We all know about the unrelenting meddling of the Neo-cons in aggressively promoting their brand of democracy to foreign nations, but when it comes to education, their meddling has gone too far. The effects of their “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB) policy sounds good on the outside, but when you consider where the slogan comes from, it has no place in our children’s classroom. Yes, this is a military slogan wherein the battle cry on the field of war for a fallen comrade is “leave no man behind”, but we are talking about our children here, not fallen soldiers. They are our hope for the future and promise of a better world, not another cog in the wheel of the Neo-con army. But when you consider the source, this slogan naturally embraces the Neo-con’s hawkish mission towards all of life. This reminds me of a bumper sticker I saw recently that is typical of the whole Neo-con political philosophy — “I love guns, hate fags, and love Bush”. That about sums it up!

But we need to look under the covers of the NCLB policy and see what’s really going on. There is an organization called The Educator Roundtable whose mission is “to improve education-related legislation by amplifying the informed perspectives of professional educators; local, state and national board associations; university policy and education departments; local PTA’s; and other organizations committed to high quality public schools”. They feel so strongly that NCLB is so egregious that they have developed a petition that spells out 16 reasons why this policy should not be reauthorized by Congress. To review this petition, please go here.

As you can see, there are many educators who are against this policy and the petition summarizes their thinking. Others are being more vocal, such as, Scott Howard, former superintendent of Perry, Ohio, who said that public schools have characterized NCLB as a Russian novel…”it’s complicated, and in the end, everyone gets killed”.

But, what’s really behind NCLB no one knows for sure. But once again corporate America and right-wing political think tanks continue to control us in many ways with their lobbyists and political influence. Now they may even see the opportunity in our nation’s young. According to Tauna Rogers, special ed. teacher in New Mexico, she is suggesting that corporate America may be looking for a window of opportunity in our national school systems through privatizing. If they can paint a picture of inefficiency and outright failure of the public school system, they would put themselves in a position to rescue it. Here is what she said:

Under the heavy-handed policies of NCLB, public schools are in essence being asked to pay for and facilitate their own destruction. And in so doing, open up to corporate opportunists what is in their own words “rapidly becoming a $1 trillion industry, representing 10% of America’s GNP”.

Now, let’s go back to the petition. When you look at the petition, it spells out some of the reasons that professional educators cite as to why NCLB is failing our youth. In summary, it cites that the law’s simplistic approach to education reform wastes student potential, undermines public education, and threatens the future of our democracy. NCLB completely ignores the input and expertise of working educators, but instead relies on politicians, ideologues, isolated think tanks, and leaders of business and industry who have little or no expertise in the field of education.

When I reviewed this petition, a few things really stood out to me. One of the criticisms is that the NCLB policy requires the use of materials and procedures more likely to produce a passive, compliant workforce than creative, resilient, inquiring, critical, compassionate, and engaged members of our democracy. I feel very strongly about this point and have written an article called Our Education Sucks in which I detail my concern with the lack of critical thinking in public schools resulting in children who can’t think for themselves. But, when you look at the corporate conglomerates, they don’t want employees who can think for themselves, they just want compliant workers who don’t go against the grain and NCLB reflects this.

The petition further states that the NCLB also applies standards to discrete subjects rather than to larger goals such as insightful children, vibrant communities and a healthy democracy. It neglects the teaching of higher order thinking skills which cannot be evaluated by machines and standardized tests. But worst of all, it assumes that competition is the primary motivator of human behavior, and that market forces can cure all educational ills. This is the most obvious violation of my belief in human nature and our innate yearning for a deeper understanding of life. I feel that rote memorization and regurgitation of facts is not an education, but an assembly-line approach to mechanized knowledge. And, competition discourages students to work together and learn together to solve problems and explore life. This is where philosophy would find its place in our public schools.

But philosophy in public schools doesn’t exist today. I have also written an article about this called Can Philosophy Create Smarter Kids which supports the idea of teaching philosophy in schools that leads to a more educated and more skilled student in creativity and critical thinking. This is what we need in the world today. We need students who can think for themselves and break out of the mold of trying to solve problems from the same level of thinking that created them as Einstein would say.

We have to fight for our children to be provided with an education that inspires not retires thought, and a curriculum that nurtures not stifles creativity. Please read the petition, and if you are as convinced as I am that this is not how you want our future leaders of America to be educated, then please sign it. Let your Congress men and women know that you are against reauthorizing this policy. Our future is depending on us caring enough to stop the Neo-cons ideas of an education that spits out test-takers and assembly-line robots. Take a look at the petition and tell me what you think.