Reply #13: It is All about CONTROL

[roxiejules]

The game is rigged and so are the tests.....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/02/AR2007050202004_pf.html

A Test Everyone Will Fail

...And it turns out that only one-third of those high-flying Swedish kids would be considered proficient readers; the NAEP figure for U.S. fourth-graders was 29 percent. The great majority of the remaining countries would have fewer proficient students than the United States. Using the NAEP standard, no country comes close to having a majority of proficient readers.

The numbers are useful as scare techniques. If you can batter people into believing the schools are in awful shape, you can make them anxious about their future -- and you can control them.

The most recent phony alarm comes from Eli Broad and Bill Gates, who are putting up $60 million hoping to "wake up the American people." If the fear-mongers can scare you sufficiently (how many times have you heard the phrase "failing schools" in the past five years?), you might permit them to do to your public schools things you would otherwise never allow.


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Can anyone say Shock Doctrine?