Truthout recently published several articles by noted educator/researcher in ‘critical pedagogy’—Henry Giroux.  Giroux, a prolific writer is the author of—The University in Chains… a work in which he critiques the invasion into our universities by the ‘corporate-military-industrial’ complex.  Giroux maintains that the overt militarization paired with outright corporate control and consequent censorship of university curriculums, scientific research and even free speech rights have diluted the quality of a college education to corporate mindspeak.  Education, in short has been reduced to limited training for a specific number of undependable low wage jobs, meant to perpetuate a permanent servant class.  Duncan is one of the major players in this corporate takeover.  Though the National Education Association leadership approves of this damnable appointment—THE MEMBERSHIP DOES NOT.  DUNCAN IS CONSIDERED A DISGRACE BY ANY TRUE EDUCATORS WHO VALUE EDUCATION AS CRUCIAL TO THE CONTINUATION OF ANY VIABLE DEMOCRACY.  Like Friere before him, Giroux speaks to the idea of liberation theory and its role in attaining and maintaining our freedoms.  Duncan is on the wrong side of freedom.  He is nothing more than a corporate hack doing the bidding of the same Business Roundtable which caused the demolition of our health care system and now our entire economy.  So much for ‘change.’  For further information read such theorists as Friere, Giroux, and the late Carol Chomsky.

Folktruther: ‘Have you ever considered, Terry, that your tragic inability to get girls was related to your affinity to the trombone?’

Gee, I would think playing the trombone, with that slide going in and out, would be considered very sexy. lol

The comments offered here are excellent (especially nestoffour and Shift). What hasn’t been mentioned is the perverse manner in which teacher accountability is measured. The problem is that often the effect of a teacher’s influence isn’t evident until many years later—long after the students have left the classroom. Let me illustrate by citing an example from my own life:

When I was a high school senior (back in 1955), I took an elective course titled ‘A Survey of the Humanities’. I was not a particularly good student—not because I was not intelligent or an excellent learner, but because I was not motivated. This was not the teacher’s fault. I was introduced to names like Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzche, Goethe, Shakespeare, Milton, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle and terms like Gothic, Hellenistic, Romanesque, Medieval, Renaissance, Utilitarianism, existential, etc. But I was more concerned, at that age, with learning to play the trombone (which I was very good at) and girls (which I was a complete failure). When I matriculated at college, I had an epiphany one day from which I realized I didn’t know a goddamned thing about anything (inluding music—which was my major). I was determined to change that and, in my typically obsessive fashion, set out to become a polymath—a Renaissance man (until I had another epiphany that showed me how impossible a goal that was). But in this process I recalled all the names and principles that formed the basis of the humanities course I had been introduced to as a high school senior.

The teacher who taught the humanities class was not regarded as a good teacher by the students, his fellow teachers or by the administration. But as it turned out this Mr. Bergman was a profound influence on my life and on my career (I, myself, taught in the public schools for twenty years before I finally burnt out).

Was he a good teacher? My perception is that he was one of the best teachers I had. Though at the time—and this is the point I want to make clear—he was not highly esteemed. His twice yearly evaluation by the jock-become-principal (thank you, Shift) did not—and could not—predict the impact he had on the students who came under his aegis and influence.

Want to reform education? Set the teacher free from government control (at all levels). The teacher is the one who is typically held responsible for the inadequacy of the education system. Yet, truthfully, the teacher is probably the only element in the system that doesn’t need to be reformed.

Obama’s choice for Ed. Sec. is just another of the disappointments I have come by now to expect from this saintly “changer.”

What it ratifies is the long-standing—but ill-understood albeit widely distributed—practices by which USer Schools avoid ‘education,’ and specialize in ‘training.’

Jonathan Kozol, way back in his first or second book, in the ‘60s, noted that that those who believe USer schools are failures do not understand the true purpose of the schools. American schools function to ensure that as few children as humanly possible are able to escape the socio-economic niches for which they were born. The true purpose of schooling in Murka is to imbue students with ‘virtues’ of obedience and passivity, while extirpating as completely as possible any inclination toward critique, skepticism or even mild curiosity. As another noted education scholar, Joel Spring, put it (albeit somewhat harshly or indelicately) around the same time, USer schools are part of a national sorting system by which children are assessed according to their abilities to meet the needs of elites for manpower. School provides evidence, a posteriori—by means of grades, scores, and the dreaded permanent record—to justify and rationalize decisions made, before a child ever steps foot in the door of a classroom, regarding the eligibility of any child to ‘succeed.’

A symptom: There’s a world of literature about ‘drop-outs.’ But that term blames the victim. What the term far too often describes is the phenomenom in schools by which kids are informed, usually informally, that they are not “our kind.” They really are “push-outs,” because the school administration makes it clear they are not wanted or needed, and that the heroic efforts of dedicated teachers are being wasted on ‘em, so they might as well go get a job, cuz they ain’ going nowhere.

“Coach” Arne Duncan is an all-too-predictable avatar of perpetuation of all those trends and tendencies. The best choice Obama could have made for the position, philosophically, was probably the man whom the Rightards chose to muddy the waters: Prof. Bill Ayers. Failing him, Linda Darling-Hammond was mentioned, and would have been a good choice, too.

Let’s hold out some hope that the new guy can walk and chew gum at the same time.  ANYthing he suggests would be an improvement over NCLB.  Maybe this one will respect the REAL educators.  The problem with public schools is not the teachers.  In fact teachers whether union members or not welcome accountability.  Rather it’s the ivory tower guesswork experimentation that goes on constantly perpetrated by people who call themselves “educators” but who have NEVER successfully taught children. We get administrators (managers) who want to run schools like businesses because they came from the business world - or they want to run them like the military because they were ex-military.  Real teachers don’t “ascend” to such management roles because they are immersed in real teaching - like technicians who want to remain being techie or doctors that want to remain physicians - it’s what they do.  School boards, administrators, parents, principals, and academics constantly change the methods and the curricula and the books - and for the most part ignore real discipline.  They are basically acting as politicians - in the business of self-promotion more than educating kids.  Ask yourself how many times you have worked for a manager who has only the foggiest idea of how you execute your tasks but still thinks he/she’s an instant expert on telling you how you do it.  Until the administrations turn learning over to the real experts, public schools will continue to flounder.
  If you can read this message, thank your teachers, not the Education Secretary.

Politicians are supposed to understand the art of the possible, but they too often have re-election as their primary agenda.  Too bad Obama is such a good politician.  His choices so far, including Education Secretary, reflect an effort to appeal to the broadest majority he can reach.  Republicans have used the teachers as a whipping post for all that is wrong with education in order to advance their hidden agenda which is to get some govt subsidy of private schools.  This is a way for the rich to pay less for elite schooling for their children at the expense of the rest of us who could use the voucher to put our children into a store-front fly by night school which would only give us what the voucher was worth.  This is well known.  Also, it is not politically correct to address such factors as social-economic status when questioning school performance when it is clearly a major factor.  Until Obama stops being a politician and starts becoming a leader who will stand up for what is true and right, he will be a failure as President.

The NCLB-era of educational policy in the US is the evil spawn of the globalization of our economy. That process is at the very foundation of business model for schools, charters, vouchers, data driven instruction, merit pay, standardized testing, and most perversely of all, paying students to consume the corporate version of knowledge. It was the reason the Business Roundtable and Bill Gates were the driving forces behind these absurd and perverse educational policies. The CEO’s wanted a profit making private school system. In their new economy there would be Wal Mart and security guard jobs or the military for the kids that used to go to public schools.

These Milton Friedman-inspired Reagan revolutionaries had a good run, in fact their campaign appeared ready to bear its bitter fruit. They had public school system wreckers like Michelle Rhee and Joel Klein in place, kids were dropping out in droves, and teachers were in full flight.

But just as they asked to borrow that “Mission Accomplished” banner from the White House, just then their rationale for being, their precious global economy, crashed! Why in just the past month they have had to do $326 billion CPR on Citigroup, scrambled to rescue the Big Three, and printed over $8 billion in new money. Madoff has made off with about $50 billion and he’s just the tip of the iceberg. Their pride and joy is on fire. It was supposed to be immutable. It was eternal! Now that attitude’s all gone. There’s only panic on Wall Street and investor flight to negative returns in Treasuries now.

Any talk of NCLB are prayers said over a corpse. Obama’s pick for Secretary of Education reflects his inability to yet grasp that the world he used to live in is about to evaporate. He himself will soon be fighting off the coup makers in the midst of the greatest economic dislocation the American people have ever experienced.

The great transition is coming! And handling that is way above the pay grade of a sorry-assed basketball playing education bureaucrat like Arne Duncan.