Dear Friends,
It seems to me, a standard means nothing, if you keep changing it. Should be common sense but the logic of this thinking is lost on the educational elite. The educational system in the US has become so politically oriented, to the progressive new class way of thinking, it has failed it’s primary role as educators to the next generation, and instead become indoctrinators of the children. The total failure of the educational system, and by extension those that have run the educational system, has to be covered up, because people would be outraged to know what a pathetic job the new class has done, with the billions of dollars we have given them from our hard earned money, to educate our children, and instead we get back kids who are incapable of operating in the market system! That is why the new class progressives, who have had a monopoly of control on the school system through the NEA, Boards of education, the bureaucracy and by a hundred other subtle ways, have introduced Common Core, the curriculum that teaches to the absurd test… and therefore teaches absurdity.
True, our children will not have the critical thinking, adaptability, work ethic, self control, moral character or wherewithal to compete effectively in the market system, but they will be good little automatons. This fits very well with the progressive’s program to progress the economic systems of the world to communism. Self starters and individualists, those who have the character traits making them ideal to operate in a market system, are the worse kind of people in a Marxist regime, while mindless sloths who are only interested in bread and circuses are perfect. If the progressive agenda is true to their founding, propaganda and promoters, they would have motive to change the educational curriculum to meet their needs, instead of the needs of the children we are paying them to educate.
The Common Core curriculum, as it is called in most but not all places, is nothing but the old teaching to the test. In this case a test that has been so politically washed the facts have been bleached out. No one who gets the math portion of this “system” will be able to give two fives for a ten, with out ten minutes, some paper, a pencil… and a calculator to check their work. The history has been watered down to politically favored facts, taken out of context, what good is it to know the orders of battle of every battle fought, land and sea, during the Second World War, if the reason, the context, it was fought in the first place is left out? Isn’t that glorifying the war, and neglecting to teach why it happened, and therefore how to keep it from happening again? The science has been reduced to mere global warming scare mongering and bashing any theory the new class finds dangerous. No sense teaching the scientific method, if we applied it to things we are supposed to believe, we probably wouldn’t believe them.
The only way to break the stranglehold the new class progressives have on the educational system is with a non excludable voucher system. Since we as a people and society, have made the decision our children’s education is to be paid by all through the tax system, I accept this parameter, but I dismiss the argument that the government should have a monopoly on education, as a logical result. Give each student a voucher to go to whatever school they and their parents choose. The voucher would be for the full annual cost of the local public school, if the school they choose is more, they pitch in the extra and if it is less, then they get half the savings. People will want the best for their own children, as a result people will put their child into the schools that get the best results. Schools will compete for children on their outcomes for past graduates. Let people be rational maximizers and people will be self interested rightly understood.
One last thought, changing the test is the definition of a non standard, not a standard. The only real way to compare students year to year is to have them all take the same test. This is impossible now because the test has been changed so much. Changing the SAT to bend to political pressure has ruined it as a standard. It has become a guide at best and a poor one at that. Moreover, the SAT only looks at only one narrow facet of the human being. I would say it would be better to test a range of attributes, knowledge of course, ability to adapt, a mental stress test would be good, ability to learn and apply, MMPI as well as physical tests, would be better at identifying people’s various merits, like big firms do before they hire. That is… if we actually want to test, sample, study and quantify our children in a standardized way at all, along with the pernicious incentive to teach to the test that a education standard creates, but that is a different article.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
