{"id":1798,"date":"2010-11-24T14:10:47","date_gmt":"2010-11-24T04:10:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/primaryschooling.net\/?page_id=1798"},"modified":"2012-07-16T23:27:00","modified_gmt":"2012-07-16T13:27:00","slug":"nov-2010-compulsory-schooling-a-sick-joke","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/primaryschooling.net\/?page_id=1798","title":{"rendered":"Nov, 2010 Compulsory schooling – a sick joke."},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

In November 2010, New York \u00a0presented a shameless charade exposing the way in which children, who are forced to attend school, are treated. The city\u2019s dictatorial leader, Mayor Bloomberg, has decided that a non-teacher magazine editor will be appointed as the head of its schooling system to take the place of the non-teacher, sweet-talking Chancellor who has been busy promoting mediocre general standards in his city\u2019s district system, while boasting that test results are improving.<\/p>\n

Cathie Black, a successful magazine editor, comes from Rupert Murdoch\u2019s empire to take the place of Joel Klein, a politically successful lawyer who is moving into Murdoch\u2019s employ at the end of 2010. There was a hitch. The New York State Education Commission prefers experienced personnel; and it has a condition that the role of Chancellor be held by someone who has at least three years of teaching. This was waived by the State Board of Education in the case of Joel Klein, at the \u2018request\u2019 of the Mayor. This time, Cathie Black\u2019s credentials are completely zero on all schooling counts; and there has been significant opposition to her appointment including a senator-elect, the City Council\u2019s Education Committee and 5,800 petitioning parents. As one N.Y. Councillor said to Bloomberg, \u201cFool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.\u201d Online petitions to Dr. Steiner, the State Commissioner, pleaded with him not to make the mistake made in 2002 when Joel Klein was appointed. Dr. Steiner, despite protests outside his home and heavy public comment, has followed the cautious managerial practice of appointing a panel of \u2018experts\u2019 to consider the appointment. It seems to be a stacked deck, with five of the eight members sure to follow the wishes of Bloomberg. At least two have benefited substantially from the Mayor\u2019s generosity and three of them have worked for Klein.\u00a0 As one New York Times<\/em> columnist says, \u201cThat\u2019s New York, kiddies.\u201d<\/p>\n

The saga continues with a suggestion that Steiner might approve a waiver if a school-experienced deputy is appointed. Bloomberg does not like such a compromise.\u00a0 It threatens his status. At the panel\u2019s first meeting to consider the waiver of Black\u2019s lack of credentials, there were 2 in favour, 2 against, 2 for \u2018hold for the time being\u2019, 2 were missing. A University poll indicates that 51% disapprove of Black\u2019s appointment, while 26% do. To enhance the farce, it has now been found that Joel Klein\u2019s new job creates a serious conflict of interest. His new Murdoch subsidiary is taking over his old district\u2019s testing program, and there\u2019s heaps of cash to be made in test publication. It\u2019s all \u00a0a joke…a very sick one, kiddies.<\/p>\n

Australia now follows this meretricious New York pattern to care for its own kids. Klein-struck Education Minister Gillard, [with a Bloomberg-like dictatorial bent], decided that Australia should copy the Klein hard-data based system because he told her that he had magical managerial powers and sold her the porky that hard-line management works in schools. She didn\u2019t need any further information. She balefully introduced the institutionalised sadistic model forthwith, not referring to any school folk anywhere; and Australia is stuck with the pursuit of New York\u2019s mediocre learning pursuits. [It was heartening to hear respected journalist Brian Toohey draw attention to the problem on The Insiders<\/em> on 21 Nov.2010].<\/p>\n

A description of Mayor Bloomberg unhappily applies to Ms Gillard: \u201c…elitist, autocratic and genuinely does not care what critics thinks, all the more so if those critics are professional educators.\u201d [Elissa Gootman] Fortunately for our Julia, professional<\/em> educators, concerned about the evil assault on children\u2019s learning, are in short supply<\/p>\n

Australian citizens have a right to seek answers and to press for genuine reform, but they remain silent. Her Immenseness and her claque pursue the installation of fear-driven schooling for all Australian children while the states fiddle, almost wantonly over the years, with various structures. \u00a0The range of differences in schooling structures that a small country such as ours, tolerate, is amazings. Amongst them….<\/p>\n

We have different ages of admission to formal schooling;<\/p>\n

We have different ages of exiting formal schooling;<\/p>\n

We have different number of years of schooling for Primary pupils;<\/p>\n

\u00a0We have different names for the first year of schooling;<\/p>\n

and so it goes on and on with some peculiar structural changes to some state systems. They tinker. That\u2019s Australia, kiddies.<\/p>\n

While blanket testing forces teachers to turn Mathematics into Calculations only, the study of English into Spelling and Grammar mostly; and Science into a paper-and pencil subject…rivalling New York at its worst… we stay silent. The present emphasis on skill development in schools is unparalleled. We are heading away from the prospect of a decent education system at a fast rate.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cClearly, what is currently passing for education reform is nothing more than smoke and mirrors designed to ….. stupidify education\u201d says U.S. parent reformer Pricilla Gutierrez. That seems to sum it all up.<\/p>\n

The Senate Inquiry into NAPLAN offered an opportunity for Australian people to have a say, and the public decided not to do so in large numbers. There were 270 written submissions, and those of us who did write, failed to emphasise the relationship between blanket testing and classroom learning. Indeed, the author of the Terms on Reference did not ask for such comment, but it did give some of us a chance to have a say. Such comments were, rightfully, ignored. The window was opened a little and, with some professional comment about teaching and learning from more organisations, it could have been opened wider, but it was kept closed. It was a Naplan and Myschool thing.<\/p>\n

There is no place in a real, live learning institution, such as a primary school, to have anything whatsoever to do with hard, judgemental blanket testing, such as Australia borrowed from New York. We needed to talk about that issue; as well as what goes on in the classroom, and how we can connect the levels of achievement above any pre-existing levels with the relationship to the desire to learn. It\u2019s not that difficult to do. We didn\u2019t talk about it. Classroom teachers know about it but they are busy people, so we don\u2019t ask them. The organisation of compulsory schooling is just too sick to talk about in public. Open debate is well controlled. That\u2019s what we do in Dystralia, kids.<\/p>\n

\u00a0We didn\u2019t say enough about the kids, nor judge the morality, necessity, evaluative use, learning outcomes and alterations to classroom practices of the tests, from a child\u2019s view. It\u2019s touchy, because careful consideration would probably lead to a banning of the testing program.\u00a0 All interested folk and organisations were too concerned about Julia\u2019s website that, it is alleged, describes schools properly; and the senators themselves had a busy enough time having to study the written submissions at the same time as their personal and party futures were threatened during the federal election. It was tough on them. It was such a shame that \u2018MySchool\u2019, the auto-da-fa of Australian schooling, took over real schooling issues in the turmoil. The Green Party\u2019s initiative to have such an inquiry, in the absence of a suitable policy of its own, was politically astute but it required a committee of super-people with heaps of time and serious terms of reference. Some of its officers will have to start writing early, I suspect, if the report is to surface this year.\u00a0 In any case, Julia will be pleased with the outcome and use it to her advantage.<\/p>\n

Post Script<\/span>: The above was written prior to the release of the Report on Monday, 29 November, which gave three hearty cheers for Naplan, as expected. Hang in there kids; it won\u2019t disappear for another twenty years.\u00a0 Your generation of teachers will be anxious people, manipulating their syllabuses so that they can find time to coach you, especially during the first few months of each year. I now wish that I had kept my old Weekly Tests in Arithmetic and Grammar from my testing-fixated Principal days. Even my six general half-term exams would be handy. You see, in my infantile \u2018professional\u2019 period, I believed that practice was important, and that fear-of-failure could be implanted; and that sharing pupil progress, as an evaluator with the evaluatee, was too difficult to undertake. Besides, I didn\u2019t know much about it…not as much as classroom teachers know these days. I\u2019d, now, surely make a few bucks from publishing steady testing programs for use for the first few months of each year. On second thoughts, shares in ACER these days might prove more profitable. Might as well make money out of the sorry mess…but then there is … professionalism. Bugger.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 In November 2010, New York \u00a0presented a shameless charade exposing the way in which children, who are forced to attend school, are treated. The city\u2019s dictatorial leader, Mayor Bloomberg, has decided that a non-teacher magazine editor will be appointed as the head of its schooling system to take the place of the non-teacher, … Continue reading Nov, 2010 Compulsory schooling – a sick joke.<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":5,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1798","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/primaryschooling.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/primaryschooling.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/primaryschooling.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primaryschooling.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primaryschooling.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1798"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/primaryschooling.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1798\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1952,"href":"https:\/\/primaryschooling.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1798\/revisions\/1952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/primaryschooling.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}