And this position is correct, of course. At least for a society run by capitalists and the neo-liberal goons who serve them.
I’m not sure the “pragmatic” wing of neo-liberal goondom would say or write any such thing, however. The true political pragmatist would understand the expediency of shutting the hell up about this realistic but bothersome fact about mass schooling (less accurately described as “education”) under capitalism.
This is not a new problem. There are two essential functions of universal public education. One is the reproduction of society. The other is the active production of an enlightened citizenry that is capable of self-government and the advancement of society. It is possible to integrate these functions under socialism (one could argue, and I would), but in 2010 that position for the most part is a hypothetical. However, under any minority ruling class regime, these functions are contradictory; capitalist ideology obscures this, and in the United States especially, these contradictory positions are treated as easily integrated, or even equivalent, leading to another in a long line of nutty (since irreconcilable) political “solutions.”
There is not only a vast literature of economic “reform” in the US (a good rule of thumb: American education is always “not working,” and is always in need of “reform”), but a historical literature describing these Sisyphean waves of “reform.” Diane Ravitch seems to have figured out recently that she was another in a long line of re-wheel-inventing “reformers,” even though as a young scholar she seems to have been acquainted with this history--I guess, as with the quants and Type-A’s of the late financial boom, her era was going to be different.
There have, of course, been true advances in American public education, and they have always had the same source: Strong, democratic popular organization (that is, a strong Left movement). These advances have generally been rule-maintaining compromises that let pressure escape from a threatened system, but advances they have been.
There have always been smart people with good ideas about education. But whether they end up serving the people or serving the masters is a function of the forces in play during that period of history.
On Tue, May 25, 2010 at 7:20 AM, <123hop at comcast.net> wrote:
> This seems to be a global feature of neo-liberalism. I was reading last week that education in Romania is collapsing. A country with near-universal literacy (thanks to the commies), now has a literacy rate of 70% and dropping.
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