Hurricane Core: Reform by Total Destruction

  

Arne Duncan:  "Hurricane Katrina...was the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans."

(The two cartoons above are part of a pro-Common Core propaganda video at commoncoreworks.org.  The video shows a happy surfer riding in on the Common Core, showing no concern for all the children swept away and drowned by his wave of reform). 

With this philosophy, it's a "no-brainer" to close public schools instead of fund and fix them. Whether it's a natural disaster or the man-made Common Core (which seems not to apply to private schools) that obliterates public schools, the results will be the same.  The doors are open for privatizing vultures to rush in and profit through others' misfortunes.  Who cares about the people who lose everything when you have enough hubris to believe that you, alone, hold the sole "standards" and the sole solutions?

Some of the Devastation Caused by Katrina

Enter a new wave of standardized testing.  http://schools.nyc.gov/NR/rdonlyres/D0A70F2D-1133-418C-B68F-95E6D714F357/0/NYCDOEG5MathStuffedwithPizza_Final.pdf

Following shortly on the heels of Hurricane Sandy in the Tri-State area, the 2013 standardized Common Core State tests decimated school populations in N.Y.  Seventy percent of the state's students failed. 

The test results seemed to be aligned with Meryl Tisch's plans for educational reform.  She stated that the time has come for students to "jump into the deep end of the pool."  This might not be a good idea without life vests readily available.  Students in city schools, lacking  basic supplies in overcrowded classrooms and sometimes lacking the English language, will surely drowned.  Yet, to paraphrase Tisch, this is a place that we really need to go.  Will we turn back this man-made tidal wave of total destruction while there is still time or will we join with those who take a peculiar pride in drowning children and their schools?

  

Two scenes from Hurricane Sandy