Sunday, June 17, 2018

Education is... REVISITED


By December of 2015 I already had some inclinations towards critical theory - even before I had a
name for it. In fact, the following passage from the “What is education?” paper, already included some components of a critical analysis of the state of education in the United States. I wrote:

“Political discourse over the last few decades has blamed education for underpreparing the working force in our country. The National Commission on Excellence in Education (NCEE) published a powerful report in 1983 titled: A Nation At Risk. This report’s goal was to improve the workforce by “raising standards,” but this goal was not based on any data that correlated school achievement and the strength of the economy. The insidious results have not been the improved educational outcomes that afford all students access to great education. Instead the consequences are the increasing demonizing of public school faculty and administration, an increased reliance on standardized testing, and the partial and growing privatization of educational endeavors. The policies that ensued after A Nation At Risk use a narrative that exploits the results of social inequalities in order to create a sense of panic and discombobulation. They also
have in common a narrow view of the problems that public education faces. Many of the ideas about our “failing” school system are based on misinterpretations of data which do not take into account the complexities of the problems that affect our schools (Ravitch, 2014).”

After a more critical analysis using critical social theory, I now believe that a deeper exploration of the intent and purpose of public education should be considered. This is my updated version:

“Public education serves the purpose of ensuring the recycling of social classes. In the United States most people from the upper classes do not educate their children in public schools - and even those that do, ensure that their public schools are favored in every way. Public schools are therefore, instruments of induction and discipline for the poorer people in this country. In this way, educational policies that may appeal to our common sense (with their token statements and misleading titles like “No Child Left Behind”), are extensions of a classists ideology that benefits from social reproduction. For example, the scandalous language used by the “A Nation At Risk” report from 1983, is just one powerful strategy
used by the free market to push its agenda. As if the only purpose of education was to create a group of employees, education was attacked and in response, disciplined by legislature. In turn, the resulting laws and systematic programs use criteria that hides the invidious nature of neoliberalism and make a deflated attempt to address the symptoms of social inequity rather than the causes.”

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