Who Chooses Our Choices?
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by special guest blogger Michael Fiorillo
The sadomasochistic ritual known as testing season is upon us, and for some reason that makes me think about Choice and the lack of it.
So-called education reformers fervently believe parents should have Choice. By that, they don’t mean parents are members of a community with rights and a voice in the education of their children, but that they are utility-minded consumers in a marketplace, a giant educational supermarket. They’re supposed to be homo edu-nomicus, discerning shoppers walking down the bright, carefully orchestrated aisles, impressed by the color and abundance.
In reality, it’s more like what Michael Pollan describes in his books about the American food and agricultural system: much of that apparent variety and choice is mostly processed, genetically-modified corn or soy, with a lot of sugar, salt and fat thrown in.
Sure, the sign on the door of one of Bloomberg’s new schools may say “Academy of Legal Performing Arts and