Remarkable Idiocy: “Economically-driven Education”
On October 2, 2014, I will be speaking in Indiana to an audience chiefly comprised of university students who have a passing understanding of the intentions of moneyed interests to usurp control of public education.
With a mind toward preparing for my upcoming engagement, I happened to read three pertinent (and powerful) articles: This one on September 26, 2014, in Chalkbeat on Indiana Governor Mike Pence’s plan to use workforce data to determine what schools teach in order to subjugate education to the requirements of the job market, excerpted below:
…Indiana is quietly taking steps to position itself for a future where data drives much of what is learned in school. Gov. Mike Pence has made connecting education and workforce development a centerpiece of his administration’s agenda.…This year, a bill he wrote created a new state office, under Pence’s direction, with a director who has been nicknamed the state’s “data czar.” That office will manage an expanded network of K-12, higher education and workforce data, working with an outside company to identify trends and opportunities to connect what is learned now to what students will some day need to know.Just last month, Pence named [state representative Steve] Braun as the state’s new director of the Department of Workforce Development. [Emphasis added.]
Pence wants to tailor education to serve the workforce, not the individual being educated– an important point.
Next is another article, a Living in Dialogue post by Professor Emeritus Denny Taylor, one that deals quite skillfully with the sinister push to make public education little more than the servant of the US economy. The second article refers to very-well-compensated “non-profiteer” Marc Tucker’s 1992 “Dear Hillary” letter, excerpted below. Tucker’s vision is
… to remold the entire American system” into “a seamless web that literally extends from cradle to grave and is the same system for everyone,”coordinated by “a system of labor market boards at the local, state and federal levels” where curriculum and “job matching” will be handled by counselors “accessing the integrated computer-based program. [Emphasis added.]
Again with using education to create workers to serve the workforce.
Finally, in this dehumanizing, “student-as-object” vein, is a third article, from the August 1, 2014, Washington Post and written about the South Korean education system by former South Korean student and teacher, Se-Woong Koo. The entire article I find profoundly sad, but this part stuck me most:
Herded to various educational outlets and programs by parents, the average South Korean student works up to 13 hours a day, while the average highRemarkable Idiocy: “Economically-driven Education” | deutsch29:
