StickWithANose

I’m an advocate for reforming public schooling, and I do so frequently these days in academic venues. That said… the trajectory of education policy is truly frightening these days. Both of our political parties now pursue identical policy strategies with the intent of fostering the expansion of the education industry despite the lack of evidence that these private institutions are better than the public institutions they replace and the inevitable profit-taking at the tax payers expense that takes place when the “private sector” takes over the institutional mandate of the “public sector.” [think Halliburton] So much for change you can believe in.

This piece of internet savvy, Obamaism demonstrates the degree to which the Gates and the Kaplans of the world have taken the reigns of education policy.

Produced by the ‘liberal’ Center for American Progress, the following video demonstrates all of the key elements of contemporary propaganda:

1. Formulate a narrative:

Teacher incentive programs are an important way to attract and retain high quality teachers for high need schools.

2. Cite non-factual facts in justifying the narrative:

Preliminary studies out of places like Chicago note positive results on academic achievement.

3. Summation:

Teacher incentive funding will raise the academic achievement of struggling students.

The inversion of reality is astounding. First, despite the best protestations of pundits, the pay-for-performance ritual in question is tied to standardized assessments that, as the research literature has consistently shown, are inadequate gauges of student learning and that, when linked to accountability systems, create a perverted incentive structure that leads to increased student retention and drop-outs. Second, how about some citations for these positive preliminary studies? Because, last I checked, Chicago is still a mess. Third, there is significant evidence that the kind of teacher incentive programs being advocated here create powerful disincentives that increase teacher turn-over in low performing schools.

From a very simplistic economic perspective, it would appear obvious that the way to increase the quality of the teacher pool is to offer incentives for performance, but the reality of social life bears little resemblance to the utopics of neo-liberalism. The reforms being offered by ‘liberal’ organizations, such the Center for American Progress, are justified by a call to equity, but the result of those policies will only further contribute to the continued inequities of American public schooling. We need another education model and quick. The path we’re on is not sustainable.