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Re: Rotten to the Core: War on Academic Standards
Posted:
Jan 26, 2013 1:51 PM
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On Fri, Jan 25, 2013 at 11:30 AM, Clyde Greeno @ MALEI <greeno@malei.org> wrote:
> A strawman war!
>
I've come mostly to Clyde's view on CCSS, which is that having states
churn about all this is fairly innocuous and is a fine excuse to
create at least a few positions that pay, even if most are part time.
In contrast to how much it costs to keep a standing army sitting
around the world mostly doing nothing useful beyond keeping said army
fed, sheltered and in uniform, it's relatively affordable to have
civilian adults commute or, better, telecommute, to day jobs where
they argue about "y = mx + b" and the other memes (dots, nodes) they
want to see included in public school curricula, perhaps out of
nostalgia or because it's what some of the beacon schools have been
doing.
As I posted to another list on this same topic recently:
"The standards committees are mostly busy work for people who need
some kind of income based on what little they learned in school (not a
whole lot in most cases). We must indulge our fellow Americans in
their busy work because that's a way to stay self respecting, to don
business dress and pilot an automobile to a place called an office."
Like the military (costly doing nothing, more costly wreaking havoc),
the rest of government is very much a jobs program and local
governments are seeing a rationale for getting together with
educationists and performing innocuous activities that don't even
bring them into much contact with the kids (in which case more
fingerprinting would be required, at least in Oregon). Once you're
"finished" with school you're expected to "work" (is how the thinking
seems to go) and here's "work" that requires knowing little more than
one "learned" already, so a perfect fit. The same familiar schooling
continues but now with a pay check and more meetings. We're adults,
yippee. Now you've got mouths to feed, bills to pay.
As readers here know, I regard the education most Americans get as
laughably out of date and the end product is dorky and scarcely
competent (hence the huge military / prison population and the paid
jobs those provide). Sweden and Finland: different animals. Lots of
diverse opportunities on this planet. If you want your kids to get a
good education, there's always home school + distance. Unfortunately,
mostly the public schools are for losers these days and we'd like to
rescue more kids from the fates of their parents (ignorant jingoist
yahoos a lot of 'em -- way too many of 'em).
That's work for a lot of people too (rescuing the kids), even if not
in government. The private sector has its place.
Kirby
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