Schools Matter: Wild Dreams about Anonymous and Testing

Schools Matter: Wild Dreams about Anonymous and Testing:

Wild Dreams about Anonymous and Testing

by Jim Horn

Last night I was re-reading a terrific little book from 1976 by Don Martin, George Overholt, and Wayne Urban: Accountability in American Education: A Critique. The book brings so many elements of the current edu-mess into focus, while giving a long view of history. What is evident in re-reading this book is that the threats to democracy that the authors feared in 1976 from the encroaching accountability juggernaut have become much scarier and much more real since then. Some would say inevitable.

The book reminds us of some of the history behind the stealing of the language of learning by social control behaviorists and the takeover of the knowledge definition by epistemological thugs who define what knowledge is and how it is measured. These moves have had crushing effects on humane pedagogy and schooling, while strengthening and centralizing the administration of schools far beyond what are now the minor functionaries of principals, boards of education, and even superintendents.

The Texas Tribune story below, in fact, that includes the