You call that reform?

I wandered over to the National Education Association's website today, and found this:

NEA advocates for public school reforms that we know make a difference in boosting student achievement. Among them:

• free, universal preschool
• smaller class sizes
• a qualified and caring teacher in every classroom
• a challenging curriculum
• ample resources for all public schools, including those that serve poor and minority students
• involved parents

Wow. That is the most gutless, uninspiring piece of milquetoast I've seen in a while. The only new idea is universal preschool, and here the alleged benefits are not supported by research data. Children in poverty do benefit from pre-kindergarten education, but that's why we have Head Start. Some middle-class children may experience a slight academic benefit, but also tend to be hindered in their social development. And kids with highly educated parents do better, on the average, when they don't attend preschool at all.

The rest of the list are no-brainers. It's like a politician who says he supports More Jobs, Less Crime, and National Security. It's a pointless thing to say. It gets us nowhere in terms of real action. Sure, the NEA supports smaller class sizes. Who doesn't? The NEA supports ample resources-- what a novel goal!

How about these ideas:

• Stop using standardized tests.
  
• Fire a third of all school administrators.
• Use mixed-grade, mixed-age classrooms and lots of peer tutoring.
• Eliminate token economies, de-emphasize grades.
• Buy some houses, set up tiny neighborhood schools, stop spending millions on busing.
  
• Give students more autonomy over pacing and scheduling of subjects.
• Allow 10% of school time for kids to pursue their own academic interests.
• Build, say, four-week apprenticeships into the high school calendar.
  
• Stop making kids listen to other people reading out loud!!
• Let kids read the books they want to read. Set them loose in the library.
  
• Give parents and students some actual say in the classroom (not mere lip service).
• Respect students' first amendment rights.
• Make classrooms more comfortable. Don't tolerate bullying, allow healthy food/drink, let people take a piss without asking permission (for crying out loud!).
• Stop using history textbooks. Throw. Them. Out. Replace them with real history books.
  

At least that's an interesting list, even if some of the items would be hotly debated.

The NEA is apparently just like the Democratic party. Presumably benevolent, and the vessel for a progressive person's hopes and expectations-- but, for the most part, an enormous rhetoric-spewing disappointment. I don't think these people could drop the management-speak if you held a gun to their heads.

The amount of money spent on busing is absolutely ridiculous, and it's going to get a lot worse as we continue to run out of petrol. The problem is, you can't set up tiny little schoolhouses and maintain age segregation. And yet, eliminating age segregation is somehow too shocking a proposal to even be spoken aloud. People apparently believe that teenagers eat small children, if not closely supervised.

Furthermore, the number of school administrators per teacher has doubled since the 50s. This is a reversible problem.

Tens of millions are also spent in each state on constant standardized testing. So much is spent on the tests themselves and on the consequent additional administrators that I have to question whether it wouldn't be cheaper to forfeit federal funds, and just give the bird to NCLB.

* * *

A decade ago, I used to believe that there were simply an enormous number of morons out there. There were oodles of well-meaning idiots who would see the light if only we could sit them down and explain the truth to them. But now I think that when a system is failing, it is usually failing on purpose.

The reason we have almost 50 million uninsured Americans is that then, no matter how hideously bad and absurd your HMO becomes, you remain grateful to have any insurance at all.

The reason we don't have safe ports, safe nuclear facilities, safe subways, safe airports is that another 9/11 would benefit the glinty-eyed fascists within the current administration.

The reason they didn't save New Orleans is that they didn't want to save New Orleans. They wanted to destroy the Democratic and black metropolis within the red state of Louisiana, and they did so through intentional neglect. This was not a failure. This was a hidden agenda.

And the reason high school graduates are so ill-informed and unable to think critically is that K-12 education was designed by the robber barons to prevent true education and critical thinking. The schools aren't failing at all. They are succeeding in their historical mission-- in spite of the teachers who swim against that tide.

And the NEA surely isn't going to change that.