"American education is going to be reformed until it rolls over and begs for mercy."Thus began Gail Collins' amusing and ultimately horrifying column on the state of our public education in the 5/11/11 New York Times. As a proud product of public schools, the great niece of an educator, and the sibling of a public high school teacher, I'm enraged. I'm tired of teacher and union bashing, of the disdain of the Very Serious People (as Digby and Krugman call them) in politics and the media towards public education, including the Times. (I guess they still aren't over those scorching negotiations with their unions all those years ago.) I'm enraged that so much of education is about teaching to the test or not offending special interests, from minorities (see the revised Huckleberry Finn replacing all references to the "n word" with "slave") to Bible thumpers (no, creationism is not a theory equal to evolution.)
Just like all those conservatives who hate government but want to control it (can you say feeding at the public trough and sharing the oats with your rich BFFs), it's amazing how many people who know little about public education—whether it's never having taught or never having attended public school—believe they have the solution: privatization via charter schools. Bullpucky. No Child Left Behind, vouchers, charters—they are all designed to destroy public education and dumb down children, who will be the next generation of voters (if they bother to register when they turn eighteen, that is). Movies like the highly hyped Waiting for Superman tell only part of the story—the part meant to get your blood boiling at all those lazy, privileged dumb teachers who hide behind their unions to keep their jobs.
Education is in trouble, no doubt about it. I've seen the difference between what I learned and was required to do in school and what has passed for education for my stepdaughter, a senior at one of the city's three elite public schools. I've listened to the complaints of my brother and his colleagues, and watched as their hands have been increasingly tied when it comes to the classroom. I blame the changes in our culture, combined with the traditional anti-intellectualism inherent in our national character. And I blame those who hate anything public and those who want privatization for profit for fostering common mistrust and hatred of teachers, one of the last bastions of strong unionism left.
Diane Ravitch, a former assistant secretary of education, was an early proponent of standards and a leading voice in the reform movement. In her must-read book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System, she repudiates her former beliefs and explains why the latest reform craze is bad for public education, bad for students and teachers, and bad for the future of our democracy. She takes on NCLB, privatization, overtesting and the notions of tying teacher performance and pay to test results, the philosophy behind the latest "reforms," and the the billionaires funding it. She doesn't forget the media sycophants eager to bash teachers and the current state without looking deeper into the issues, and especially into the motives of all those rich saviors and the results of their beneficence.
It frightens me to watch states like Florida, Idaho, and others determined to push teachers out of the classroom and replace them with computer screens. Sorry, but you can't get the same kind of knowledge exchange that happens between a flesh and blood adult and a student. A computer screen and a dumbed down course isn't quite the spark to ignite latent curiosity. It just makes money for the people who create the online courses. And don't even get me started on cheating. Rampant enough among students with live teachers, it can only be easier when there is little to ensure that work was actually done by the student.
And then there are those farsighted legislators in place like Texas, who don't think all children should be educated or don't believe that teachers need any experience to teach, or the new Tea Party governor in Maine who wants to keep wages low by decreasing the minimum wage for teenagers and removing the limits on the number of hours they can work each week. When you've worked 40 hours a week, how can you possibly care enough to stay awake in class. But this is America! Of course for-profit can do it better! They have no other incentive besides the best interests of children, right? If you believe that, I've got a bridge to sell to you.
The goal is to keep people people ignorant and economically frightened. If you don't know, you can't fight back, and it's easy to confuse with lies that tap into base fear. Democracy depends on an educated citizenry. But then who wants democracy anyway?
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