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Saved by 8 people (-2 private), first by anonymouse user on 2008-12-19


Public Sticky notes

As the educational historian David Labaree rightly argues, public schools have been under attack in the last decade "not just because they are deemed ineffective but because they are public."

Highlighted by cburell

Right-wing efforts to disinvest in public schools as critical sites of teaching and learning and govern them according to corporate interests is obvious in the emphasis on standardized testing, the use of top-down curricular mandates, the influx of advertising in schools, the use of profit motives to "encourage" student performance, the attack on teacher unions and modes of pedagogy that stress rote learning and memorization.

Highlighted by cburell

Republican right wing have argued that free public education represents either a massive fraud or a contemptuous failure

Highlighted by gomehead2000

on 2008-12-19 by gomehead2000

and in a lot of ways they are correct...

The hidden curriculum is that testing be used as a ploy to de-skill teachers by reducing them to mere technicians, that students be similarly reduced to customers in the marketplace rather than as engaged, critical learners and that always underfunded public schools fail so that they can eventually be privatized.

Highlighted by sharon_elin

The hidden curriculum is that testing be used as a ploy to de-skill teachers by reducing them to mere technicians, that students be similarly reduced to customers in the marketplace rather than as engaged, critical learners and that always underfunded public schools fail so that they can eventually be privatized.

Highlighted by cburell

But there is an even darker side to the reforms initiated under the Bush administration and now used in a number of school systems throughout the country. As the logic of the market and "the crime complex"[2] frame the field of social relations in schools, students are subjected to three particularly offensive policies, defended by school authorities and politicians under the rubric of school safety. First, students are increasingly subjected to zero-tolerance policies that are used primarily to punish, repress and exclude them. Second, they are increasingly absorbed into a "crime complex" in which security staff, using harsh disciplinary practices, now displace the normative functions teachers once provided both in and outside of the classroom.[3] Third, more and more schools are breaking down the space between education and juvenile delinquency, substituting penal pedagogies for critical learning and replacing a school culture that fosters a discourse of possibility with a culture of fear and social control.

Highlighted by cburell

"not just because they are deemed ineffective but because they are public."[1] Right-wing efforts to disinvest in public schools as critical sites of teaching and learning and govern them according to corporate interests is obvious in the emphasis on standardized testing, the use of top-down curricular mandates, the influx of advertising in schools, the use of profit motives to "encourage" student performance, the attack on teacher unions and modes of pedagogy that stress rote learning and memorization.

Highlighted by gomehead2000

on 2008-12-19 by gomehead2000

all of these things are worthy of despise... yet i believe there has been an honest push towards a more critical pedagogy (even if it is not fully understood) in all levels of education... albeit by a minority of educators...

Consequently, many youth of color in urban school systems, because of harsh zero-tolerance polices, are not just being suspended or expelled from school. They are being ushered into the dark precincts of juvenile detention centers, adult courts and prison. Surely, the dismantling of this corporatized and militarized model of schooling should be a top priority under the Obama administration. Unfortunately, Obama has appointed as his secretary of education someone who actually embodies this utterly punitive, anti-intellectual, corporatized and test-driven model of schooling.

Highlighted by cburell

curity staff, using harsh disciplinary practices, now displace the normative functions teachers once provided both in and outside of the classroom

Highlighted by gomehead2000

on 2008-12-19 by gomehead2000

true, yet i take my enforcer status very seriously still. i don't need security staff to help me with my students...

Obama's call for change falls flat with this appointment,

Highlighted by gomehead2000

on 2008-12-19 by gomehead2000

reasonably harsh words from someone treated so gently by the "liberal media"

Duncan's neoliberal ideology is on full display in the various connections he has established with the ruling political and business elite in Chicago

Highlighted by gomehead2000

on 2008-12-19 by gomehead2000

the windy city keeps taking the heat... how corrupt can one city be? wait... don't answer that!!