NCLB has helped to turn U.S. education into a business. Many
educational policies have allowed for the different sectors of schooling to be
privatized, taking more power away from the people in the communities in which
these schools are located. Saltman attacks the notion of EMOs and their
affects on schooling. Because education has been given to the market, the
public feels like they are fighting for a limited amount of resources (Saltman,
56). This beliefs allows business owners to conduct a school like a commercial business, allowing for monetary values to be attached to individual students and turning schooling into a for-profit business. But schooling is a business, isn't it? Our understanding of American schooling has
been disheveled by the NCLB policy, neoliberal values and deregulation (Kovacs,
2). I believe that NCLB has allowed for schooling to not be seen as important and the privatization of the educational market has the power away from the
general public.
The privatization of education has turned education into a
for-profit industry, allowing business people to instill business-like values
on students turning them into dollar signs. However, there is no proof that
test scores will help students in our society economically (Kovacs, 9). We have learned that standardized tests are
designed for the culture of power (white, middle-class, male), however we allow
them to continue to be used to determine educational advancement. NCLB still
has work to do with closing the achievement gap but that cannot be completed
with the strict rules that have been put in place due to the policy (11). It
seems that the gap has grown because more students are being excluded from
having access to a quality education.
I do not want to be a pessimist, but it seems like NCLB is
not working. It has only helped to turn society farther away from schooling and
perpetuate the divide among communities. We are confusing choice, freedom, and
access. Not all students have access to the same resources allowing education
to be a place where more social divides occur. Money has allowed us to turn
away from the original purpose of schooling. We are no longer concerned about
creating better citizens, but more about beating Japan in the next technology
race. The privatization of the educational market informs the public that they
will have more “choice” in educating their children, allowing them to attend
any public, private, or charter school in their area. Problems occur when
everyone does not have the same access to this choice. School is now a place where students and administrators are judged for producing poor standardized testing results. We have allowed the teaching profession to be dehumanized and devalued (Saltman, 74). We must learn to care
about students as individuals and not by the test scores they produce. This can
happen if the power is given back to the public, allowing the community to have
a presence in schools. We have gotten too far away from community-based
education. We have to understand that all levels of society can aid in the
education of children (Kovacs, 13). But
we must not confuse this with tolerating people without educational experience
to be leaders in our classrooms.
As C.J. noted, “the privatization of education has turned education into a for-profit industry, allowing business people to instill business-like values on students turning them into dollar signs.” What is important to note too is that these business people or elite are often unelected (Kovac and Christie 2), but they tend to have the final say on educational policies just because they have the money and influential power, and they do so without the consent of others. This anti-democratic process sets the undertone for the market-based educational reforms that are then implemented into policies where only certain people are allowed to have the final say on what educational practices can be carried into the classroom and what is going to work best. Not only do these powerful people have a reigning influence on educational policies, but they also use prevailing assumptions and propaganda to back up their claims and garner support from the communities. Saltman points out that the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation derives their educational activities from a variety of key assumptions about public education policies, many of them false (59). Kovac and Christie also note how many educational management organizations oversimplify data, make false claims, or simply leave out pertinent or important information (8). For example, the Friedman Foundation states that “public schools…respond positively to competition,” however there is no such evidence to back up such claims (Kovac and Christie 2). Not only is this disconcerting, but it makes you wonder what other sort of information we are being fed and being made under false pretenses. Who is making our decisions and what sort of information are they really using to back up such claims?
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