Tony L. Talbert, a professor of social/cultural studies education and qualitative research in the Baylor University School of Education, writes in the Waco News that we as a nation have failed to recognize “the reality that our students, our teachers and our entire system of pre-K-12 public school education has been significantly and negatively impacted by the very tests we allowed to be enacted over the past 30 years through a combination of hyperbolic fear-mongering and subsequent public detachment from deliberative discourse in matters of public education.”
In short, we–as citizens–dropped out from our responsibility to maintain a public school system that aimed for values more important and valuable than our current test-based system.
Ivy started with President Reagan’s “A Nation at Risk,” which “set off a chain of subsequent predictions, monographs and reports of dire consequences for our nation’s future that could only be resolved by imposing a system of high-stakes testing, narrowly defined curriculum content (i.e., reading and mathematics) and ultimately adoption of a punitive accountability system that had the effect of stymying resistance and silencing critical questioning by educators, parents and even students on the legitimacy of such a radical shift in public education philosophy and practices.”
“As a result, for the next 30 years the American public increasingly “opted out” of direct dialogue and engagement in local, state and national public education philosophy, policy and practice debates. The impact of “opting out” of informed engagement in public education debates has been the radical shift in the quality and value-orientation of public school curriculum from a Transformation-Based Education System to an Information-Based Education System.
“In a Transformation-Based Education System the core value is the education of the whole student through a broad and inclusive humanities, mathematics, science, technology, performing arts and physical education curriculum as measured by the quality outcomes of the improvement of the student’s individual mind and life for the betterment of the collective community. In contrast, an Information-Based Education System embraces the core value of information acquisition, consumption and regurgitation of a basic curriculum by all students as measured by the quality of outcomes on standardized test performance and school ranking.”
Can we change the vicious cycle in which we are now trapped?
Yes, he insists:
“Can we recover what we’ve lost in our education system as a result of “opting out” of our responsibility as guardians of our most valuable democratic institution of pre-K-12 public education? Absolutely! We can restore the fundamental values and quality of a Transformation-Based Education System by choosing to “opt in” to public discourse and democratic action. An obvious way an informed citizenry can express intent to change the high-stakes testing education philosophies, policies and practices is by holding local, state and national elected officials accountable for education legislation at the ballot box.”
In short, my friends, become politically active. Throw out the narrow-minded technocrats that see our children as data points. Elect only those who treasure education as human development, a process of becoming in which we all take part.
Do your part. Get engaged. Be the change.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Wake the town and tell the people: The end of public education is coming!
Schools no longer prepare students for the next grades and for life—they prepare them to be mice, followers, test takers not risk takers, to think in black and white instead of outside the box, to be robots under control, not individuals seeking the truth and the best.
http://www.examiner.com/article/wake-the-town-and-tell-the-people-the-end-of-public-education-is-coming
Well said, Stuart!
Have you seen this?
A critical step is redefining the meaning of an “effective” teacher so that test scores are no longer credible indicators of anything other test taking skill on a tiny tiny minuscule portion of what education is for. Life offers and requires more than scoring high on a standardized test.
President Reagan is responsible for more damage than just “A Nation at Risk”. Listen to Bill Maher who tells it like it is. Almost every problem in the US today seems to have started with Reagan.
“Almost every problem in the US today seems to have started with Reagan.”
Who Uncle Ronnie? Nooo!!
The original pretending president put in place to mouth platitudes and extol the virtues-ha ha-of the oligarchs.
Newsflash President Reagan is dead.
And? Doesn’t mean his legacy (such as it is) doesn’t live on. “Supply-sided economics”, “trickle-down economics”, “austerity”, whatever you want to call it, it was (and remains) toxic and has been slowly killing the middle class for 30 years now.
Yea, he’s dead all right but what he started isn’t, and he still has a large following of worshipers who see him as a god.
Janine: He was always kinda that way.
Dienne,
I am well aware of the effect of legacy. That is why I feel so strongly about freedom in education. I don’t want my legacy to be that I was the generation that ushered in the federalization of education. This site is dedicated to teachers. I support parental rights to oversee their children’s education.
Presidential legacy, of course, has far more impact than individual legacy and the legacy of Woodrow Wilson certainly demonstrates that point.
The federalization of education, as promoted by the National Education Association, is what has led us to this crisis over control of education.
The progressive encroachment of the department of education over curriculum and pedagogy was most assisted by Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter (the only president to get the endorsement of the NEA). Of Course, Bill Clinton, and both Bush’s also accelerated the power of the department of education and it’s encroachment in the minutiae of the classroom.
The only president who denounced the department of education was Ronald Reagan and he was impotent to make any headway against it due to lack of support on Capital Hill and of course the release of “A Nation at Risk”.
I am not interested in bashing dead presidents. I am interested in leaving the teaching profession (my son is a teacher) intact as a vocation and maintaining some semblance of self government in the hugely important area of education our nations youth.
I am acutely aware that “the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world”.
Education was only the first vital service to be federalized, healthcare is next and you can bet as an inner city ER nurse I have opinions about that as well. Having a different opinion does not make one a “troll” it is the essence of debate.
That’s because Reagan’s election, following that of Margaret Thatcher in 1978, signals the formal end of the New Deal political coalition and the onset of full-bore neoliberal policies.
Then, with Bill Clinton, under whom we get NAFTA, telecommunications and financial deregulation, and the end of Aid to Families With Dependent Children, the Democratic Party abandons the New Deal altogether and becomes an appendage of the neoliberal state.
Obama, who has spoken often of his admiration for Reagan, was chosen by the Overclass because of his ability to confuse, distract and disarm people, with the hope that he’d be able to start the demolition of the New Deal’s signature program, Social Security. He has failed to do that, but he has succeeded in radically undermining the public schools.
For that, he is certain to be amply rewarded, as Clinton has been, after leaving office.
Fight for the Four Freedoms: What Made FDR and the Greatest Generation Truly Great by Harvey J. Kaye.
http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-4516-9143-6
An interesting read. Concise, provocative, and germane to the topic.
Thanks Lloyd. Truer words were never spoken.
They didn’t call him Ronald Ray-gun for nothing.
Generations from now, historians will talk about the damage produced by the unholy trinity of Nixon, Reagan, and Bush II.
It is mind boggling to think about the negative impact that these three individuals had on billions of others.
Don’t leave out Clinton who imported most of it into the Democratic platform and thereby normalized it all.
I have trouble understanding how presidents get blamed for the mess each Congress causes.
For the final SIX years of Clinton’s eight in the White House, the GOP held the majority in both the House and Senate.
The president doesn’t make the law. The president’s job is to uphold the law. Congress makes laws through legislation and the president may veto a bill but a two-thirds vote in both the House and the Senate may override a veto.
The president can’t submit a bill to Congress. However, the President can ask a member of Congress to submit a bill for him but in that representatives name. After that, the president loses control because it goes through committees for revisions and then to Congress—if it ever gets out of the committees—for a vote in both houses
As for the annual budget, the president submits the budget to Congress where it goes through committees and is often revised in both the Senate and the House—then the two compromise for a final bill before sending it back to the president for a signature.
In fact, the repeal of Glass-Steagall (that led to the great recession of 2007-08) was signed by Clinton in 1999, after 54% of the Senate and 83% of the House (both with a GOP majority) voted to repeal it through the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. Clinton’s biggest mistake—and he has admitted as much publicly—was signing that bill instead of attempting to veto it.
In fact, there isn’t much a president can do even with the budget process because a large portion of the budget is set in stone due to Congressional spending going back for decades. The budget has three parts:
1. Mandatory (almost 60% and this is inherited by every president and can only be changed by Congress) The biggest portion of this is Social Security and Medicare, but these are both programs funded by their own tax—money that Congress added to the general fund and spent every year since the start of SS.
2. Discretionary spending The biggest portion of this–about half @ 20%—is military spending. Actually, only about 17% of the budget is non-defense discretionary.
3. Interest expense is about 7% of the annual budget each year (and 60% of the national federal debt is owed to the American people—not to foreign countries). This is also inherited by each president. For instance, when Clinton became president, he inherited $4.351 Trillion in debt from previous presidents but only added $75.1 Billion to the national debt by the time he left office in 2000. Then G. W. Bush stepped in, cut taxes and added $6.64 Trillion to the national debt. When Obama became president he inherited almost $12 Trillion in Debt and several hundred billion in annual interest payments—and that’s not counting the two wars he inherited and the mess left from the 2007-08 global financial crises.
The Mount Rushmore of failed, modern day presidents.
You can see the damage caused by these three on this graphic chart:
Lloyd, Clinton’s too-late apology for not vetoing the repeal of Glass-Steagall is just him trying to cover his ass in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, which he, Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers, among many others, bear responsibility for.
Notice that he said nothing about NAFTA, which like other trade deals has led to the hollowing out of US manufacturing; nothing about telecommunications deregulation, which led to the consolidation of mass media into control by a handful of companies (as well as the edu-privateer echo chamber that’s near-impossible to break out of); and the repeal of AFDC, which has led to a collapse in the wage floor for the poor and working poor.
Clinton’s political triangulation, which Randi Weingarten employs quite skillfully, was the tactic that institutionalized the merger and acquisition of the Democratric Party into the neoliberal consensus. To argue otherwise is to accept the Clinton Machine spin, not the facts.
You claim that NAFTA “hollowed out” US manufacturing.
If that’s true, please explain how the U.S. had the largest manufacturing output in the world until 2011 when China moved into 1st place. The U.S. is now in 2nd place and that means every other country ranks below the US and US workers are more efficient and productive.
http://greyhill.com/manufacturing-by-country/
Manufacturing Output in 2012 added up to $1.993 Trillion for the United States. Combined, Germany, South Korea, Italy, Russia, Brazil and India added up to $2.038 Trillion.
http://www.aei-ideas.org/2013/12/charts-of-the-day-world-manufacturing-output-2012/
In addition, the manufacturing sector in the United States has continued to grow steadily while loosing human jobs to automation—robots.
“Robots taking jobs from manufacturing workers is a trend dating back decades, but rapidly advancing software has spread the threat of job-killing automation to nearly every occupation.”
http://moneymorning.com/2013/02/04/robots-taking-jobs-from-every-sector-of-the-economy/
Manufacturers in the United States are the most productive in the world, far surpassing the worker productivity of any other major manufacturing economy, leading to higher wages and living standards.
http://www.nam.org/Statistics-And-Data/Facts-About-Manufacturing/Landing.aspx
Lloyd, I recommend you ask the residents of the Detroit region about all those gains in manufacturing you cite.
As for gains in manufacturing, I suggest you enter any hardware store in your community and try to find an American-made product. You might find one or two. I can’t. True, we manufacture arms and airplanes, but what happened to the industries that used to provide jobs across small-town America? Have you been to the cities and towns of New England and upstate New York where young people and their parents have no jobs?
If is true that there are few job gains in the manufacturing industry due to automation—robots.
While this sector of the industry still grows as a ratio of total GDP, unemployment shrinks due to those conversions to automation.
For instance, before I retired from teaching, I attended an in-service lecture where we were told about one GM bumper factory that had 500 workers in the 1950s but only two by the 1990s due to automation but the output of that bumper factory remained the same. But those two workers were paid more than $90,000 annually an addition to benefits due to the skills needed to keep the robots working. Those two jobs only required a HS degree and necessary skills.
I suggest this piece that explains: U.S. Manufacturing Leads Current Economic Growth As It Has For 15 Years
“For the last year or so, I’ve made the case (along with others) that the U.S. manufacturing sector is at the forefront of the economic expansion based on all relevant measures of economic performance: Profits, output, employment and unemployment. For each of those variables, the U.S. manufacturing is leading the overall economy with greater growth in after-tax profits, greater growth in after-profits per employee, greater output growth, greater employment growth, and a lower unemployment rate.”
http://seekingalpha.com/article/602691-u-s-manufacturing-leads-current-economic-growth-as-it-has-for-15-years
I suggest you avoid cherry picking facts to infer a misleading biased opinion. I’m sure that unemployed auto workers in Detroit are not happy but ….
Detroit does not represent the entire US manufacturing sector and the industry that builds vehicles in the US is not focused in Detroit anymore.
The assembly factories and parts plants all over the US.
In addition, there are about 808.6 thousand workers in motor vehicle and parts manufacturing out of a total of 12 million+ workers in the manufacturing sector—-that means 6.73% of workers in manufacturing work in the automotive industry.
You may want to check out the list of states where there are automotive assembly plants in the US to form a better opinion of this issue.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automotive_assembly_plants_in_the_United_States
Lloyd,
You might want to pick a better mentor for your anti Reagan bashing then Bill Maher, the man who said:
“But I’ve often said that if I had — I have two dogs — if I had two retarded children, I’d be a hero. And yet the dogs, which are pretty much the same thing. What? They’re sweet. They’re loving. They’re kind, but they don’t mentally advance at all. … Dogs are like retarded children.” — Bill Maher
And, of course,
“I thought when we elected a black president, we were going to get a black president. You know, this [BP oil spill] is where I want a real black president. I want him in a meeting with the BP CEOs, you know, where he lifts up his shirt so you can see the gun in his pants. That’s — (in black man voice) ‘we’ve got a motherfu**ing problem here?’ Shoot somebody in the foot.’”–Bill Maher
Don’t change the subject by attacking this one messenger: Bill Maher
There are other messengers who don’t worship Reagan as a god and don’t wear blinders.
http://www.brown.edu/Research/Understanding_the_Iran_Contra_Affair/e-presidentialresponsibility.php
http://www.debate.org/debates/Ronald-Reagan-Should-have-Been-Convicted-of-Treason-and-Impeached/1/
The only valid thing that the Texas STAAR measures is a child’s endurance for psychological torture.
Two consecutive days of anxiety generating four hour Pearson designed “crazy making” tests for 8 year olds cannot be described as anything other than insanity, and that STAAR torture comes after a year of “kill and drill” teach to the test punitive authoritarian brainwashing.
The best method for teaching elementary age children is to create a positive environment of joyful learning like that of Montessori. Why are we not using methods that work? How can we get parents and communities to wake up and take back their schools when they have become too indoctrinated and submissive to oppression?
We have to get them ready for jail.
One barrier, sadly, are many superintendents, boards, and yes even teachers. I’ve seen first hand how many boards and districts circle the wagons when it comes to public—including parental—participation. There is a real arrogance by those who run the schools that they are experts who can’t ever be challenged by the “ignorant” public; and that what goes on in classrooms must be insulated from outside contamination.
When Talbert writes that “the enemy is us” that should be read very broadly.
The first step to taking back the schools will be taking back the local boards and removing those members who are too much in awe of the superintendents and other “professionals” to seriously (but respectfully) question them and challenge their assumptions and assertions. Boards have to return to their proper functions as bodies that set policies and make sure those policies are implemented, and not just act as echo chambers and rubber stamps for the administration.
The second step is for everyone to set out realistic goals for schools. We have to put an end to the idea of having our schools be everything for everyone. Schools should be for education in the “transformative” sense that Talbert writes. But too often we let our schools become a hodge-podge of activities and extracurricular programs to keep kids “interested” (read “distracted”). Parents have to understand their role in supporting their children and communities by insisting their children take education seriously.
The third step is stop using schools as some sort of venue for social indoctrination. This applies to the entire political and social spectrum, which often tries to use class time to send specific messages using the Trojan Horse of “relevance” and “controversy”. Kids are in school to learn the basic (i.e., well-established) facts and thinking skills needed to take on difficult subjects as adults. Trying to bring in such subjects is, literally, preposterous (“pre” as in before + “post” as is the end; putting the end at the beginning). Let the kids learn the basics first; then let them take on the problems after graduation. You can’t graduate kids who are 18-turning-40.
I would like to highlight your comment here:
“One barrier, sadly, are many superintendents, boards, and yes even teachers. I’ve seen first hand how many boards and districts circle the wagons when it comes to public—including parental—participation. There is a real arrogance by those who run the schools that they are experts who can’t ever be challenged by the “ignorant” public; and that what goes on in classrooms must be insulated from outside contamination.”
Absolutely correct. Important for folks to understand this- excellent.
Where we live we are also finding that these board members increasingly come from the business community and use these positions in a variety of ways to further their own interests.
I can’t keep this stuff straight. Am I supposed to participate in my children’s education by questioning and challenging policies like testing and curriculum, as well as what goes on inside the classrooms? Or am I supposed to recognize that I have no expertise in these matters and respect education professionals by deferring to their judgment?
Both, either, and neither…
Amen. Or, you can just remove your kids from the public schools and homeschool them. And, no, I am not afraid they won’t be properly socialized. I am comforted knowing they won’t be socialized to a deteriorating social fabric and I also am not afraid they won’t be able to compete. I don’t consider education a competitive sport.
very well said, Janine!
I couldn’t agree more… school boards, at least in rural areas, either are composed of ex-educators or their spouses OR locals looking for a way into the political structure, clueless about the real problems in the school. They only know what the superintendent tells them The whole structure of the school bureaucracy is to discourage parent participation in any meaningful way. Many board meetings do not allow parents to speak, or only after approval by the very person, the superintendent, that is the source of the complaint. The school board system is a sham, and leaves absolute control in the hands of the superintendent. And we ARE using our schools for social indoctrination, though most would not admit it. It’s not public school, it’s government school… http://wp.me/p4j0LH-v
Arne Duncan, David Coleman and the like can not be held accountable at the ballot box. Barack Obama can no longer be held accountable. Hold every govenor who signed on to and continues to hold fast to Common Core accountable and every member of state and federal legislature responsible. Let them choose today who the represent.
Absolutely. No Mo Cu Mo
No Mo Cuo Mo
Can’t you afford a proof reader you idiot?
I remember a “Nation at Risk” well. EVERY teacher was incompetent, ignorant, et al. EVERY school system was a failure. If people did not rush in “where angels fear to tread” our country was doomed.
A psychologist, Gerald Bracey did a study on his own. The figures did not seem right to him. He wrote a book” The Truth About American Schools”. It got virtually NO coverage. I tried to get our elected school board – 5 people – to read it. One member took the book, had it for about a year and returned it. Whether he ever read it or not is not known. BUT; most board members who had read the propaganda already knew the “truth”. they could not be bothered to read a contrary opinion.
That is the kind of mind set now among so many: don’t confuse me with the facts, my mind is already made up. The corporate media makes sure that THEIR message gets through. Note the many blogs by Dr. Ravitch.
Interestingly; The last issue of the Columbia Journalism Review’s lead article was” Who Cares if it is True”. What an insight to the media now.
AND the media castigates the public schools because our test scores, according to THEIR criteria, do not measure up.
A major step in losing our democracy.
Re: Nation at Risk. Think this book is shelved in the past or just a simple footnote in history? Not so. Just THIS WEEK (Monday 5/5/14) my State Department of Education did a presentation to our State Legislators, and when asked where is the evidence and research to support the validity of the Common Core standards, the State Education Department cited A Nation At Risk as proof of such evidence.
See this quote in the article I link to below: “Snider said there was ample research, dating to a landmark study, A Nation at Risk, to support the need for higher standards across the nation. She noted that the United States has fallen behind other nations, including Sweden and Japan, on international science and math tests.”
This is for real being said as a legitimate justification for Common Core.
ProJo article:
http://www.providencejournal.com/breaking-news/content/20140506-two-r.i.-lawmakers-question-students-readiness-for-testing-under-common-core-standards.ece?fb_comment_id=fbc_1467852683450137_1468042600097812_1468042600097812#f2e59fbdaa1b8fc
Also know that the reporter who wrote this article was met by someone outside this forum that had Common Core handouts and flyers coming from the Stop Common Core POV, and the reporter said she did not need to take one becuase she’s not partisan, or something like that; I am paraphrasing. But as a journalist shouldn’t she be interested in what people in opposition might have to say? Sadly, this one sided POV is typical of most of the articles my local paper writes about Common Core.
I posted it at oped, with a comment which links to this page.