How Does PISA Put the World at Risk (Part 2): Glorifying Educational Authoritarianism
16 MARCH 2014 459 NO COMMENT
authoritarian: of, relating to, or favoring blind submission to authority (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)
authoritarianism: principle of blind submission to authority, as opposed to individual freedom of thought and action (Encyclopedia Britannica)
PISA’s glorification of educational authoritarianism goes beyond its romanticization of the misery children suffer in authoritarian education systems as discussed in my last post. Because some authoritarian education systems seem to generate better PISA rankings, it has been concluded that educational authoritarianism, the systemic arrangements designed to enforce government-prescribed, uniform standards upon all children, should be emulated by the rest of the world. “High-performing school systems also share clear and ambitious standards across the board. Everyone knows what is required to get a given qualification,” writes Andreas Schleicher, the PISA chief. “This remains one of the most powerful system-level predictors in PISA.”
In Surpassing Shanghai: An Agenda for American Education Built on the World’s Leading Systems, Marc Tucker, president and CEO of the National Center on Education and the Economy and a devout PISA believer, explains what PISA high-performing countries do and America does not do: “Virtually all high