CURMUDGUCATION: CAP: It's the School System's Fault

CURMUDGUCATION: CAP: It's the School System's Fault

CAP: It's the School System's Fault

The Center for American Progress (CAP) is nominally a left-tilted thinky tank, but they have always been solidly on the side of reformsterism, backing charter schools and relentlessly stumping for the Common Core.

They're also fans of the narrow reformster view of education as a mill for churning out meat widgets, and here they are at it again in a post from mid-September (you know, about ten years ago) entitled "Preparing American Students for the Workforce of the Future." It's a pervasive reform idea--that the point of school is as vocational prep (and college is just vocational prep for higher-paying jobs).

And yes-- if schools were cranking out graduates who were completely unemployable, that would be a disservice to those students. But the notion that the years 1 through 18 (or even 22) should be focused simply on making yourself useful to your future employer is such a cramped, meager, joyless, shrunken version of what a human life can be-- Well, I could go on and on, but let's settle for this--no parents with resources to provide their child with more would settle for thirteen (or fourteen or fifteen) years of meat widget training.

But CAP leaps right in with "The United States has failed to prepare all students for college and their careers" and follows up by citing TNTP's Opportunity Myth, one of those non-research "reports" that reformy groups crank out so that other groups can cite them as if they contain actual research. I've discussed it at length elsewhere, so I'm not getting into it here--short form: it's not a good sign.

CAP throws in some chicken littling about the pandemic's effects on the US healthcare, economy and workforce, noting that Black and brown people are worst hit, and they're not wrong. But their CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: CAP: It's the School System's Fault

What comes after the left / right paradigm, if anything? – Wrench in the Gears

 What comes after the left / right paradigm, if anything? – Wrench in the Gears

What comes after the left / right paradigm, if anything?

I asked this question on social media today and got quite a few very thoughtful replies.
One person asked me what led me to ask the question, and this was my response:

I believe we’re teetering on the brink of worldwide techo-fascism.
Well, it’s pretty much blowing out in certain quarters already.

The program has been wrapped in progressive language.
As a result, many have unknowingly been led to embrace the creation of a global digital jail.
We’ll soon see the roll out of Internet of Things social credit scoring and human capital bonds.
The rules of the game will be the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

This is the World Economic Forum / Davos global economic reset.
This is the advent of Globalization 4.0.
This is “wrong kind of green” financialization of nature.
Predatory poverty mining by nonprofits for hedge funds.
Covid the trigger event; Klaus Schwab the helmsman.

We need a clear assessment of stakeholder capitalism.
While we were busy surviving austerity.
Fin-tech oligarchs, academics, and think tanks, crafted a high-tech economic control system.
Put on the brakes now or “what works” “smart” government will dominate most humans.
And our precious earth and fellow non-human travelers, too.

Look up, to space.
That’s where the  CONTINUE READING:  What comes after the left / right paradigm, if anything? – Wrench in the Gears