Yet another piece at the NYTimes about education and NCLB. (Or, as I’ve heard some teacher-friends call it: NTLS – No Teacher Left Standing). Apparently, a book, “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education”, by Diane Ravitch, is arguing that the latest fashion in high productivity education of children – namely that the “business model” for running schools is best – is not the best. (Amazon store page – and available on Kindle!) The gist of the article/book is, “… the obsession with tests and test results … is antithetical to the spirit and purpose of education.” No disagreement here.
Another snippet in Richard Bernstein’s column that I suspect is exactly right on:
Ms. Ravitch shows that claims of improving scores on state tests have actually been produced mainly by ever-lower test score requirements, so low in one instance that many students could get to an acceptable level by random guessing.
This sounds like the predictable results of “the business model”.
Which brings me to my point – the “business model” for running anything, like say, a business, produces the soul-sucking corporatism that washes over the land of the career-pathed middle class in this country. Yes, the line of sight from students taught in business-run schools reaches directly to the Blankfein’s of this world and the Goldman Sachs debacle. Bring ’em on – more adults trained (er, educated) to read and write contracts and construct “product” out of mathematics. Who then shrug when asked in incredulous tones, “what did you think you were doing?!”
There was an opinion piece by Tom Friedman (also of NYTimes) a long while back, that touched on the subject of global corporatism. My rant there was about the lack of any perceived distinction between a company paying taxes to a government and a company paying bribes to what ever local political lackeys so they can “do business”.