ALLIANCE OF CONSERVATIVES, LIBERALS, CORPORATE, EDUCRATS 4 STANDARDS
z68\doc\web\2003\07\standref.txt
http://www.louisville.edu/journal/workplace/issue5p2/rougeforum.html
.. has been hit with at least some degree of criticism—notably both
from the Right, which sees standards-based reform as imposing on local
school district autonomy, and from the Left, which sees it as racist,
sexist, and classist.. willingness to take such criticism seriously
yet still maintain that it can satisfactorily be accommodated by ..
the prevailing framework.  "the demand for standards-based reform
itself—the standardization imperative—goes unchallenged, at least
among the alliance of conservative and liberal politicians, corporate
elites, chief school officers, and teacher union leaders.  "

Why Standards-Based Educational Reforms & High-Stakes Testing are Key
Rouge Forum Issues 5

6.1 There is no place in the world that is growing more equitable and
more democratic. To the contrary, commonly color-coded gaps of wealth
and income expand across continents and within national populations.
Carrot and stick, divide and conquer politics prevail behind a mask of
globalism and prosperity. Total quality management, worker-to-worker
campaigns, cooperative learning in schools, provide a Potemkin Village
for the realities of exploitation and alienation. Talk of community is
silenced by institutionalized pure selfishness, the hubris of power
and privilege: arrogant warfare for markets, cheap labor, and raw
materials. Freedom of choice becomes a pretense for a declining number
of meaningful options. Elites do not want citizens to understand how
to unravel the roots of power. Moreover, elites do not want power, a
corollary of fear, noticed. Instead, privilege wants to rule under
flags of democracy, tradition, patriotism, respectability,
reasonableness, and perhaps above all, habit. This sums up to a
numbing assault on human creativity on one hand, and a razor-sharp
hierarchical ordering, made possible by largesse and a ferocious
willingness to use terror and violence, on another. The capital
system, grown by the war of all on all, requires profits, but is as
deeply concerned with ideas, the consciousness necessary to make
people instruments of their own oppression. No society reliant solely
on technological might and the enticements of covetousness–-a society
that cannot trust its citizens—can last very long. The injustice
requisite within the birthrights of the capital system is permanent,
however, standardized curriculum and high-stakes tests are not and the
reasoned struggle against them offers ways to come to better
understand routes to challenge injustice. 

Regulating Education and the Economy 6

7.1 The primary justification for the imposition of standardized
curricula and/or the seizure of local schools by the state/corporate
alliances (such as occurred in Detroit and numerous other cities) has
been poor test scores and high drop out rates, even though both of
these measures are less a reflection of student ability or achievement
than a measure of parental income. 

7.2 The research over the past two decades indicates test-based
educational reforms do not lead to better educational policies and
practices. Indeed, such testing often leads to educationally unjust
consequences and unsound practices. These include increased drop-out
rates, teacher and administrator de-professionalization, loss of
curricular integrity, increased cultural insensitivity, and
disproportionate allocation of educational resources into testing
programs, and not into hiring qualified teachers and providing
enriching sound educational programs (Amrein & Berliner, 2002; Haney,
2000).

7.3 It is clear that scores on high-stakes standardized tests as well
as drop-out rates are directly related to poverty, and none of the
powers demanding school standardization or seizure appears seriously
prepared to address this condition. The Rouge Forum has consistently
maintained that the origins of the standards-based education reform is
a direct result of increased inequality and authoritarianism. In fact,
high-stakes tests are used to rationalize inequality and
authoritarianism. Paradoxically, though perhaps unsurprisingly, states
have increasingly sought to punish low-scoring (read less wealthy)
schools and districts by cutting funding that might help them raise
their all-important test scores and become more “like” (via smaller
classes, greater resources, increased staffing, modernized facilities)
wealthier (read high-scoring) schools. Although the established
pro-standardization position has been hit with at least some degree of
criticism—notably both from the Right, which sees standards-based
reform as imposing on local school district autonomy, and from the
Left, which sees it as racist, sexist, and classist—one fascinating
feature of the consensus view remains its willingness to take such
criticism seriously yet still maintain that it can satisfactorily be
accommodated by and/or assimilated within the prevailing framework.
Thus while particular positions may differ marginally on the specifics
(the devil is in the details), the demand for standards-based reform
itself—the standardization imperative—goes unchallenged, at least
among the alliance of conservative and liberal politicians, corporate
elites, chief school officers, and teacher union leaders. 

7.4 Ensconced within this alliance is an insidious move on the part of
elite stakeholders toward the corporate/state regulation and
administration of knowledge, a move that enables what Noam Chomsky
calls “systems of unaccountable power” to make self-interested
decisions ostensibly on behalf of the public when, in fact, most
members of the public have no meaningful say in what or how decisions
are made or in what can count as legitimate knowledge. This, of
course, is purposeful and involves the coordinated control of such
pedagogical processes as goal-setting, curriculum development,
testing, and teacher education/ evaluation, the management of which
works to restrict not only what and who can claim the status of “real”
knowledge, but also who ultimately has access to it (see Mathison &
Ross, 2002).