scandal involving that program, and no surprise, the Bush family.

[madfloridian]

57. When you write it, PM me the link.

:hi:

[sabrina 1]

58. I will, thanks for asking

I always make sure to read your posts when I see them as they are always thought provoking and well researched ~ :-)

[rucognizant]

59. Me too.no time now, lots to say!

I'll leave you this one item.
Arne Duncan's Asst. Dir . of Ed. is Glenn Cummings........former Speaker of the Maine House (D). I'll put a lot of money on HIM to win, place show!
I heard him speak at a 2 day conference re; How to stimulate ( Juice up ) the Arts as income driver, in sparcley populated, but higher % of creative people, in Downeast Maine. Traditionally all assistance has gone to Southern Me Portland "Art Destination" where the Artist is forced by zoning to pay EXTRA for studio rental because of the zoning restrictions. ( No cheap loft spaces like NY Phila.!)
Since that conference I have received a grant from the Me. Arts Commission & am being encouraged by them to encourage other artists to apply!
If National Ed doesn't change for the better under Duncan...I predict Mr. Commings will step down "to spend more time with his family"
The man is a flaming liberal!

[OneGrassRoot]

62. I'd appreciate it as well. Thanks. :) n/t

[sabrina 1]

63. I will, thank you, probably I'll have time

tomorrow or Friday, have to go back and find the info again :-) Bookmarking this thread