Tunya Audain says: [to Joanne Jacobs blog in response to her topic — Keeping the proles down — http://www.joannejacobs.com/2017/07/keeping-the-proles-down/ ]
July 12, 2017 at 1:30 pm
Joanne: Excellent post. Really hoping your title breeds tons more similar titles on this contradiction in our midst — Educators perpetuating poor education while maximizing their own advantages. Sent the following to Education Consumers Clearinghouse:
“Keeping the proles down”
That is the title of Joanne Jacobs Jul 12, 2017 blog. It is a title that needs to be repeated, over and over again, by many observers illuminating just how rigged the public education systems in our Western World are. That’s why we need good schools, she says:
“Kids need access to safe, orderly schools staffed with competent teachers using a content-rich, structured curriculum. The students whose parents can’t help with homework, hire a tutor, pay for computer camp, etc. need good schools the most.”
http://www.joannejacobs.com/2017/07/keeping-the-proles-down/#comments
BUT, don’t expect any initiatives from the education establishment or its camp followers (those lofty think-tanks who pretend to criticize and pretend to reform the present systems). It’s not in their narrow self-interest to promote change that denies their own advantages and privileges. So as educators increasingly opt for private schools for their own children and often rail against choice, the best that the “proles” can hope for —you know, those who are on long waiting lists for alternatives — is for radically more choices. And that is where public policy needs legislation and laws to open up vouchers and the other plans to help parents choose freely.
2nd comment to JJ after reject by JPG
Keeping proles down is easy. The education systems refuse to teach reading properly to all kids. The proles don’t have lawyers to decode and read “between the lines”. When scams do happen, the proles haven’t got the capacity to see education frauds for what they are. AND, the think tanks in education merely pretend they are for reform — status quo is retained. When will people call a spade a spade?
In 1977 Nat Hentoff wrote “The Greatest Consumer Fraud Of All” about the public education system. “Fraud” is not the only term that’s appropriate. “Con” and “hoax” are other words as used in these articles about the unmasking of the self-esteem “movement”:
“It was quasi-religious”: the great self-esteem con”, Will Storr, Guardian, 3 June ’17, https://www.theguardian.com/…/quasi-religious-great…
– “Why Are Schools Still Peddling the Self-Esteem Hoax? – Social-emotional learning is rooted in ‘faux psychology’”, Chester Finn, Education Week, 19 June ’17, http://www.edweek.org/…/why-are-schools-still-peddling… (Finn extrapolates the current interest in Social Emotional Learning [SEL] to be of similar type of hype as self-esteem had been.)
Joanne’s bottom line is that at least those who cannot afford private schools or privileged add-ons should have the basics — “Kids need access to safe, orderly schools staffed with competent teachers using a content-rich, structured curriculum. The students whose parents can’t help with homework, hire a tutor, pay for computer camp, etc. need good schools the most.”