Chris Hedges: Why the United States Is Destroying Its Education System

[marmar]

from truthdig:




Why the United States Is Destroying Its Education System

Posted on Apr 10, 2011
By Chris Hedges


A nation that destroys its systems of education, degrades its public information, guts its public libraries and turns its airwaves into vehicles for cheap, mindless amusement becomes deaf, dumb and blind. It prizes test scores above critical thinking and literacy. It celebrates rote vocational training and the singular, amoral skill of making money. It churns out stunted human products, lacking the capacity and vocabulary to challenge the assumptions and structures of the corporate state. It funnels them into a caste system of drones and systems managers. It transforms a democratic state into a feudal system of corporate masters and serfs.

Teachers, their unions under attack, are becoming as replaceable as minimum-wage employees at Burger King. We spurn real teachers—those with the capacity to inspire children to think, those who help the young discover their gifts and potential—and replace them with instructors who teach to narrow, standardized tests. These instructors obey. They teach children to obey. And that is the point. The No Child Left Behind program, modeled on the “Texas Miracle,” is a fraud. It worked no better than our deregulated financial system. But when you shut out debate these dead ideas are self-perpetuating.

Passing bubble tests celebrates and rewards a peculiar form of analytical intelligence. This kind of intelligence is prized by money managers and corporations. They don’t want employees to ask uncomfortable questions or examine existing structures and assumptions. They want them to serve the system. These tests produce men and women who are just literate and numerate enough to perform basic functions and service jobs. The tests elevate those with the financial means to prepare for them. They reward those who obey the rules, memorize the formulas and pay deference to authority. Rebels, artists, independent thinkers, eccentrics and iconoclasts—those who march to the beat of their own drum—are weeded out.

“Imagine,” said a public school teacher in New York City, who asked that I not use his name, “going to work each day knowing a great deal of what you are doing is fraudulent, knowing in no way are you preparing your students for life in an ever more brutal world, knowing that if you don’t continue along your scripted test prep course and indeed get better at it you will be out of a job. Up until very recently, the principal of a school was something like the conductor of an orchestra: a person who had deep experience and knowledge of the part and place of every member and every instrument. In the past 10 years we’ve had the emergence of both Mike Bloomberg’s Leadership Academy and Eli Broad’s Superintendents Academy, both created exclusively to produce instant principals and superintendents who model themselves after CEOs. How is this kind of thing even legal? How are such ‘academies’ accredited? What quality of leader needs a ‘leadership academy’? What kind of society would allow such people to run their children’s schools? The high-stakes tests may be worthless as pedagogy but they are a brilliant mechanism for undermining the school systems, instilling fear and creating a rationale for corporate takeover. There is something grotesque about the fact the education reform is being led not by educators but by financers and speculators and billionaires.” ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/why_the_united_states_is_destroying_her_education_system_20110410/

[Little Star]

1. The USA is a very sick country. The people better....

wake up fast before it is to late to turn this ship around for future generations!

But, another thought keeps nagging my mind. It's not just this country who is in trouble, it's the whole world. They greedy are out of control.

[TBF]

19. That is what happens when the world adopts a system like capitalism -

which only rewards greed. You will get the behavior you reward - that is basic Pavlovian theory.

[Little Star]

20. amen!

[Little Star]

21. Yep! but it is what it i!

[goobergoober01]

34. arf!!! no gimmee another cookie!!!!

[Grinchie]

67. Not Capitalism, but Fascism

AKA My Way or the Highway, or "Not Invented Here" (NIH) Syndrome.

The fact is that standardized tests disavow independant thought by definition, and only those lucky enoungh to be culled from the meatgrinder into better spheres will make it out of the system.

The current system is designed to produced drones that will without fail perform their duties without ever considering that what they do is ridicululous or unnecessary, or brutal. They are unable to see it themselves.

When not given any direction, these drones are empowered to do whatever the fuck they want, because they were able to pass a standardized test and earn a minimum wage. Nobody else matters.

The Corporations have made their move on education, and it is up to us to refuse to participate in the system if we choose not to. We really do have a choice to not subject our kids to this, and it's called home schooling. It works, otherwise the PTB would not despise Home Schooling as much as they do.

I've made a career out of asking the realling fucking hard questions and making people uncomfortable, but it's not out of malice, it's just because I want to know the truth, and sometimes it requires unpleasantlty blunt honesty and persistance. In my experience, it is not harmful in the long run, and you end up with better acqauinatances who come to grips with reality

[xxqqqzme]

71. We home schooled

both our kids in the late 70s & very early 80s, up to about 5th grade. They had a very solid beginning. It presented some problems when they entered the school system because they were so far ahead of their peers in reading & math skills, according to standardized test scores. We have talked about the experience and in retrospect, neither one is sorry. Because I was involved in their early education, I became their advocate once they entered public schools. It took dedication and focus on our parts as parents but hey, we're talking about education.

My daughter is an early childhood educator. She delights in seeing the spark of learning ignite in 'her kids'. My son is a passionate liberal. He has begun his educational journey w/ his son.

[ladjf]

25. A global epidemic of narcissism. nt

[liberal N proud]

2. “It is better to be at odds with the whole world than, being one, to be at odds with myself,”

Socrates from the article

But this paragraph gives why they do not want educated people...

The truly educated become conscious. They become self-aware. They do not lie to themselves. They do not pretend that fraud is moral or that corporate greed is good. They do not claim that the demands of the marketplace can morally justify the hunger of children or denial of medical care to the sick. They do not throw 6 million families from their homes as the cost of doing business. Thought is a dialogue with one’s inner self. Those who think ask questions, questions those in authority do not want asked. They remember who we are, where we come from and where we should go. They remain eternally skeptical and distrustful of power. And they know that this moral independence is the only protection from the radical evil that results from collective unconsciousness. The capacity to think is the only bulwark against any centralized authority that seeks to impose mindless obedience. There is a huge difference, as Socrates understood, between teaching people what to think and teaching them how to think. Those who are endowed with a moral conscience refuse to commit crimes, even those sanctioned by the corporate state, because they do not in the end want to live with criminals—themselves.

[Little Star]

22. I will always be true to my principles! To bad many others are just followers..

[barbtries]

37. that's a great paragraph

going to share this.

[BobbyBoring]

41. How to think vs what to think

That's the key. All right wingers and some leftys are told what to think. On the right, you have the Hannitty parrots and the ditto heads spewing the bullshit they heard yesterday and considering it fact. We have Dems that defend anything Obama does, right or wrong. There is a right and wrong PERIOD. I think most of us on this side know the difference but party loyalty makes some blind to simple right or wrong.

The others just don't know the fucking difference~

[skepticscott]

49. We only need to ask ourselves

What group that has any influence in this country stands to benefit from a more highly educated populace? to understand why our education system is being flushed down the toilet.

[scarletwoman]

59. +1,000! Excellent post!

[Lefta Dissenter]

3. just what I said a few minutes ago on a thread about PBS

Keep them uneducated - they're more compliant, they're more obedient, they won't value themselves, they'll work for nothing and won't question their working conditions, they won't challenge authority, and they'll vote republican.

[russspeakeasy]

53. Sadly, you are correct.

[Marblehead]

4. Capitalism is rotten

There has to be a better way.

[leveymg]

5. Capitalism in crisis destroys everything of value and creates political poison. Look at the 1930s.

It's happening again.

[RC]

6. Chris Hedges pretty well nails the problem.

I hit 'Print' and saved to a PDF fro future reference.

[snot]

7. K&R'd

[dkf]

8. We have always been taught to the test.

I have no idea where people get this idea that we've been taught how to critically analyze or be creative.

[disillusioned73]

12. Well, when teachers are saying things like this...

“I cannot say for certain—not with the certainty of a Bill Gates or a Mike Bloomberg who pontificate with utter certainty over a field in which they know absolutely nothing—but more and more I suspect that a major goal of the reform campaign is to make the work of a teacher so degrading and insulting that the dignified and the truly educated teachers will simply leave while they still retain a modicum of self-respect,”


I would start listening to this "teach to the test" arguement.. JMO

[bemildred]

17. We have always had tests, we have not always taught to the test.

When I was in school, tests were used to measure learning of subject matter. Now the test is the subject matter, it represents a serious dumbing down.

[bbgrunt]

44. there have always been tests, but those tests

generated by the teacher are quite different than tests generated by an outside authority.

[TBF]

27. Re-writing history - why am I not surprised?

I don't know where you went to school, but I went to public schools in Wisconsin. We were most definitely taught to analyze, and many of our tests were essays in which we were expected to do just that.

We had the Iowa tests once a year to see where we were compared to other kids - but it's not like teacher's salaries (or continued employment) was tied to the scores.

All of this "education reform" has these goals: Dumb down the populace so they are ok with fighting wars and being drones in corporations.

We are becoming a third world country, and you are the type of person leading the way.

[chervilant]

48. I was not

'taught to the test.' And, to this day, I can tell when someone bears the psychic wound of being told they are of 'average or below average' intelligence, because they attack mine.

[rucognizant]

70. Not in my hometown!

Biggest CEO, Charles Seabrook was a Quaker. His Seabrook Farms was the biggest food producer during WWII. He actually funded & built a highway to get his vegetable to Campbells Soup 50 miles away...........and later gifted it to the Government. It is RT#77 in South Jersey!
What CEO does things like that today? When the German Prisoners of War were sent back home in 1945,6 he hired Interred Japanese families from California, refuges from Eastern Europe, their kids, which set the bar high for grades in HS because it was up to them to rebuild the family fortunes, stability. The school administration/board was liberal. I was an underachiever/bright student. They let me chose my course of study, according to my interests.........Latin I II III instead of chemistry & physics. Didn't pump me full of Ritalin....... ( I am a critical thinker, so I have & am, learning these things later in life as needed!)
My Grandson is like me, and I am supporting him through the pain of attempts to wedge him into too tight box. His Mother defended against a panel of 5 or 6 school "experts" and flatly refused the Ritalin!!
I am looking forward to my 55th HS reunion, to re-meet some of these critical thinkers in today's confused RW befuddled population.

[Enthusiast]

9. Why is the establishment,

including Democrats, pretending that No Child Left Behind is effective. Obama just praised Jeb Bush for his contributions to education. What is going on in this nation? There is more here than meets the eye. I think we need to DUMP Obama.

[Doctor_J]

28. He is also a fan of Arne Duncan and Michelle Rhee

two sworn enemies of public education. I think we need to face the fact that he's not who we thought he was.

[indepat]

10. And it is so easy to rig test scores to show what is wanted rather than what is

reality. :patriot:

[txlibdem]

23. Sort of like how the entire football team gets straight A's?

That's how it was at my high school. But when you speak to any of them you soon realize that they can't even string a coherent sentence together. Perhaps they only knew who to bully into doing their homework but how, then, did they get A's on all the tests??? I learned then that school administrators could not be trusted with the future of our education.

PS, this was in the 1970s in a 99.5% white school. Our valedictorian was the only African American in my grade level at that school, he did not do any sports and went on to a full scholarship at the state university.

[KoKo]

11. K&R....He nails it.. There's dangerous stuff being done all over the country

..privatizing schools for corporations to reap the benefits. Hiring outside companies to go over test scores to look for cheating (DU's MadFloridian has Journal here about that) ....here in my state we are re-segregating schools and just hired a former Military General with no educational training except a year in DC Schools to supervise (privatize) our whole system. And, our state "was" one of the more Progressive of the Southern States. There is "push back" but the corporatists have the upper hand along with the John Birchers, Chamber of Commerce and Right Wing Fundamentalist Churches and the Big Money Interests.

[formercia]

13. Making the US worker competitive with cheap foreign labor.

Not that the Oligarchs want to bring jobs back to the US. They just want to make sure that the cheap Chinese and other low paid workers have no margin to aspire to. Pit us against each other. Next step is to get us killing each other for the jobs that do exist once the factories are automated.
I have worked in that environment, where the only advantage we had was productivity. We had to bid against plants in China, Viet Nam and elsewhere for the work. Even though we all worked for the same corporation, the various plants had to bid against each other for every contract. All parts and supplies came from a central facility. Th only margin was what the management could squeeze out of the workers and plant overhead.

The future is now. All they need now are a lot of proles that have nowhere else to go, and a few well educated specialists and managers to keep them pointed in the right direction.

Getting rid of unions and well-educated working class types is the first priority.

It's going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

[Demeter]

14. But Everyone Else Is Getting Better Education Now

at the very least in maths and sciences.

And strength in the maths and sciences, being reality-based, leads to truths in other areas: economics, politics, history, government, etc.

The Powers that Be have cannot have it both ways. There are few natural idiots-savant in the world. Either we have technology, and people who can cope with it, or serfs grubbing in the muck dying of curable diseases and starvation. And there's no protection from that for the Rich.

Their gated communities will not protect them. Their money will not protect them. Their armies will desert, their children rebel, and their empires crumble.

[Doctor_J]

29. I couldn't disagree more

Their gated communities will not protect them. Their money will not protect them. Their armies will desert, their children rebel, and their empires crumble

As long as Fox Lies and Hate Radio are on the air, they are safe - the ignorant teabaggers will form the shock troops to keep their gated communities safe. Seriously, it's gotten this bad with no pushback, why are you optimistic that we'll fight back at some point?

[Demeter]

38. Technology of this magnitude is a product of infrastructure

Without the human capital, it fails utterly, in less than a generation.

And then the Obscenely wealthy can't get their healthcare, their luxuries, their electricity, their wars, their paper profits.

Without public health and welfare, there is no human capital, therefore, no technology. Technology cannot exist in a vacuum.

So if they want to go back to subsistence farming, local famines and widespread contaigion, they are on the right track.

[MedicalAdmin]

73. They still have that. They don't need most folks for that.

They'll pick and choose and give the best and brightest, as long as they keep their mouths shut, a decent life. Everyone else can wallow in the shit.

As for the maths and sciences being reality based, that is true, at least of the disciplines, but I know too many pig blind engineers and academic thinking scientists to have much hope. Their livelihood depends on ignoring reality and certain data and so they do witha tenacity a barnacle would envy.

[formercia]

43. I used to put down Social Sciences.

I was a Chem/Forensic Science major. All I was interested in was my major studies. I realize now that courses in ethics, Philosophy, Languages and others are really part and parcel to producing a well-rounded graduate, unless all the corporations want are amoral Technocrats to do their bidding.
I do agree your point:"strength in the maths and sciences, being reality-based, leads to truths in other areas: economics, politics, history, government, etc."

[Gravel Democrat]

15. ^^^ "They teach children to obey. And that is the point."

"Democrats don't mind war as long as they can have big government.
Republicans don't mind big government as long as they can have war."


"It's bad sir, real bad out there..."

[dgibby]

16. The PTB:

Keeping us down, dumb, and divided, and if the fundies have their way, barefoot and pregnant.

[subterranean]

18. This sounds a lot like what George Carlin said about education.

The owners of this country don't want critical thinkers. They want obedient workers.

Video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q&feature=channel_video_title

[2banon]

74. George Carlin ahead of his time..

RIP.. thanks for the reminder.. :hi:

[txlibdem]

24. These instructors obey. They teach children to obey.

Perfect commentary on our so-called education system. Schools are now nothing but obedience factories, churning out mindless cogs to fit into the great machine. And like any cog in the machine, when it slows down (becomes ill or old) or questions it's situation it is immediately tossed out and is replaced with a cog that will shut their mouth and work, work, work. Some cogs will be used as overseers to keep all the other cogs in line, but they too will be tossed out when their usefulness to the power structure comes into question.

That is the future the power elite wants for your children. If you do not agree with this then you should be questioning the validity of our political system.

[raccoon]

26. Schools have always been about teaching kids to obey. They train people to be docile little workers

I do think all this testing and teachers being judged by their students' scores is ridiculous.

[txlibdem]

31. Contrary to their stated purpose.

I agree that the testing we're doing now is not helping kids learn. I've posted a number of times that we need to toss out the current education model and redesign schooling (notice I didn't say "schools") so that each student learns at their own pace and is responsible for their own individual progress at every step of the way.

There have to be tests, but not ones that take up all a students time to prepare for. There should be a test at each subject milestone and those concepts should be retested periodically to ensure that they have "stuck" in the kids' minds. And the tests should be geared more toward application of the knowledge learned in the lessons, not just memorizing dates, facts, and figures. Tests should assess a student's critical thinking skills more than anything else.

[elmerdem]

30. Player Piano anyone? nt

[abelenkpe]

40. Love that book

required reading given todays circumstances really.

[BobbyBoring]

42. I think all Vonnegut is required reading today!

Long live Killgore Trout!

[xocet]

32. FYI: Plato's Gorgias 482-483

"Socrates '...And yet, my friend, I would rather that my lyre should be inharmonious, and that there should be no music in the chorus which I provided; aye, or that the whole world should be at odds with me, and oppose me, rather than that I myself should be at odds with myself, and contradict myself.' "

Excerpted from Gorgias 482-483, Plato (translation Benjamin Jowett (1871))

(see http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Gorgias)

[DeSwiss]

33. K&R

http://www.kickthemallout.com/">Kick Them All OUT!

- As Ripley said, "It's the only way to be sure....."

[katty]

35. as usual Chris you're spot on...next they require students

to have a lobotomy.

[Metta]

36. Exactly right. Serfs and cannon fodder.

Kudos to you, Chris. This has been overdue to be said on a national level.

[swilton]

39. Sounds like

the education institutions in this country are becoming like the military intelligence institutions - total compartmentalization....initiative and imagination are stifled or weeded out...no thinking allowed!

[proud2BlibKansan]

45. Marking to read later

Thanks marmar!

[cayanne]

46. NCLB did work

It made millions for Neil Bush.

[drokhole]

47. Outstanding! If I may add two great complimentary pieces to this article...

Here's a fantastic (and entertaining/engaging) video that lays out the problem rather plainly:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U


And an article, from 1969 but incredibly timely, from the point of view of an educator that really cuts to the heart of the matter (though the title may be off-putting to some, it's meant to be evocative):

http://www.soilandhealth.org/03sov/0303critic/030301studentasnigger.html

[rhett o rick]

50. A Democracy needs an educated public. An authoritarian state abhors and educated public. nm

[spin]

51. Exactly. {n/t}

[MissDeeds]

52. Hedges has it exactly right

I never thought it would come to this in my lifetime.

K&R

[paparush]

54. The Ruling Class wants us poor, dumb, and too afraid to stand up. nt

[MrSlayer]

55. Frigging page won't load for me.

This needs to be shared.

[Bozita]

56. Same here, won't load.

[Shallah Kali]

65. Google cache link & links to mirror sites

Google Cache http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http%3A%2F%2Fwww.truthdig.com%2Freport%2Fitem%2Fwhy_the_united_states_is_destroying_her_education_system_20110410

Mirror news sites like truthout, alternet:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=A+nation+that+destroys+its+systems+of+education%2C+degrades+its+public+information%2C+guts+its+public+libraries&scoring=n

[Monarda]

57. Aim of education

The aim of an education is to produce a person who says, like Aristotle, I am a friend to Plato, but I love the truth more.

[Monarda]

58. For more, see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amicus_Plato,_sed_magis_amica_veritas

Also the poet Petrarch, founder of modern Humanism, uses this phrase in criticizing Aristotle and those who blindly followed him. He even goes so far as to say that the saints themselves are not always right, because they are merely men, even though saints.

[Raksha]

60. K & R - I love Chris Hedges even though he's usually grim and depressing.

He always tells the truth, and that's the really important thing. This is one of his best pieces yet.

[AgainsttheCrown]

69. He is...

But I found this great http://www.nysec.org/video-3-22-2011">interview with a few moments of levity.

[maxpower]

61. Been saying it for years

I'm a teacher. No critical thinking being taught. Teaching students how to take a test. So sad. But hey let's continue to over-fund the military and not overhaul our education system. That's how we win the future.



Peace,
Max

[yurbud]

62. and it is sadly a bipartisan effort, at least for K-12. The 2012 election will be closer than

it should be because of shit like this.

Democrats at the top have sold out not only our kids some of their most loyal foot soldiers in campaigns, all to get the donations of some fucking trust fund babies who don't need whatever money they end up making off of cannibalizing our public schools.

[Jakes Progress]

63. This neocon dreamworld would never happen without Obama.

They needed a compliant or slow-witted Democrat to bring to to fruition.

[yurbud]

64. the teacher's quote in the excerpt nailed it and if Obama had any conscience, he'd replace

Duncan with someone who felt and acted on those sentiments.

[DirkGently]

66. Workers, not thinkers. Thus the hatred for "teachers."

[BlueMTexpat]

68. Thanks to those who have been working in a dedicated manner

to destroy it since the early 1970s, the US public education system does not rank in the top ten globally, not even in reading comprehension. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_Student_Assessment

This has not been an overnight happening, it's been a steady creep for some time - with huge leaps backwards after *Co stole the 2000 election and the passage of NCLB.

There are certainly good public schools, especially in affluent areas. The major problems, IMO, are continuing to privatize what should be a national governmental priority and giving too much authority over curriculum decisions to those at state and local levels. We are Extremely Far Behind in math and Very Far Behind in Science, largely as a result of RW know-nothings on local school boards.

From the criticism section of the Wiki article linked to:
"Critics, such as Mel Riddile say that low performance in the United States is closely related to American poverty.<22><23> Riddile also shown that when adjusted for poverty, the richest areas in the US, especially areas with less than 10% poverty can perform an average PISA score of 551.<23> In essence, the criticism isn't so much directly against the Programme for International Student Assessment itself, but against people who use PISA data uncritically to justify measures such as Charter schools.<24>"

Exactly. If we really want a good education system, we need a) TO ADDRESS POVERTY; b) good teachers; c) incentives for teachers to continue honing their academic and pedagogical skills; d) no tolerance policies for disruptive behavior in the classroom; e) no "dumping" of social problems in the classroom, i.e., an adequate counseling/social services network to coordinate with school systems; f) smaller class sizes. These are all good beginnings.

We also need inspirational leadership that truly values public education. We do NOT need Charter Schools or privatization. We certainly do not need vouchers or more taxpayer money going to religious schools.

[Raster]

72. Kick for truth!

Thank you Chris!:kick:

[Electric Monk]

75. +1 nt