"No Excuses" and the Culture of Shame: Why metrics don't matter

[HiPointDem]

Since the metrics debate (test scores, graduation rates, attrition...) appears both enduring and stagnant, I want to make a clear statement with some elaboration that I reject the "ends-justify-the-means" assumptions and practices—the broader "no excuses" ideology—underneath the numbers, and thus, we must stop focusing on the outcomes of programs endorsed by the GF or TFA and KIPP. Instead, we must unmask the racist and classist policies and practices hiding beneath the metrics debate...

&quot N)o excuses" environments are predominantly about placing affluent and privileged people in positions of authority to deliver authoritarian training to students unlike them; in other words, "no excuses" ideology is about isolating, controlling, and ultimately "fixing" "other people's children."

As well, "no excuses" environments embrace school cultures, modes of teaching, and student conditions that are explicitly unlike the experiences of the privileged administrators and teachers implementing policy (similar to Bill Gates, Arne Duncan, and others endorsing school reform unlike their own experiences and the experiences they provide for their children.).

Two aspects of "no excuses" practices must be rejected directly: (1) the deficit perspective at the core of "no excuses" ideology that has its roots in racism and classism, and (2) the "missionary zeal" associated with TFA recruits and advocates for "no excuses" practices (at the exclusion of expertise and experience)...

Democracy and equity cannot be built upon coercion and inequity.

Racial and economic equity cannot be built on racist and classist policies.

One America cannot be realized by perpetuating two Americas in our schools...No metrics can ever justify for me the indignity of "no excuses" practices. None.

In order to have one America, the America of democracy and equity for all, we must have one education system of democracy and equity for all.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/08/30/1125810/--No-Excuses-and-the-Culture-of-Shame-Why-Metrics-Don-t-Matter

[mbperrin]

1. You're right. And no longitudinal study has ever been performed to see what

learned in school ended up promoting long term happiness for the students.

So it's like hopping into a car with no idea where to head, but we'll drive really fast.