Offers a pointed finger for why our education system is collapsing in upon itself. The author provided connections between teaching and curriculum to business and corporate influence. He used powerful quotes by teachers decrying how they feel like frauds telling their kids that what they are learning will prepare them for life.
"Judge Maryann Sumi delayed the implementation of the anti-union law in Wisconsin that would strip most collective bargaining rights from public employees.
Sumi is ruling on whether the conference committee for the bill violated state open meetings requirements.
In addition, Madison-area unions have filed suit over whether or not the bill passed had fiscal elements, meaning it would require a quorum of state Senators to consider it, which it did not receive.
And a third lawsuit, filed late last week, alleges that the legislation is unconstitutional, "infringing on employees' equal protection rights and their rights to freedom of speech and association."
How to create a corporate plutocracy: eliminate the power of the unions, destroy their Democratic rivals creating a one-party system, sell off all services (including education) to the private sector, and watch the rise of fascism.
"Like Gates, we feel the US must address the inadequacies in our education system, specifically those that propagate inequalities in our society. However, we caution using global competitiveness as an impetus for education reform - not because we do not believe in maintaining our forward thinking leadership role on the world stage. But rather because such language edges education dangerously close to being about the production of a marketable workforce serving corporate interests instead of about the cultivation of a critically thinking global citizenry serving the advancement of humanity. In place of the language of competition, we would suggest a language of equal opportunity and cooperation."
Obama is critical of his own education policies which means he probably didn't fully support them to begin with. This offers a look into how policy is formed.
"Class struggle goes on in other realms. In goes on in K-12 education, for example, when business tries to influence what students are taught about everything from nutrition to the virtues of free enterprise; when U.S. labor history is excluded from the required curriculum; and when teachers' unions are blamed for problems of student achievement that are in fact consequences of the maldistribution of income and wealth in U.S. society.
It goes on in higher education when corporations lavish funds on commercially viable research; when capitalist-backed pundits attack professors for teaching students to think critically about capitalism; and when they give money in exchange for putting their names on buildings and schools. Class struggle also goes on in higher education when pro-capitalist business schools are exempted from criticism for being ideological and free-market economists are lauded as objective scientists."
The Ohio legislation drew pro-labor protesters and tea party activists. The crowd on Tuesday topped more than 8,500. The measure has prompted a visit by the Rev. Jesse Jackson, and former Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland has pledged to lead a ballot repeal if the bill passes.
"It was found that the state test has far-reaching effects on
teaching, curriculum, school climate, students, parents, and school administration. The ideology of testing as a positive reform idea and the practice of testing as a constant and tangible threat, form the two poles of an experiential field that these educators encounter as figure and ground. The avoidance of failure and the threat of failure push these educators toward an ideological commitment to testing."
"For beyond the shrinkage of school curriculums to fit the narrow boundaries of annual tests, along with the disappearance of recess and play, research in poorer schools has uncovered another most tragic outcome to high stakes testing: the effective elimination of care as the ethos that has bound together teacher and child for longer than there have been schools in America."
The authors conduct a study to see how teachers actually implement teaching requirements when they are enacted through policy reform by federal, state and local leaders.