When N.Y. State Education Commissioner King predicted a 30% failure rate on the 2013 Common-Core standardized tests, he blamed "all of the adults" for so many kids not being prepared for college and careers. (I'm guessing he didn't count himself as one of those adults). Arne Duncan turned his venom against "white, suburban moms--who all of a sudden--their child isn't as brilliant as they thought they were, and their school isn't quite as good as they thought they were." Echoing other comments made by Duncan in praise of South Korea's tiger-like parents, President Obama in his 2014 State of the Union Address looked to "more demanding parents" to help coax our nation to a higher standard of education.
I do not blame teachers. I do not blame parents and I certainly do not blame kids. I believe the biggest crisis we face in education today stems from the faith placed by our Secretary of Education in "scientific managers" who have little-to-no real experience in education and who know little about the inner workings of a school. Backed by moneyed interests, these data-driven managers seek to impose corporate models in the classroom and make everyone college and career ready, as they define these terms. Schools are not, nor should they ever be, a microcosm of the corporate world.
When parents protest the top-down imposition of standards based upon data-driven drivel, they are branded by King as malleable puppets of special interests. Parents became "more demanding," but it wasn't the demands that the educational deformers wanted to hear. So, they were summarily dismissed.
Now, is the time when the words of lifetime educators, parents and children (who are not lab rats or guinea pigs) should be heeded more than ever. The drive to improve education for all must be an ongoing national conversation in which corporate-backed voices, keen to assign blame left and right, do not drown out the voices of democracy.
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