Get Ready For America’s Next ‘Education Crisis’

“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste,” has become a popular mantra of the ruling class. Of course, these are not the people who usually experience the brunt of a crisis.

But a pervasive narrative in the mainstream media is that Americans are a people beset by near-continuous crisis, whether it’s the fake crisis of a looming “fiscal cliff” or a real crisis like Frankenstorm Sandy that still has many Northeasterners inexplicably living in the dark in unheated homes.

Arguably no sector of American society has been cast with the narrative of crisis as much as public education. And the fever pitch is about to go higher.

Something’s Rotten In The State Of Kentucky

Just prior to the November election, an article in the education trade journal Education Week broke that Kentucky had gotten bad news back from its most recent round of school tests. The results were that the percent of students scoring “proficient” or better in reading and math had dropped by roughly a third or more in both elementary and middle schools.

Disappointing results from a state test is not usually an occasion to stop the presses. But, in this case it was, because these were Very Special Tests.

The tests Kentucky children took were brand-new and aligned to new standards promoted by the federal government called Common Core Standards. Kentucky is the very first state to implement the new standards-based assessments, which will be rolled-out in over 40 other states over the next two school years.

Kentucky school officials, who were already bracing for the bad results, tried putting a happy face on it, calling results “better than we thought they’d be.”

But local media outlets were quick to claim that lower scores were proof positive that Kentucky public schools are “in need of improvement.”

Now imagine the scenario when what happened in Kentucky begins rolling out across the country — as state after state implements the bright, shiny new tests and watches in horror as scores drop off “The Proficiency Cliff.” How tempting it will be for major media outlets across the country to cast this as a “crisis” in education?

In fact, some people are betting good money on that happening.

Business Loves A Crisis...

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The bait and switch of school "reform"

In recent weeks the debate over the future of public education in America has flared up again, this time with the publication of the new book "Class Warfare," by Steven Brill, the founder of American Lawyer magazine. Brill's advocacy of "reform" has sparked different strands of criticism from the New York Times, New York University's Diane Ravitch and the Nation's Dana Goldstein.

But behind the high-profile back and forth over specific policies and prescriptions lies a story that has less to do with ideas than with money, less to do with facts than with an ideological subtext that has been quietly baked into the very terms of the national education discussion.

Like most education reporters today, Brill frames the issue in simplistic, binary terms. On one side are self-interested teachers unions who supposedly oppose fundamental changes to schools, not because they care about students, but because they fear for their own job security and wages, irrespective of kids. In this mythology, they are pitted against an alliance of extraordinarily wealthy corporate elites who, unlike the allegedly greedy unions, are said to act solely out of the goodness of their hearts. We are told that this "reform" alliance of everyone from Rupert Murdoch to the Walton family to leading hedge funders spends huge amounts of money pushing for radical changes to public schools because they suddenly decided that they care about destitute children, and now want to see all kids get a great education.

The dominant narrative, in other words, explains the fight for the future of education as a battle between the evil forces of myopic selfishness (teachers) and the altruistic benevolence of noblesse oblige (Wall Street). Such subjective framing has resulted in reporters, pundits and politicians typically casting the "reformers'" arguments as free of self-interest, and therefore more objective and credible than teachers' counterarguments.

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When Criticism of Teachers Becomes Offensive

By Stuart Singer, The Teacher Leader

I do not want to get into the politics of the situation. If governors around the country feel compelled to battle unions, so be it. I do not want to get into the specifics of balancing budgets. I understand that states cannot print money so financial shortfalls mandate pain for everyone. I do not want to talk about how much money other people should be paid. That is an assessment employers should be making. But when I am bombarded on a regular basis by a narrative blaming teacher avarice for much of the monetary ills of 2011, I have to speak out.

When stalking ineffective teachers is not enough. [readon url="http://nasspblogs.org/principaldifference/2011/03/when_criticism_of_teachers_bec.html"]Read more...[/readon]