Schools Matter: Rigged Trade Deals, Corporate Core Standards, and Human Commodities

Schools Matter: Rigged Trade Deals, Corporate Core Standards, and Human Commodities:

Rigged Trade Deals, Corporate Core Standards, and Human Commodities

Every so often the corporate foundations and the billionaires need to reach way down in their nasty bag of tired tricks to come up with another smelly old chestnut aimed to infuriate teachers and raise the worry levels of the general public.  Their crass cures (more testing) for false problems are as predictable as their singular diagnosis (failed schools), which identifies the entirely predictable symptoms (low test scores) of a real problem (poverty) that remains entirely ignored by those with the resources to do something about it.

The low standardized test scores are entirely predictable without ever taking even one of the many standardized tests that are used as evidence that public schools have failed to prepare children to become assets to the corporations that pretend to have jobs for them after high school--if they had been prepared for them.  The sad truth, of course, is that there are fewer good jobs today for graduates than there were 10 or 20 or 30 years ago when test scores were no better than they are today. 

This gets us to the real crux of the matter, which is entirely hidden in the NYTimes story yesterday that appeared above the fold on the front page.  This is no small mistake but, rather, a planned editorial Schools Matter: Rigged Trade Deals, Corporate Core Standards, and Human Commodities: