It's hard to keep up with the relentless drumbeat of sourly satisfying news about Obama's appointments, actual and potential. I'm only now getting around to reflecting on the glorious possibility that Obie might actually appoint the Childgrinder of Tweed Courthouse, Joel Klein, as secretary of education.
Klein, a corporate lawyer, was put in charge of New York City's schools by that Napoleonic poison toad Mike Bloomberg. The two of them share a religious commitment to standardized testing as the Holy Grail of education.
Of course this is also the Bush administration's approach, embodied in No Child Left Alone -- er, Behind.
In fact there's an almost complete elite consensus viewing education as a kind of industrial operation: a child-processing facility that takes in raw material (sentimentally referred to as "children") of various types and levels of quality, pulverizes them, sifts them, separates the fine-grained from the coarse, and packages them into citizen-units ranging in price from the deluxe to the unlabelled-generic -- and by the way, generates a fairly high proportion of factory-seconds and rejects in the course of its workings.
You can see why a bloodless corporate honcho like Bloomberg might like this picture -- a δημοβόρος βασιλεύς , as Homer says, a people-eating king. But merit babies like Obie are right there with 'em. For folks in this latter category, the only thing more sacred than the Supreme Court is the Scholastic Aptitude Test. (To be sure, these kind-hearted humanists can be counted on, as always, to emit a high faint yesbutnik squeak, if you squeeze them, like one of those toy mice that cats are expected to like. But that, and a high-school diploma, will get you -- bupkis.)
It may not be Klein, of course. It might be Obie's old Harvard and Chicago buddy Arne Duncan, Klein's counterpart in Chicago.
Duncan is easily summed up: he is to Klein as Chicago is to New York.
Comments (16)
It takes moral panic and Taylorist misanthropy to properly pulverize a child. The pwogs are lucky that the wingnuts are willing to take up the moral panic slack.
There's another dime's worth of difference, if anyone is still counting.
Posted by Al Schumann | December 14, 2008 5:57 AM
Posted on December 14, 2008 05:57
The standardized testing actually has nothing whatsoever to do with SAT prep. It's sheer time squandering. The tests are checking for grade-level competencies, and the definition of "grade level" is GED prep stuff, not merit-class climbing.
The emphasis on testing exists entirely as a distraction from the real issue, which is money and funding sources. The Tweedle-Ds can't drop the emphasis because doing so would immediately lead into the real issue, and that would be extremely dangerous in this job-shedding, credential-deflating corporate Nirvana.
Posted by Michael Dawson | December 14, 2008 5:23 PM
Posted on December 14, 2008 17:23
Let's say, just for the sake of appearing to care about the whole colossal mess and stupidity of American education, you are the proud parent of a kid who was prepped and jammed and mutilated into getting those emblematic high test scores.
Your kid then walks on water. He, or more likely, she, has earned her way to the elite world of Bernie Madoff. Nothing is too good for the little genius (who is most likely medically-governed to some extent). The system weeds out its discontented young, who if they ever had glimmers of resistance to this factory system, now must obey the commands of their numerical profiles. There has been the madness of intelligence testing long in the unmeritocracy of the US, but now without jobs, and without a politics, there is no alternative to the deadbeat scions of privilege like the allegedly "smart" robotroids like Obama and Klein. Have fun at the top, fellas!
Posted by mjosef | December 15, 2008 5:59 AM
Posted on December 15, 2008 05:59
It's official, Duncan's got the job. What a sneaky "big house" pissant Obama is.
Posted by Michael Hureaux | December 16, 2008 1:11 PM
Posted on December 16, 2008 13:11
The similarity of scholarly robes and men of Jesus convinces me that Judaism is cool. At least cooler then them.
Posted by Son of Uncle Sam | December 17, 2008 8:50 AM
Posted on December 17, 2008 08:50
Speaking of schools: We, the SMBIVA Nation await our leaders' observations on the ascendancy of the New York "education advocate" (a specialty in "strategic partnerships," no less!) to the Senate...
Posted by Michael Dawson | December 17, 2008 5:06 PM
Posted on December 17, 2008 17:06
In my mind's eye I see a cartoon of the new administration standing on stage in a grand photo-op. It's the same people as the old administration, except their hats are turned around, and they're grinning instead of scowling.
Posted by seneca | December 18, 2008 1:44 PM
Posted on December 18, 2008 13:44
SMBIVA fans, did you also catch the latest report from Mark Hertsgaard in the magazine formerly known as The Nation? Apparently, Hertsie can assure us all that Obama has appointed a cabinet that is "a green dream team!" Apparently, Killary is among those seen as such among the DC enviro-grafters.
Nero and Caligula couldn't have invented this kind of "opposition."
Posted by Michael Dawson | December 18, 2008 2:03 PM
Posted on December 18, 2008 14:03
"Grinning instead of scowing...."
That's b/c they have Rick Warren on their side. (He has a peace plan, you know. It's right on his website: http://www.rickwarren.com/)
Posted by Linda J | December 18, 2008 5:15 PM
Posted on December 18, 2008 17:15
Did Duncan got the job ?
--
Jeff
( )
Posted by MPLS | August 5, 2009 1:53 AM
Posted on August 5, 2009 01:53
Thank you for this very useful information.
Posted by Jack | April 13, 2010 11:25 AM
Posted on April 13, 2010 11:25
king. But merit babies like Obie are right there with 'em. For folks in this latter category, the only thing more sacred than the Supreme Court is the Scholastic Aptitude Test. (To be sure, these kind-hearted humanists can be counted on, as always, to emit a high faint yesbutnik squeak, if you squeeze them, like one of those toy mice that cats are expected to like. But that, and a high-school diploma, will get you -- bupkis.)
Posted by shane | April 14, 2010 2:13 AM
Posted on April 14, 2010 02:13
Posted by markweee | April 19, 2010 2:59 AM
Posted on April 19, 2010 02:59
Posted by jacob | April 20, 2010 5:59 AM
Posted on April 20, 2010 05:59
Nice post.
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