Arne's Race to the Top and how it fits into the new world wide economic order. [View All]

[madfloridian]

One of the most fascinating segments on Democracy Now was in September of last year. Its warning about Race to the Top did not succeed, and RTTT is now the program that will replace No Child Left Behind. For the purposes of the reformers, one is as good as the other.

From Democracy Now September 2010:

Educators Push Back Against Obama’s "Business Model" for School Reforms

There is a video at the link. Juan Gonzalez is questioning Professor Lois Weiner about how the education movement in the United States compares to what goes on around the world.

JUAN GONZALEZ: —- comparing not only what’s happening here in the United States, but around the world, in terms of these so-called reform initiatives. Could you talk about that?

LOIS WEINER: Absolutely. And I think it’s important to understand that Race to the Top is not unique to the United States, and what Arne Duncan did in Chicago is not unique to Chicago. And in fact, the contours of this program were carried out first under Pinochet in Chile. And this program was implemented by force of military dictatorships and the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in Latin America. And the results have been verified by researchers there. They produced increased stratification. So I think what we’re seeing right now are the results of that increased stratification, a stratification, inequality of results, because if you think about it, No Child Left Behind is almost a decade old. And what are the results? The results are a growing gap between poor minority — achievement of poor minority kids and those kids who come from prosperous families who are — who live in affluent suburbs and in those suburban schools.

Here is more about her remarks and gearing education to the job market.

And I think it’s also very important to understand that this focus on educational reform is replacing, is a substitute for, a jobs policy. We need to understand that. Education can democratize the competition for the existing jobs, but it cannot create new jobs. And when most jobs that are being created are by companies like Wal-Mart, education cannot do anything about that. So, we need to — we really need to look critically at Race to the Top and understand the way that it fits into this new economic order of a so-called jobless recovery and that what’s really going on is a vocationalization of education, a watering down of curriculum for most kids, so that they’re going to take jobs that require only a seventh or an eighth grade education, because those are the jobs that are being created in this economy.

Another question by Gonzalez.

JUAN GONZALEZ: You’ve also taken a look at the impact of No Child Left Behind on teachers. Could you talk about that?

LOIS WEINER: Well, I think it’s important to understand that there are — No Child Left Behind is part of this global project to deprofessionalize teaching as an occupation. And the reason that it’s important in this project to deprofessionalize teaching is that the thinking is that the biggest expenditure in education is teacher salaries. And they want to cut costs. They want to diminish the amount of money that’s put into public education. And that means they have to lower teacher costs. And in order to do that, they have to deprofessionalize teaching. They have to make it a revolving door, in which we’re not going to pay teachers very much. They’re not going to stay very long. We’re going to credential them really fast. They’re going to go in. We’re going to burn them up. They’re going to leave in three, four, five years. And that’s the model that they want.

Here's the problem now. Since Arne himself admitted that under NCLB's rigid standards 82% of schools would be considered failing this year. Since that would be disastrous, the administration is offering waivers.

Here is what the waivers are really about. From the Daily Censored:

Don’t Believe the Hype...Obama’s NCLB Waiver More of the Same

In trade for letting individual states opt out of NCLB, they must submit to the provisions of the Obama Administration’s Race to the Top (RttT), a program which George H.W. Bush’s assistant secretary of education – and former NCLB advocate – Diane Ravitch described as “Bush’s Third Term in Office in Education.” Though the “cornerstone requirements” have been waived, Sam Dillon of the New York Times reports that many of NCLB’s “fundamental features would remain in effect,” including the extensive testing in reading and math.

..."Fundamentally, Race to the Top has the same free-market soul as No Child Left Behind – heck, even the names have the same competitive metaphor, as if education were a race, one with winners and losers. And certainly, the policies of both RttT and NCLB reflect this competitive spirit, as “winning” schools receive funds, and “losing” schools are punished, simulating the “free market.”

...."Indeed, states which choose to opt out of NCLB and into RttT must then implement policies which actually appear to ramp up the free-market reforms: these states must invest in charter schools, based on the economic – not educational – theory that “competition” and “choice” will improve the quality of education; further, these states will need to create “accountability systems” which tie teacher evaluation to student tests scores, so “good teachers” and “bad teachers” can be identified, labeled, sorted, and processed – like widgets themselves.

Last year Diane Ravitch had very critical words for Race to the Top.

She pointed out that in ten years it would be labeled a "colossal failure."

In the case of Race to the Top, the administration determined its priorities without consulting Congress. It now has $5 billion to dangle in front of the states to persuade them to change their laws and their policies. Russ Whitehurst is disturbed by RTTT even though he agrees with the policies it promotes. Like Russ, I am disturbed that the administration has done an end run around Congress, but I am also concerned that RTTT is warping state decision-making, and I dislike the policies it promotes. I believe that 10 years from now RTTT will be widely recognized as a colossal waste of federal money that eroded state control of education and compelled cash-hungry states to embark on programs that did not improve education. We may never be able to undo the damage to children, schools, teachers, public education, and federalism now being done in the name of "reform."

..."No wonder Education Secretary Arne Duncan was able to barnstorm the country in tandem with former Speaker Newt Gingrich; no wonder the former chairman of the Republican National Committee wrote a laudatory article about the Obama education agenda in The Washington Post: Lots more choice and accountability! Looks just like the Republican agenda.

So, what happened to the Democratic agenda? Lost, stolen, strayed, forgotten, misplaced? I don't need to ask about the Republicans' loss of memory about federalism; even Republican governors have their hands eagerly outstretched in hopes of getting federal dollars in a time of economic crisis.

So other countries have been there done that in relation to the NCLB and RTTT. So now we are finding NLCB is a failure...and moving on to Race to the Top without any proof at all it will work.

The agenda is set in stone it appears.