I swoon when I think about whoopie pies, a lovely dessert made of two cake-like chocolate cookies sandwiching a creamy, white filling. As a child, I couldn’t get enough of them. Occasionally, my mother would vary the recipe, and present us with moist, red velvet cookie cakes instead of chocolate ones. Yes, red velvet, filled with smooth, seductive buttermilk, a hint of cocoa, and a few drops of red food coloring. I could eat a pie in two bites.
It’s interesting to me that the name has nothing to do with what the dessert actually is. And whoopie pies cannot sustain my body or my mind, being mostly sugar and fat.
I think politicians’ words are red velvet whoopie pies when they talk about education reform. Sweet, but without fuel. Silky, like velvet, but offering nothing original. And like whoopie pies, what they say has nothing to do with what’s really needed. Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, and yes, even the Democrats working to re-elect Barack Obama, believe that competition, school choice, and test data are all that’s needed to turn low performing schools into high achieving ones. As Diane Ravitch wrote in The New York Review on March 8, 2012, these are “strategies similar to the ones that helped produce the economic crash of 2008.” Politicians say what’s necessary to get elected. They have become “corporate reformers” because, after all, that’s where the money comes from. Who cares about the realities of schooling and current research?
Politicians don’t. They know nothing.
Here’s what Mitt Romney’s website says:
- Global competitiveness begins in the classroom.
- As Governor of Massachusetts, Mitt pushed for high expectations, accountability for results, and increased parent choice via access to high quality charter schools.
- As a result of his leadership, Massachusetts scored first in the nation for reading and math (4th and 8th grades) during the third year of Mitt’s term in office.
- No parent should have to send their child to a failing school. Parents need choices, because this leads to better outcomes for all students.
- States should recruit the best teachers and reward them for a job well done.
- Education is the key to the American dream. Creativity, ingenuity, and bold vision must apply to education.
Politicians want education to feed corporate America, where those in power hold onto power. Which means we can’t have an educated population. Just believe what they say, even if it’s not working, or hurts children and teachers, or is not supported by current research. If we adopted Finland’s model where “the central aim of Finnish education is the development of each child as a thinking, active, creative person, not the attainment of higher test scores, and the primary strategy is cooperation, not competition,” then everything changes.
None of these bozos would get elected, because we would have people who could actually think for themselves. They would see the whoopie pies for what they are, a sweet treat, that’s all. Not something you want to swallow by the plateful, just because someone tells you to.
Rick Santorum believes that parents, as education consumers, “have the fundamental right to direct the upbringing and education of their children with the support of local schools, as desired.” As a homeschooling parent, Santorum feels that “flexible and personalized approaches to education for each child maximize their potential.” Gee whiz, that’s great! I wonder where the money for all those personalized approaches is going to come from? What if you are poor, black and living in Mississippi?
Santorum also feels that the federal role in education should be limited. Well, say goodbye to Title I funds and free lunches. I guess teachers will have to figure out how to feed poor, hungry children so they can pass the tests! In addition, the federal government’s role should be limited to inspiring educational excellence and supporting civil rights. If the federal government only supported civil rights in the 1960s, schools would still be segregated.
Mr. Santorum’s website goes on to say that schools should be held accountable, and that baby steps were taken with No Child Left Behind passed during the Bush presidency. But it should have been initiated at the local level (um, it was – in Texas). States may adopt common core standards, but they should not be forced on anyone. Reform should reward excellence, innovation and meeting the needs of individuals, not the needs of government or unions. Yes, it’s that damn government intervention, those terrible unions. We don’t want or need institutions in place to protect people against injustice. We want to restore America, (white America ) to greatness “through educational freedom.”
Newt Gingrich agrees with both Romney and Santorum regarding the importance of competition, accountability, and school choice. However, he does offer a few more specifics. For example, he wants to set up a grant system for kindergarten through twelfth grade students where per student school district funding would follow the child to the school the parents want them to attend. The parents of home-schooled children would receive a tax credit or keep the grant. But who benefits? Not the poor, and that’s who would be left in the public schools with fewer resources available from funding cuts, increased class sizes, and limited involvement by the federal government.
Gingrich also feels that business talent should be recruited into classrooms for one or two hours a day to impart “knowledge and business-like adult expectations” to students. As if that’s the only way to be successful in the world. As if anyone would have time for these people with all the pressure for test results and no excuses. I suppose someone could earn some money by coming up with an assessment for business-like adult expectations.
Gingrich thinks it’s important to restore American history and values into classrooms, which pretty much ignores the contributions of blacks and women, and is mostly written in praise of those who still run the country: wealthy white guys.
No politician addresses exactly how funds will be allocated, or what happens when a parent wants to send their child to a private school. Per pupil state funds don’t cover private school tuition. And how, exactly, will children get from home to the school of their choice?
Those with the means will benefit the most, and the underclass in this country will remain where they are – blocked from educational opportunity and economic prosperity, and more likely to end up in prisons. Diana Ravitch writes that even Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education in the Obama Administration, agrees there should be “no excuses for schools with low test scores. The no excuses reformers (Bush, Gates, Rhee, etc.) maintain that all children can attain academic proficiency without regard to poverty, disability, or other conditions, and that someone must be held accountable if they do not.”
They don’t know what they’re doing.
But here, pass the plate. Take another bite. It won’t hurt. Just don’t think too much.
