the elephant in the room

from palisadesk:

You have just tripped over the elephant in the room, and that is the (frightening) fact that the entire system is, in a perverse way, results-driven. But not in the way we want. It is an engine fueled by failure, not success.

Think about it. Student failure provides endlessly expanding opportunities for job creation, innovative "projects," interventions, pseudo-research, administrivia and on and on and on. It provides educrats of all sorts with opportunities to present themselves as caring, professional problem-solvers. If they were wearing T-shirts, the front would say, "See how hard we're trying!" and the back would say, "Don't blame us, look what we have to work with."

In contrast, what does effective curriculum and pedagogy provide? Real student learning is not nearly so full of photo-ops, catchy news stories or video segments. Kids learning well and quickly aren't newsworthy. It looks, well, natural. We almost have to have a system in place to make kids stupid. Remember that the IQ of kids who don't learn to read early on will fall steadily throughout their years in school.

And if kids were effectively taught in most areas from the beginning, huge amounts could be slashed from the budgets allocated for school districts. Not a chance any will undermine their own livelihood in such a way.