I second the idea that we, as a nation and as a society, have the opportunity to reshape public schooling. One of the things I think that is in the way of this in the overwhelming reliance on standardized testing. I know it is here in the States. Is it also where you are?

Legislators have been bamboozled to believe that reading/language arts and math scores are all that is need to reckon the status of students, of teachers, of schools, and of school systems. This view has been perpetuated by certain corporations, philanthropies to the point were it has become hegemonic and is accepted as the way it should be, has to be, by district superintendents, central office administrators, building principals, teachers, students, parents. I remember reading Foucault saying that eventually prisoners become to act as their own wardens.

And our schools, especially those serving low income populations and those who first language isn’t English, and those with special physical and mental needs— these schools and districts are constantly having to deal with the assessment results which show their education efforts as deficient. And yet we know that research has consistently shown a correlation between test scores and income and zip codes. Testing has essentially created a two-tier, a two-class system, channeling funding, resources, talent to those who have (high scores) and those who have not (high trust scores).

Jim Popham once wrote: “In an evidence-oriented enterprise, those who control the evidence gathering mechanisms control the entire enterprise.”

By the way I see that you’ve appreciated Kieran Egan. I’ve been a fan of his since reading his article in a 1989 Phi Delta Kappan: “Learning, imagination, and learning: Connected by the story.”