How Did Education Change from "Achieving the Purpose of Your Being" to "Being Able to Successfully Compete in a Global Society"?

Our researchers here at Missouri Education Watchdog are rather disheartened at what we've discovered over the weekend about the connections and proponents of common core standards and the delivery systems for those standards. It's no wonder we and others in different states are running into brick walls when we talk to our conservative legislators about common core standards and their lack of interest in how they will affect public education. The reasons go back as much as 10 years and involve significant financial involvement by many players on both sides of the aisle.

Conservatives have been betrayed by those who espouse the Constitution as their guiding principles in politics and business, and progressives have been betrayed by those who espouse protection for the masses. The educational reform currently offered to the American people is nothing but a smoke screen for the dot com billionaires (who lean progressive) to make even more money and the conservative billionaires to move the money away from the unions and public education structure to line their pockets. As we have stated in previous posts, this is not about reform, it's about the restructuring of public education into "edubusinesses" complete with standards and assessments that can be neatly packaged into a national box of learning...and perhaps in the future can be aligned to a global standard.

It's not as difficult as you may think. Dangle money in front of cash strapped states and tell them they won't get Title 1 money unless they sign onto standards. Pretend it's voluntary and just close your eyes to the fact that the Federal Government is designing curriculum. Presto. The Federal Government has now taken over education. And what is the goal of the Federal Government's grab of education?

One stated goal would be to profile children and share information with not only the Department of Education, but also the Departments of Labor and Health and Human Services. Why in the world would your human capital be important to the Department of Labor? Here's a report entitled "Linking Data Across Missouri's P-20 Data System" from Jason A. Grissom at the University of Missouri and this information is contained on slide 7:

These data also can be linked to external data sets on employment, labor needs across sectors, economic development, community assets, and so forth.

This plan has been in the works for a long time and we will spend the next several days writing about the history of common core standards and systems, and what is in the future for American public educated school children. The education sector is being overtaken by billionaires and those who know nothing about educating children. They know how to make money and are manipulating the system with children and taxpayer funds. The Constitution is being circumvented and the legislators are silent.

It's up to the people to start asking questions. What has happened to education's purpose in 70 years? It has been stated one of the reasons of education today is to supply the work force. Let's examine the purpose of education as written in the book "Modern Philosophies of Education" by John S. Burbacher, Associate Professor of History and Philosophy of Education, Yale University in 1939:

Now what is the attribute or function of the human learner which sets him off from all else? Is it not his rational nature, his capacity to reason? If this abbreviated analysis be accepted, then the cultivation of the intellect becomes the supreme good. The hierarchy of value is graded according to the opportunity afforded for the development of man's rational nature. Social studies and chemistry will be more valuable than stenography or shopwork, because they involve more opportunity for reasoning. Not only selecting the best curricula, but conditioning the child and positing the preferred social system in which education is to operate, will be evaluated according to whether they help or hinder the child in achieving the purpose of his being.

Some draw different educational conclusions from an argue which, in the main, resembles this perfectionist doctrine. Instead of selecting reason as the cardinal value of distinction, they make all values relative to individual self-realization, which is to be gained through the only eternal values, truth, goodness, and beauty. As he is, the child is immature, imperfect. His lifelong purpose will be a quest for maturity, perfectability. But each self is different from every other self. Therefore the curriculum that will help one realize the eternal verities may prevent another. No subject or type of study, then, can be picked and assigned absolute value, and all the rest arranged in some order of precedence with reference to it.

We will write more about the goals of education as put forth by Dr. Brubacher on Tuesday. You might want to reread those two paragraphs about the meaning of education again and contrast them with the stated goals of common core standards that most states are finding themselves under:

The Common Core State Standards provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them. The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers. With American students fully prepared for the future, our communities will be best positioned to compete successfully in the global economy.

Is education facilitating the "achieving the purpose of his being" (1939) the same as being able to "compete successfully in the global economy" (2011)?