My daughter's stress over the idiotic Cat/6 test has launched me on a bender of obsession about the state of public education in the US. In Bush administration double speak, Clear Skies means an uncapping of all air regulations, Clean Water means an increase in toxic waste dumping, etc., so what is No Child Left Behind?
As I understand No Child Left Behind, schools rely on test scores for funding and lose critical funding if their scores aren't high enough. Since educational funding has been squeezed to its breaking point anyway, NCLB leads to principals requiring their teaching staffs to "teach the test," to the exclusion of everything else. So, what that gives you is the US govt, or its adjuncts, essentially dictating the complete curriculum for all public school students across the country. The majority of public school students don't have access to the kind of education that money buys in private schools. These two standards belong to different worlds.
Therefore, all the middle and lower class kids in America are being processed through a system provided and overseen by a governmental body that has a vested interest in exploiting ignorance and doesn't tolerate critical thought even among its inner circle.
Add to that the unprecedented access advertisers have had to children at every stage of their lives in skyrocketing frequency and intensity since I was a kid in the '70s. Advertising and marketing have grown much more sophisticated since those days, involving unlimited financial resources, behaviorological research, focus groups, etc.
What all this adds up to is that to me it seems that America has become a vast farm specializing in grooming the perfect slave class -- ignorant consumers who buy what they're told to buy, never leave the country and couldn't identify anything outside its borders, look down on school and education in general, don't read, have only a superficial "google" understanding of issues (if that), and never question or decide anything for themselves, but who are hoodwinked into thinking they do.
To me, the education crisis is the single most critical issue facing this country, trumping all others.
Thoughts?
As I understand No Child Left Behind, schools rely on test scores for funding and lose critical funding if their scores aren't high enough. Since educational funding has been squeezed to its breaking point anyway, NCLB leads to principals requiring their teaching staffs to "teach the test," to the exclusion of everything else. So, what that gives you is the US govt, or its adjuncts, essentially dictating the complete curriculum for all public school students across the country. The majority of public school students don't have access to the kind of education that money buys in private schools. These two standards belong to different worlds.
Therefore, all the middle and lower class kids in America are being processed through a system provided and overseen by a governmental body that has a vested interest in exploiting ignorance and doesn't tolerate critical thought even among its inner circle.
Add to that the unprecedented access advertisers have had to children at every stage of their lives in skyrocketing frequency and intensity since I was a kid in the '70s. Advertising and marketing have grown much more sophisticated since those days, involving unlimited financial resources, behaviorological research, focus groups, etc.
What all this adds up to is that to me it seems that America has become a vast farm specializing in grooming the perfect slave class -- ignorant consumers who buy what they're told to buy, never leave the country and couldn't identify anything outside its borders, look down on school and education in general, don't read, have only a superficial "google" understanding of issues (if that), and never question or decide anything for themselves, but who are hoodwinked into thinking they do.
To me, the education crisis is the single most critical issue facing this country, trumping all others.
Thoughts?
