Re: Just what we need

[aburke5054@aol.com]

I believe that Samuelson was parsing the relationship between 
competitiveness and education and learning more than he was teasing out 
all the factors that enter into competitiveness.

On another matter, it is an odd kind of discourse that labels opponents 
"idiots" and "professional fear mongers" for making too much of tests 
and then cites authors (Baker, Sternberg) who do precisely the same 
thing, but do it in a way that JB likes.

Art

-----Original Message-----
From: GERALD BRACEY <gbracey1@verizon.net>
To: arn-l@interversity.org
Sent: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 8:13 am
Subject: Re: [arn-l] Just what we need


I have a different take on competitiveness--education is only a small 
factor

in it.


What follows appeared first at www.huffingtonpost.com/gerald-bracey 
(they

like for you to say that).


THE INMATES WHO WANT TO RUN THE ASYLUM


Here are some of the idiots and professional fear mongers who are 
trying to

control curriculum and instruction and education policy in our nation's

schools:


Raymond Scheppach, Executive Director, National Governors Association.

Bob Wise, former West Virginia governor, now executive director of the

Alliance for Excellence in Education (a fear mongering group he 
founded).

Susan Traiman, Business Roundtable.

John J. Castellani, president, Business Roundtable.

Roy Romer, former governor of Colorado, former superintendent of Los 
Angeles

Public Schools, and formerly a pretty smart guy, now head fear monger 
for ED

in '08 which is trying to get the presidential candidates worked up (so 
far,

they've gotten worked up once and beat the hell out of No Child Left

Behind).

Vivien Stewart, Vice President of the Asia Society (how on earth did 
she end

up in this group?).

Andreas Schleicher, Organization for Economic Cooperation and 
Development

(the group that spearheads this "cognitive Olympics," horse-race view 
of

international comparisons.


All these worthies gathered at a press conference on December 4, 2007 
to

mourn the 2006 results from PISA, Program of International Student

Assessments.  Every three years, PISA administers tests in reading,

mathematics and science to 15-year-olds.  The US reading scores were 
missing

this year because the test booklets were misprinted, giving confusing

instructions that no doubt garbled the answers.  In mathematics, the US

trailed 23 of 30 nations, in science it trailed 15.  The Washington 
Post

boredly mentioned that U. S. ranks were about the same as in 2003.


If the Post was bored, the speakers at the press conference were 
incensed.

The BRT's Castellani pronounced himself outraged. "This is the Olympics 
of

academics," said Wise, "and we need to respond." "Something needs to be 
done

and something needs to be done now," said Romer.  "Our students' 
performance

today is the best indicator of our competitiveness tomorrow," intoned

Scheppach.


Hello, Raymond!  There is not a shred of evidence, not one shred that 
scores

on these tests are linked to global competitiveness or other good 
things

(Norway, considered on many variables the best place in the world to 
live,

scores about the same as we do).  The powerhouse World Economic Forum 
just

issued its annual Global Competitiveness Report and guess who's number 
1

among 131 nations.  The U . S. of A.  It's been that way for four

consecutive years (9/11 dropped us to #2 for a bit).  Get a copy, 
Raymond.


Think about it for a minute.  In four months we will "celebrate" the 
25th

anniversary of A Nation At Risk.  In 1983, that booklet claimed we were

threatened by a rising tide of mediocrity.  Well, the mediocrities that

graduated high school that year are now 43 and pretty much running the

country.  The subprime mortgage mess indicates maybe some of them are a

little short on the ethics side, but no one has claimed that Structured

Investment Vehicles are the product of stupidity.  They seem, rather, 
to be

the product of something that long antedates formal schooling, greed.  
If

mediocre test scores were linked to economic well-being we'd have long 
ago

been in the pits.  Certainly we would not have seen that fabulous 
economic

expansion from 1992 to 2005.


Journalist Fareed Zakaria noted that kids in Singapore score much 
higher

than American kids on tests, but that 20 years later, it's the American 
kids

who are ahead of the game.  He asked the Singapore Minister of 
Education why

this should be.  The Minister said that while his kids had high test 
scores,

American kids had talent.  "We cannot use tests to measure creativity,

ambition, or the willingness of students to question conventional 
wisdom.

These are areas where Singapore must learn from America."  Zakariya 
also

quoted a father who had lived in America for a while and then moved 
back to

Singapore: "In the American school, when my son would speak up, he was

applauded and encouraged.  In Singapore he's seen as pushy and weird.

Schooling in Singapore is a chore.  Work hard, memorize, test well" 
(the

father put his kid in an American style private school).


Keith Baker, a retired U. S. Department of Education researcher got the 
same

message from a Swedish father living in L. A.:  "He holds a high 
position in

a bioscience company," Baker wrote in the October Phi Delta Kappan.  
"He

told me, 'There is no doubt that graduates of European high schools 
know a

lot more than American grads, but I prefer my kids in American schools

because Americans acquire a spirit that other countries lack.'  Other

anecdotal sources suggest this 'spirit' involves ambition, 
inquisitiveness,

and perhaps most important, the absence of a fixation on testing and 
test

scores."


Recall that psychologist Robert Sternberg called our high-stakes 
testing

programs "one of the most effective vehicles this country has created 
for

suppressing creativity."


The Wises, Romers, Scheppachs, Castellanis and Traimans of the world 
are

trying to kill American kids' spirit.  They should be put out of 
business

and otherwise taken to task.



----- Original Message -----
From: <aburke5054@aol.com>

To: <arn-l@interversity.org>

Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2007 10:18 AM

Subject: Re: [arn-l] Just what we need



> Robert Samuelson has an interesting take on the education - economic

> competitiveness issue.  He argues that our "American learning system"

> (which includes "mostly post-high school and, aside from traditional

> colleges and universities, includes the following: community 
colleges;

> for-profit institutes and colleges; adult extension courses; online 
and

> computer-based courses; formal and informal job training; self-help

> books") together with our market economy compensate in many ways for

> deficiencies in the schools.  The result is that American maintains 
its

> economic competitiveness even in the face of a school system where 
lots of

> kids don't work very hard.

>

>
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/05/AR2006090501131.html 


>

> Art

>

> -----Original Message-----

> From: Tauna Rogers <taunar@plateautel.net>

> To: arn-l@interversity.org

> Sent: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 6:01 am

> Subject: [arn-l] Just what we need

>

>
http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071213/EDITORIAL/112130005 


>

> Advice from Roy Romer and Newt Gingrich. It's pathetic. Obviously 
they do

> not

> read Bracey or Rothstein or anything that challenges the conventional

> wisdom.

> Look at these snips, just weak paraphrases of ANAR:

>

> "America is falling behind its global competitors and the economic

> security of

> our children is at risk."

>

> "If an American corporation produced such mediocre outcomes, then the 
CEO

> would

> be fired immediately. Yet, American schools continue to churn out

> below-average

> students with no fear of consequences."

>

> I do hope they get many scathing responses.=

>

>

>

>

>

>

>
________________________________________________________________________ 


> More new features than ever.  Check out the new AOL Mail ! -

> http://webmail.aol.com

> -------------------------------------------------------

> ARN-L archives:

> http://interversity.org/lists/arn-l/archives.html

>



-------------------------------------------------------

Unsubscribe ARN-L:

http://interversity.org/lists/arn-l/subscribe.html






________________________________________________________________________
More new features than ever.  Check out the new AOL Mail ! - 
http://webmail.aol.com