Free-market solutions to problems in education are not new. What seems to be absent from public discussion and media treatment is the fact that business models applied to education have a record of misrepresenting the goals of education as well as the relationship between schooling and the economic and military success of the nation. Exclusive focus on standardized test scores also promotes a perception that the goals of education in a democracy are captured in reading and math test scores. Unfortunately, the arguments and data presented by those with a business perspective are often accepted as factual, if not obvious, by media. Such thinking is corrosive to the education of the very children we say we care about.
The suggestion that education is responsible for the success or failure of American business and our economy has never been true, but using fear of economic or military domination by other countries has long fed the myth that schools were the critical factor. The Russian Sputnik satellite was used to argue Russian schools produced better scientists. The threat of economic dominance by Japan was credited to better test scores on the part of Japanese students. More recently, economic recovery from a toxic and shady financial system created by bankers is laid at the feet of school reform. Over and over, the story gets told and people believe it, despite the fact that the United States has dominated the world economically and militarily ever since the end of WWII. Schools never are credited with producing upswings in the economy, but invariably saddled with blame for possible threats to continued dominance.
Business interests, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, also claim that most of the future jobs will require "21st century" skills and advanced knowledge and preparation for all students. Labor statistics and job projections are misrepresented to support the illusion that most students will need a college education to survive economically. While it is true that some of the fastest-growing jobs require higher levels of training and education, these tend to be small in terms of number. Current Iowa and federal projections for future jobs indicate these claims are not accurate. We have far more workers who are underemployed for the skills they possess than we have deficits of skilled workers. Pushing all students into college-prep curricula does not match the real needs of a service economy.
Public education was seen by the founders of our country as critical to democracy.
Which is one of the reasons why the USCC and the World Bank are against public education. The other is that education is one of two means of upward economic mobility for the vast majority of people. The other one is the existence of unions.
I suspect the USCC KNOWS few jobs require anything beyond a high school diploma; the World Bank recognizes this. And of course one of the "reforms" the "reformers" are pushing is ever increasing knowledge of subjects at earlier and earlier ages, such as pre-albegra in sixth grade, LONG before many if not most kids can cognitively handle subject matter appropriate for grades ten and above. The reason they push it is not to help students better "compete" for jobs in the 21st century. It's to PUSH KIDS out of school altogether by branding special ed when they can't do the work or they drop out of school altogether.
An educated workforce is a threat to the privatizers.
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