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Is Thinking a “Skill”? Values and Problems in Thinking About the “Liberal Arts”
In today’s online version of the Chronicle of Higher Education, four views regarding the “future of the liberal arts” are presented. While not intending to pick on Martha Nussbaum’s “The Liberal Arts Are Not Elitist” — for in spirit we share a common concern — the piece does nonetheless represent some perennial problems in how public discourse conceptualizes education. As an illustration of these problems I examine some of the assumptions and features of the essay. Nussbaum begins by warning of a crisis in education, a crisis rooted in the quest for national profit or economic gain (interestingly enough this point is made without reference to the dramatic...
Are Tests Measures of Test Taking Ability?
In a recent discussion of my book, A Measure of Failure, the typical argument against any critique of standardized testing was issued in response to a favorable review of the book’s main points. In the comments we read: “A math test, such as the math portion of the SAT for instance, most certainly measures a student’s ability to do the math problems on the test. It is impossible to do well on such a test without the underlying skill that is required to do the math.” It seems hard to argue with this. But the English language does not help the discussion of measurement, as measure can signify both a standard...
The Questions of Education Reform Are Really Questions of Who Decides
It is clear that the education “reform” is being driven by a tiny minority of super wealthy “philanthropists”, executive authorities at state and federal levels of government, and some select “experts”. These are the same forces that have been “leading” education “reform” for the past 30 years, with the result that little has improved, while much has been damaged. Inequalities of all kinds have increased, while the content of schooling has been narrowed and in many places reduced to preparing for what amount to arbitrary tests and the humiliation of public marks of low performance that often follow, especially for schools enrolling working class and minority youth and youth with special needs. One...
“A Measure of Failure” Ready for Order!
After what seemed like ages, my first book, A Measure of Failure: The Political Origins of Standardized Testing, is now shipping! From the Summary posted on the SUNYPress website: A Measure of Failure asks how and why standardized tests have become the ubiquitous standard by which educational achievement and intelligence are measured. How did standardized tests become the measure of performance in our public schools? In this compelling work, Mark J. Garrison attempts to answer this question by analyzing the development of standardized testing, from the days of Horace Mann and Alfred Binet to the current scene. Approaching the issue from...
Teach for America to Replace Veteran Teachers: Part II
On June 12, Education Week’s Stephen Sawchuk published a piece (“N.C. District Lets Go of Veteran Teachers, But Keeps TFA Hires”) on the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board’s decision to, approve plans to fire hundreds of Veteran teachers on the teachers’ low performance on evaluations, rather than on their seniority. Even more controversially, the 134,000-student North Carolina district granted an exemption to teachers hired through the Teach For America recruiting program who meet teaching standards over more-senior teachers, and it is poised to hire more TFA alumni. [...] But members...
“Research” on Teachers: Cover for Demand to Dump Unions, Cheapen Education
The reforms proposed in the name of making education better and the nation’s children more competitive internationally are in reality proposals to cheapen education for the poor and privatize it for the White middle class. — Gene Glass, in Fertilizers, Pills, and Magnetic Strips: The Fate of Public Education in America Over the past several months, a plethora of “research” and “investigateive” reports have been uncritically promoted by major media outlets. Acting as spokespersons for research think tanks funded by the largest monopolies, and aligned with the Obama administration’s education agenda, reporters take no responsibility to investigate the merits of these reports. No effort is made to...
On the Public/Private Distinction and Political Power
As privatization looms, conceptual clarity regarding this trend is required. Primary, secondary and higher education institutions all face changes that can be dubbed privatization. Yet recent reports point to the complexity of this trend. One example involves efforts of teachers to unionize at an Illinois non-for-profit charter school, who in turn hires for-profit EMOs to run some of their campuses. In response to the formation of the union, the charter company claims they are “private” when it comes to employment law. Thus the rules of the NLRB, as opposed to state law regulating public sector unions, apply. NLRB regulations mandate a formal vote among...
The Disinformation of “Violence Prevention”
April 20, 2009 marked the tenth anniversary of the school shootings at Columbine High School and therefore it is time again to reflect on the dominant mode of thinking that informs how the society addresses what is awkwardly called “school violence.” Below I present excerpts of a presentation made several years ago, that focuses on how the notion of “violence prevention” is a form of disinformation. It is disinformation in part because it refuses to seriously discuss the origin of the problems associated with violence between students or students and staff that occur at some schools. In place of grasping the social roots of these acts, “school violence” experts adopt a model of “security” that...
Failure to Hold: The Politics of School Violence
Given the recent discussion in media outlets on the tenth anniversary of the Columbine, it seems useful to reprint my review of Julie Webber’s (2003) volume Failure to Hold: The Politics of School Violence (Rowman & Littlefield). What makes the book stand out from other recent work on school violence (e.g., DiGiulio 2001; Newman 2004) is the author’s starting point. With her focus on problems of Western political philosophy, Webber links the analyses of school violence, popular culture and the hidden curriculum (given as rules about the nature of conflict and its uses) to a state policy of...
KIPP Charter School: The Violence of Bootstrapping
“From Teach for America to the KIPP charter schools to instructional innovations at colleges and universities, we have proven strategies ready to go to scale.” — Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education, February 9, 2009 speaking before the 91st Annual Meeting of the American Council on Education The Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) is, according to its promoters, a “nationwide network of open-enrollment college-preparatory public [charter] schools in under-resourced communities throughout the United States.” KIPP schools have been heavily promoted in the monopoly media as the key to “closing the achievement gap”. Particular attention has been given to a book celebrating KIPP...
