The author claims that these stupid and clumsy tests are of "a force that wants you ignorant and pliable, and that needs you able to fill in the boxes and follow instructions".
If we're going to believe in some malign conspiracy hindering the public schools, wouldn't we look for it first in those institutions determining what does and doesn't happen in those schools? If we compare those institutions' stated purposes with their interests and actual behaviors, would we find them self-consistent? admirable? What would happen to their influence if that analysis were performed more deeply and frequently?
And if we imagined the tools of such a force, what would they be? Control over the language of debate, insistence on particular assumptions, a particular orthodoxy of procedure and calculation, prohibition of certain questions as unnecessary or beside the point?
Would such a force be honest about its aims and methods? Or would it seek to obscure them, and claim some different, more popular aims?
We might begin looking for this malign 'fungus' by noting these tests were instituted to establish some accountability. Why exactly was that? And why were these obviously lousy tools chosen -- what alternatives were discussed, and why were they rejected?
Yes, I can very well imagine a force, answering that description, wishing to limit the critical faculties produced by our public schools. I can imagine it very well indeed.
If we're going to believe in some malign conspiracy hindering the public schools, wouldn't we look for it first in those institutions determining what does and doesn't happen in those schools? If we compare those institutions' stated purposes with their interests and actual behaviors, would we find them self-consistent? admirable? What would happen to their influence if that analysis were performed more deeply and frequently?
And if we imagined the tools of such a force, what would they be? Control over the language of debate, insistence on particular assumptions, a particular orthodoxy of procedure and calculation, prohibition of certain questions as unnecessary or beside the point?
Would such a force be honest about its aims and methods? Or would it seek to obscure them, and claim some different, more popular aims?
We might begin looking for this malign 'fungus' by noting these tests were instituted to establish some accountability. Why exactly was that? And why were these obviously lousy tools chosen -- what alternatives were discussed, and why were they rejected?
Yes, I can very well imagine a force, answering that description, wishing to limit the critical faculties produced by our public schools. I can imagine it very well indeed.