"I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power." - Thomas Jefferson 1820

"There is a growing technology of testing that permits us now to do in nanoseconds things that we shouldn't be doing at all." - Dr. Gerald Bracey author of Rotten Apples in Education

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Sunday, July 15, 2012

Sunday Education Reform Comic Strip that Isn't Funny...and The Sunday Education Weekly Reader 07.15.12..

Featuring a Sunday comic that isn't funny or "for the kids".


Welcome to the Sunday Education Weekly Reader for 07.15.2012.

We are highlighting a cartoon from archcomix.com highlighting education reform issues.  I picked it up from GF Brandenberg's blog:

Instead of attempting to reproduce the entire cartoon here, let me give you the URL so you can look at it.

The art isn't perfect, but it does lay out the issues behind NCLB, RTTT, charter schools, TFA, and so on.


It does address most issues but omits probably the worst "reform" to come out of these plans: the longitudinal data system and the tracking of student/family data so that human "capital" can be groomed to supply workforce needs.

For a good basic discussion about most of the reforms, it's a good read and delves beneath the veneer of school "choice" touted by both liberal and conservative politicians.  Whether or not you agree with all the contentions, the comic hopefully will raise awareness of citizens on who is behind the reforms and why.  The reforms go way beyond "it's for the kids".  An educated citizen should understand where his/her taxpayers dollars are being spent, who is controlling those dollars and who is benefiting from those expenditures.  It might surprise you that tax dollars are headed to "public" education controlled by private corporations unaccountable to those same taxpayers funding the educational reforms.

 It goes beyond just the desire for private corporations to make money in charter schools, however.  Think data capture.  That will yield much more money in the long run than charter schools.



You can access the entire comic here.

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