Our Public Schools Are Churning Out Drones for the Corporate State

From AlterNet, the guy with a Master of Divinity from Harvard who is currently the most inspiring writer I'm reading, Chris Hedges, on our deeply flawed educational system:

A nation that destroys its systems of education, degrades its public information, guts its public libraries and turns its airwaves into vehicles for cheap, mindless amusement becomes deaf, dumb and blind. It prizes test scores above critical thinking and literacy. It celebrates rote vocational training and the singular, amoral skill of making money. It churns out stunted human products, lacking the capacity and vocabulary to challenge the assumptions and structures of the corporate state. It funnels them into a caste system of drones and systems managers. It transforms a democratic state into a feudal system of corporate masters and serfs.

Teachers, their unions under attack, are becoming as replaceable as minimum-wage employees at Burger King. We spurn real teachers--those with the capacity to inspire children to think, those who help the young discover their gifts and potential--and replace them with instructors who teach to narrow, standardized tests. These instructors obey. They teach children to obey. And that is the point. The No Child Left Behind program, modeled on the "Texas Miracle," is a fraud. It worked no better than our deregulated financial system. But when you shut out debate these dead ideas are self-perpetuating.

More here.

Right, of course. It's like I keep telling people: the public "debate" on education is pretty much the same as being in a flame-consumed house and arguing about what color the carpets and curtains ought to be--the problem isn't the interior design; the problem is that the fucking house is on fire.

That is, virtually nobody is talking about education in this way. It's all teachers' unions, all test scores, all charter schools, all vouchers, all bullshit. These might be valid issues in another reality, the reality where we teach children to think for themselves, to question authority, to develop their own opinions about the nation in which they live, to cooperate rather than compete, and to love and help rather than hate and ridicule. But we don't live in that reality. Instead, we live in a reality where education is little more than training dogs to salivate when they hear a bell. And everybody seems to be so cool with this concept that the "debate," for what it is, is about how to get children to perform better on standardized tests, which provide such a fragmentary picture of a child's intellectual development, that, by themselves, they are almost meaningless.

Should we increase or decrease class size? Do unions prevent school districts from easily dismissing "bad" teachers? What are a given school's graduation rates? Can charter schools develop an educational model that improves "student learning"? Will vouchers force schools to compete against each other, making them "better" just like in the free market? Should we have more standardized tests? These are all pointless questions because none of them actually address the concept of student learning in a meaningful way.

That is, our current educational model, loosely based on a nineteenth century Prussian plan to militarize its population through the schools, is extraordinarily good at indoctrinating children into the culture of obedience and authority, which is the exact opposite of training children to analyze complicated issues and render value judgments about them. With things as they are, it is impossible to improve education. You can't have it both ways. You can't teach people to question their surroundings while at the same time punishing them for questioning their surroundings. Consequently, for most Americans, intellectual development becomes arrested by education's "do as you're told" mentality.

If you've ever had the sense that everyone around you is fucking stupid as all get out, you're right. But this should not be surprising. This is exactly the outcome you get from our approach to education. We teach children to not think. I mean, when your every action is dictated by school authority, all day long, every day of the year, from kindergarten through twelfth grade, you don't have to think. Your superiors do it for you. All you have to do is "perform well" on standardized tests, show up for class on time, avoid dirty words, wear clothing that is acceptable to the dress code.

I rail away here often on the fact that our democratic republic is now a thing of the past. The sad truth is that we may no longer, as a people, actually be capable of anything even resembling democracy. Without an engaged and thoughtful population, democracy must necessarily wither.

And that's pretty much how America seems to be right now, withered.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$