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Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Schools Matter: The President Asks for Our Help: We Ask the President to Stop Treating Us Like Idiots

Schools Matter: The President Asks for Our Help: We Ask the President to Stop Treating Us Like Idiots

The President Asks for Our Help: We Ask the President to Stop Treating Us Like Idiots

Arne Duncan's federalized system of bribes called Race to the Top has all sorts of incentives for state education departments. It has incentives to develop constant data surveillance systems for both students and teachers, with tests to decide who gets to graduate, who gets rehired, who gets to move to the next grade, and which schools get needed cash. There are incentives, too, for the creation of unlimited numbers of the segregated corporate charter school test camps based on the Wall Street Model of Public Oversight, i. e. NONE. And, indeed, there are incentives for states and localities to dump their curriculum and standards into the trash in favor of a single nationalized curriculum and testing system based on the deep thinking of the MBAs, economists, and lawyers hired by the Business Roundtable to oversee the project.

Having entered and lost the first round of this Race to Serve the Oligarchs, many states and localities are balking at the thought of entering Round 2 of Judgment by the Plutocrats. By now all the states have figured out what