Re: america's choice

["Monty Neill" <monty@fairtest.org>]

I've not read the report yet, just several pieces in Boston Globe (one being a quite long editorial). If 16 year olds will be separated based on test scores, barring not only changes in school and in preschool but also in a wide range of other societal aspects, low income kids, kids of color, those whose first language are not English, those with disabilities, will be sorted out into some pretense of voc training (like McDonalds as was previously posted).

Indeed, there are plenty of problems with education - privatizing most of educational provision with the focus then being on passing tests will solve none but exacerbate many of the problems. 

Monty 
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: GERALD BRACEY 
  To: arn-l@interversity.org 
  Sent: Friday, December 15, 2006 10:47 AM
  Subject: [arn-l] america's choice


  I think Jim Horn must be suffering from commission reportitis.  It's a disease easily come by in the last 25 years.  "America's Choice: High Skills or Low Wages" was Marc Tucker's 1990 contribution to the babel.  The new one "Tough Choices or Tough Times" again shows Tucker's ability to craft a clever title.  

  What bothers me just a bit is that the call for higher skills and different skills is paralleled by an ever increasing Wal-Martization in the jobs that are actually being created.  The number of retail sales jobs totals more than the 10 fastest growing jobs combined.  We have 23 cashiers for every engineer and no shortage of engineers.  The ten occupations with the most jobs projected in 2014 by the BLS are virtually all low-skill, low-pay service sector positions.

  At least producing reports keeps the various commissioners off the streets.

  Jerry