by special guest blogger Michael Fiorillo
The sadomasochistic ritual known as testing season is upon
us, and for some reason that makes me think about Choice and the lack of it.
So-called education reformers fervently believe parents
should have Choice. By that, they don’t mean parents are members of a community
with rights and a voice in the education of their children, but that they are
utility-minded consumers in a marketplace, a giant educational supermarket.
They’re supposed to be homo edu-nomicus, discerning shoppers walking down the
bright, carefully orchestrated aisles, impressed by the color and abundance.
In reality, it’s more like what Michael Pollan describes in
his books about the American food and agricultural system: much of that
apparent variety and choice is mostly processed, genetically-modified corn or
soy, with a lot of sugar, salt and fat thrown in.
Sure, the sign on the door of one of Bloomberg’s new schools
may say “Academy of Legal
Performing Arts and Criminal Justice Business Studies,” but too much of it is
variations on a theme of Test Prep.
What they call school choice is in fact a gigantic loss of
democracy, community stability, institutional memory. And with the
neutralization and intended demise of the teacher unions, it’s a big decline in
living standards, going years forward into the work lives of today’s children.
The billionaires who’ve altruistically decided to buy
controlling shares in US education
have a peculiar definition of choice. In their selfless magnanimity, they’ve
chosen our choices for us, and they’ve also chosen what we cannot choose.
Closing public schools and replacing them with charters and
teacher-free i-Things is Choice.
Equitably supporting all neighborhood and community public
schools is Not a Choice.
Common Corporate Standards are Choice (don’t ask how, but
take it on rigorous faith).
An enriched curriculum for all students, including art,
music, physical education and play time, is Not a Choice.
Tests, more of them, on everything, are Choice.
Opting out of the tests is most definitely Not a Choice.
For teachers, speaking out publicly and critically about the
tests is supremely Not a Choice, as our very own union warned us.
When it was time for most so-called reformers to send their
own kids to school, they made an emphatic Choice to give them a very different
education than what they’re imposing on other people’s kids.
That will give those parents and teachers No Choice but to
fight back for what’s left of their children’s public education.
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