Marion Brady excellent piece on modern education: Eight Problems With Common Core State Standards

[geefloyd46]

An illustration: As I write, my wife is in the kitchen. She calls me for lunch. The small television
suspended under the kitchen cabinets is tuned to CNN, and Time cover girl Michelle Rhee is
being interviewed.

“On international tests,” she says, “the U.S. ranks 27th from the top.”

Michelle Rhee, three-year teacher, education reactionary, mainstream media star, fired
authoritarian head of a school system being investigated for cheating on standardized tests, is
given a national platform to misinform. She doesn’t explain that, at the insistence of
policymakers, and unlike other countries, America tests every kid — the mentally disabled, the
sick, the hungry, the homeless, the transient, the troubled, those for whom English is a second
language. That done, the scores are lumped together. She doesn’t even hint that when the scores
of the disadvantaged aren’t counted, American students are at the top.

If Michelle Rhee doesn’t know that, she shouldn’t be on CNN. If she knows it but fails to point it
out, she shouldn’t be on CNN.

It’s hard not to compare Rhee with Jennifer, a friend of my oldest son. He wrote me recently:

...But I know it’s much more than that. Her sister was down from Ohio for Jenn’s birthday,
and when she asked her what she wanted, Jenn said she needed 18 sets of colored
pencils, 18 boxes of #2 pencils, 18 boxes of crayons, construction paper, name tags and
so on — $346 dollars total.

She’s been doing this for 25 years. I’m sure she makes less than I do, but they could
probably cut her salary 25 or 30% and she’d still want to get into her room early.”

Rhee gets $50,000 a pop plus first-class travel and accommodations for putting in an appearance
to tell her audiences what’s wrong with the Jennifers in America’s schools, and what clubs
should be swung or held over their heads to scare them into shaping up.

Future historians (if there are any) are going to shake their heads in disbelief. They’ll wonder
how, in a single generation, the world’s oldest democracy dismantled its engine — free, public,
locally controlled, democratic education.

If they dig into the secretive process that produced the Common Core State Standards, most of
their questions will be answered.

Fuller Story: http://laborspains.blogspot.com/2012/08/marion-brady-excellent-piece-on-modern.html

Originally Posted: http://www.marionbrady.com/articles/2012-WashingtonPost8-13.pdf

[zazen]

1. kavetching about education is great excuse for expensive retreats & receptions

for execs, non profit leaders, university admins, and politicians to consort with each other.

They've been producing the same damned crisis reports for 30 years, only now they're more neoliberal. And the consultants are paid gobs of money to reinvent the wheel. I've been at many of those functions. They RARELY invite a real classroom teacher to the fancy schmancy parties. Teachers are too exhausted at 5 PM (or still working or have kids to attend to) and wouldn't have the wardrobe for it anyway.

Note, they don't get together to collectively bitch about how physicians fail to meet common health standards in their patients. _That_ population might start complaining about being treated like unruly children. So much easier to bitch about "education."