posted at http://www.leconsulting.com/arthurhu/98/07/music.txt Meredith Wilson's Music Man and the Think System vs Marc Tucker's Standards Based Education by Arthur Hu arthurhu@halcyon.com Your literature assignment is to go to Blockbuster or whatever video rental place you have and watch Meredith Wilson's Music Man, and write an essay on the parallels between the story of a salesman who sells a city on a band it didn't think it needed, and the education reform movement and Marc Tucker with his "NCEE" credentials and blue ribbon studies who has sold his version of a boys band to enough states and districts to cover half of all public school children in the US by 1994, not counting similar movements under different names. This is a story that I doubt many, if any high schools currently teach except when they actually put on the play. I never really got it until I started reading up about Marc Tucker. I still don't know what the heck "Lord Jim" and "The Fixer" were about but I do know the characters, plots, historical background and songs to almost every hit musical from the King and I, South Pacific to the Sound of Music. Everyone in town is enthralled by the futuristic vision of Professor Harold Hill, except for the grumpy librarian who actually does know how to teach piano. In ed reform, only a few skeptical parents stand up against the enthusiastic masses cheering for the "vision". Hill even has a way around his problem that he can't read music. It's the "Think" system. Just think the music and the music will come out of your lips and fingers. Not much different from whole reading, and NTCM math where children are expected to know how to do 2 digit sums and know about ratio and proportionality without having been exposed to any actual instruction on the topic. Just find an example of the "standard" that you expect of students, and all will magically come up to that level. At the end, the librarian find out Hill is a sham as a musician, but a genuine nice guy anyways, and Hill falls for the librarian instead of leaving town once they figure out Hill can't even read a note of music, and he escapes the sentence of tar and feathering. BTW: it is set in 1912, the same year the Titanic went down. I scanned a number of pages passed on to me from a education network in vermont who got ahold of notes of when Marc Tucker visited Seattle in 1991 if you want to see his version of the presentation to the town. Any who missed the meeting when he was in your part of the country should read this to find out what your state education department or school district has bought into without your knowledge or permission. It's at http://www.leconsulting.com/arthurhu/images/972/a111297/washed/Page0001.html Notes from September 20, 1991 Ad Hoc Group: Process for Setting Standards. Marc Tucker Talk in seattle WA. Marc Tucker: In a nutshell, we see the following needs: Become inclusive. CREATE DISEQUILIBRIUM. We are in crisis. Every community needs a Blue Ribbon Education Task Force. Develop statewide recognition of a problem and ownership of the restructuring process. Finally: a world class assessment system will drive an improved delivery system. (And all you folks thought it was just a test!) Tie to growth management. An education plan in every community is the vision. Media must become a partner in the project Show the test on the evening news. The US has now the most insidious and vicious tracking system in the technological world" (and then he has the nerve to ape the German system which really _is_ an inflexible tracking system) (bottom line?...) Become a full partner in the New Standards Project -- accepting the partnership rules as stated by Marc Tucker. [note - the state did sign a contract with Tucker's NCEE / NSP, and 1209 was basically a codification of this commitment to OBE / outcome based education into law, at the time that it was passed, it was openly stated that performance-based education was the same as outcome based education. OBE has now been so badly discredited thanks to our friends in Pennsylvania and other states that it is no longer heard in Olympia except from the mouths of citizens and protesters of the ed reform movement] ------------------------------------------------------------------ A con artists adopts the name of Prof Harold Hill who claims to have a degree from the Gary Conservatory of Music. He used to sell steam cars until someone actually invented one. He stops off at River City Iowa after a bunch of traveling salesman tell him he'll never be able to sell them a boy's band. Pal: There's not much need in this town for a boy's band. Anything these folks don't have they do without Harold: I'll need some help to get this town out of the serious trouble that it's in. Pal: But there isn't any trouble in this city! Harold: (wink)Then we'll have to create some. We'll have to create a desperate need in yor town for a boy's band What do folks talk about? What's new? What's all that commotion over there? Pal: Why it's just the new pool hall Harold: That's it. You stay right here ..... (big song and dance number!) found this http://www.puc.edu/Staff/Todd_Peterson/harold.html (yeah it's copyrighted but I don't think this excerpt will hurt anybody) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [HAROLD] (The PEOPLE join HAROLD) HAROLD and PEOPLE Trouble (oh we’ve got Trouble) Right here in River City! (Right here in River City!) With a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for Pool (That stands for Pool) We’ve surely got Trouble! (We’ve surely got Trouble!) Right here in River City! (Right here!) Gotta figure out a Way t’keep the young ones Moral after School! (Our children’s Children gonna have Trouble!) PEOPLE Trouble – Trouble Trouble – Trouble (Continues in background through HAROLD’S speech) HAROLD Mothers of River City! Heed the warning before it’s too late! Watch for the tell-tale signs of corruption! The moment your son leaves the house does he rebuckle his knickerbockers below the knee? Is there a nicotine stain on his index finger? A dime novel hidden in the corn crib? Is he memorizing jokes out of Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang? Are certain words creeping into his conversation? Words like "swell" and "so’s your old man" ? If so, m friends – HAROLD and PEOPLE (Slam) (Slam) Ya got Trouble (oh we’ve got Trouble) Right here in River City! (Right here in River City!) With a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for Pool. (That stands for Pool!) We’ve surely got Trouble! (We’ve surely got Trouble!) Right here in River City! (Right here!) Remember the Maine, Plymouth Rock and that Golden Rule! (Our children’s Children gonna have Trouble!) Oh we’ve got Trouble. We’re in terrible terrible Trouble – that game with the So what's going to happen to Tucker when the town finds out the doesn't know how to teach kids to read, read or add? He's sure not going to marry the librarian.... See my Education Deform page at http://www.leconsulting.com/arthurhu/index/edreform.htm Washington timeline is at http://www.leconsulting.com/arthurhu/index/edreform.htm#washington