Diane Ravitch brilliantly breaks down the "failing schools" paradigm and lays out the true agenda of "education reformers."

Courtesy of Salon:  

Indifferent to history, today’s corporate reformers insist that the public schools are in an unprecedented crisis. They tell us that children must be able to “escape” their “failing public schools.” They claim they are “for the children,” unlike their teachers, who are not for the children. They would have the public believe that children and their teachers are in warring camps. They put “children first” or “students first.” Their policies, they say, will make us competitive and give us “great teachers” and “great schools” in every community. They say they know how to “close the achievement gap,” and they claim to be leading “the civil rights issue of our time.” Their policies, they say, will make our children into “global competitors.” They will protect our national security. They will make America strong again. The corporate reformers play to our anxieties, even rekindling dormant Cold War fears that we may be in jeopardy as a nation if we don’t buy what they are selling. 

The critics want the public to believe that our public schools are a clear and present danger to our society. Unless there is radical change, they say, our society will fall apart. Our economy will disappear. Our national security is in danger. The message is clear: public education threatens all that we hold dear. 

Recognizing that most Americans have a strong attachment to their community schools, the corporate reformers have taken care to describe their aims in pseudo-populist terms. While trying to scare us with warnings of dire peril, they mask their agenda with rhetoric that is soothing and deceptive. Though they speak of “reform,” what they really mean is deregulation and privatization. When they speak of “accountability,” what they really mean is a rigid reliance on standardized testing as both the means and the end of education. When they speak of “effective teachers,” what they mean is teachers whose students produce higher scores on standardized tests every year, not teachers who inspire their students to love learning. When they speak of “innovation,” they mean replacing teachers with technology to cut staffing costs. 

When they speak of “no excuses,” they mean a boot-camp culture where students must obey orders and rules without question. When they speak of “personalized instruction,” they mean putting children in front of computers with algorithms that supposedly adjust content and test questions to the ability level of the student but actually sacrifice human contact with a real teacher. When they speak of “achievement” or “performance,” they mean higher scores on standardized tests. When they speak of “data-driven instruction,” they mean that test scores and graduation rates should be the primary determinant of what is best for children and schools. When they speak of “competition,” they mean deregulated charters and deregulated private schools competing with highly regulated public schools. When they speak of “a successful school,” they refer only to its test scores, not to a school that is the center of its community, with a great orchestra, an enthusiastic chorus, a hardworking chess team, a thriving robotics program, or teachers who have dedicated their lives to helping the students with the highest needs (and often the lowest scores). 

The reformers define the purpose of education as preparation for global competitiveness, higher education, or the workforce. They view students as “human capital” or “assets.” One seldom sees any reference in their literature or public declarations to the importance of developing full persons to assume the responsibilities of citizenship.

Very well said!

I have been beating this drum for almost nine years now.

Those behind school reformation have NO interest in improving schools or helping children, they are all about their version of success, as determined by test results, and making a profit.

I hate the Republican idea that EVERYTHING is better in the hands of the private sector, and education is one of the best examples of why that is simply untrue.

Educating children is a labor of love, not an assembly line job where components are joined together to form a cog prepared to be implanted in a corporate machine.

Children require nurturing, understanding, and patience. Not constant pressure, unreachable expectations, and humiliation for not achieving some arbitrary goal.

The world desperately needs nonconformists. Dreamers, artists, musicians, individuals who may never function at their best in a learning environment focused on high test scores.

But that does not mean they are not worthy of the same attention, and nurturing, that the academic heavyweights are provided. If anything they probably need more.

Public schools understand that, test score factories do not.