Educating for the Status Quo [View all]

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Educating for the Status Quo
6.21.14 ~ by Shawn Gude

The Common Core, the education establishment’s cherished set of national educational standards, is under attack.

Glenn Beck and Karen Lewis, state’s rights proponents and Gates critics, anti-standardized testing skeptics right and left — all are lining up to pillory a policy that counts Randi Weingarten, Jeb Bush, and the National Parent Teacher Association among its supporters. Opponents, if one can draw parallels between the grievances of prudish conservatives, militant unionists, and Louis C.K., fret that the Common Core circumscribes creativity and regiments schooling. Conservative detractors are skittish about government indoctrination, lefties about corporate domination.

So severe is the scorn that even the Gates Foundation, a financial backer of the standards, is backpedaling; last week, it said schools should hold off on using test scores to evaluate teachers and promote students until the two-year initial implementation process is complete.

The Common Core debate is important not simply because of the standards’ immediate effects on pupils, but because it offers us an opportunity to ask the biggest questions about our education system: What should be the guiding ethos of public education in a democratic society? What are we preparing students for, other than participation in economic life? And how should schooling be structured to reflect democratic values?

The short answers: Incredulity, not docility, is the trait to inculcate, along with a citizenry disposed to questioning received wisdom and orthodoxy and a less hierarchical teacher-student relationship. In each instance, the Common Core is an impediment ...

much more here: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/06/educating-for-the-status-quo-common-core/