#18: Let’s Pretend The Schoolhouse Is Broken

Let’s Pretend The Schoolhouse Is Broken

I know! I have an idea:
Let’s pretend the schoolhouse is broken
even though we know it’s not
so that a tiny number of thinkers and bureaucrats,
of which I am one,
can invent and impose new rigorous standards
on educators and students (because certainly
those educators and students can’t possibly
know for themselves what’s good for them)
and after we’ve imposed these rigorous standards,
let’s hire for top dollar some corporation to design
a whole bunch of lessons and a whole bunch of tests
for educators and students (because, obviously,
it is as plain as the nose on your face,
educators cannot be expected to create
their own lessons, or god forbid, write their own
assessments). What chaos would it be
if the individuals who spend 180 days a year
with our young people, who kind of know them
and who appear often to care deeply for their welfare
were actually planning lessons and trying to measure learning
with all of that subjective, touchy-feely, caring and sharing
crap in the way? Pure chaos!
No, what our students need is the cold, calculating, objective
and for-profit touch of drill and skill and standardized
testing over and over and over again.
Yes, they will resent it and hate it
and their teachers will resent it and hate it
and because no one who is hateful or resentful
can do an effective job at anything,
public education will explode under the pressure
so that we can do what we really wanted to do
and that is to create a bunch of charters
and private schools for the families
who can afford them so they’ll get a good education
for their kids and we’ll get rich
and everybody else and public schools can just go to hell
along with the democracy they help to promote.