Educational Tidbits about Israel, Politicians and School Lovers in the Sunday Education Weekly Reader 04.29.12

Welcome to the Sunday Education Weekly Reader for 04.29.12.

From Israel and Lessons from Abroad:

"There is an urgent need to ‘restart’ the concept of education, to re-examine the connection between scholastic scores and the school culture. It is time to go back to the basics — to educational environments motivated by human values, not comparisons and numbers, but rather to healthy ‘sanctuaries’ for children and youth."

— Chaim Peri, Israeli author of “Teenagers Educated the Village Way.”

We probably won't see that here in the United States.  Arne Duncan believes everything is data driven.  He's decided we need be "global".  Forget about the "village".  And basing education on human values?  Wishful thinking that probably won't happen in public education under the current administration's plan.

What does education have to do with human values in the global scheme of the workforce?  Students are human capital, remember.  Human capital is important only for what it can produce for the workforce, not for any human morality it will bring to the workforce.

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If educational bureaucrats behaved like politicians, this is what our public schools would look like...wait, do they already?  Is Arne Duncan the same as a politician?  He's setting policy and enacting regulations.  Sounds like a politician to me. From Growls:

If Politicians Set the Standard for Honesty

At the Independent Institute’s blog, The Beacon, on Friday, Robert Higgs set about wondering what life would be like “if politicians’ honesty set the standard for others.” Several of the examples included:

• If engineers were no more honest than the typical politician, all of the bridges would fall down.

• If accountants were no more honest than the typical politician, every firm would go bankrupt.

• If carpenters were no more honest than the typical politician, every house would collapse.

• If electricians were no more honest than the typical politician, we would all be electrocuted.

The bottom line for Mr. Higgs?

“So, the questions naturally arise: Why does anyone place any confidence in anything a politician says? Why does anyone expect anything but deception and predation from these dishonest reprobates? Why does anyone seek social improvement or economic salvation from the programs these ne’er-do-wells devise and implement? Why, indeed, do people continue to tolerate politics at all? (This last question presupposes, of course, that those who wish to use the political process to commit a de facto crime—that is, an act that, if committed privately, would be seen as plainly criminal—will be entirely in favor of politics because using the government as their agent-perpetrator offers a way to legalize their crimes. My question pertains to the noncriminal element of the population.)” (emphasis added)

Dallas Weaver then adds his comment: “We tolerate it because they are masters at diversion and we can’t see what they are doing. We see this in spades with the present diversion on the wealthy and the Buffet rule game that would have zip impact on the budget deficit.”

Thank you, Bob Higgs!

It's a bit like the smoke and mirrors present in pushing Common Core (they are NOT state led) and other RTTT type mandates that have little or nothing to do with authentic educational reform.

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Where, oh where, have all the role models gone?

The principal and secretary of a charter school are video taped on a student's cell phone being intimate with one another while school is in session...in a classroom...in this report from abc15.com in Quartsize, Arizona:

This youtube video contains remarks from students and parents regarding the educators' behavior.   The student videographer may have a future in covert operations.