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Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Missouri Education Watchdog: A View of The Future

Missouri Education Watchdog: A View of The Future:


A View of The Future

It is encouraging to see various groups open their eyes to the problems in our education system and in the reforms currently being pushed. Both conservatives and liberals are beginning to see the dangers involved in centralized planning of curriculum and collection of personal data by government bodies.  Someday, hopefully soon, the rallying cry of "It's all for the little children"will send chills down people's spines rather than warm fuzzy feelings. But we're not there yet. There is no massive public push back to Common Core Standards and the SLDS. To understand why, we need only look at those who have gone before us and see what happened to them.

In his book "It Happened a Long Time Ago and It Never Happened Anyway", David Satter looks at modern Russia and tries to explain to the Western mind why, given their history, there is no widespread revolt by the Russian people against the oppressive regime. Through interviews with average citizens, Mr. Satter shows the world through the eyes of people who have lived under the Soviets and seen their mutation into a hybrid capitalist/fascist government. What he writes could be an interview with an American in 2025.
"Did anyone walk about the Stalin-era terror?"

"I didn't hear about it except from my mother.  The attitude was that there was no point in discussing it.  There was the 'Cult of Personality.' During the Cult of Personality there were certain abuses. That was it.  Nobody knew the extent of the repression because nobody had read Solzhenitsyn at that time."
Under Stalin, political enemies disappeared in the night never to be seen again. Everyone knew someone who