Any society promising the world perpetual war, and its youth a choice of low-wage jobs or the military, will make peculiar demands on its schools.
The NCLB creates three funnels to feed the wars and the unjust economy: (1) regimented curricula which strip educators of creativity, replaces their minds with the minds of textbook corporations (2) high-stakes standardized exams measuring little but parental income, race, and subservience and (3) military recruiters armed with false promises invade schools, seeking bodies who will engage in war without asking, "Why?
These funnels become pipelines to unreason and death. High-stakes exams are sorting tools, not efforts for equity. School reform without doing social and economic reform is washing the air on one side of a screen door: won't work. Profiteers from the devastation of communities like the Business Roundtable fight for high-stakes testing; dodge economic democracy.
Abolish the NCLB. It cannot be reformed.
Dr Rich Gibson
San Diego State University