mike,
i don't conceptualize the relationship between the economy and social
institutions in a "causal" framework. In the case of capitalism, i
conceptualize the way commodification enters into social relationships of
all kinds as a multistranded process in which pressures are exerted at
different levels. in our schools it is easy to see how the dogma of global
competition reverberates directly into the educational institutions. How
many politicans have you heard link the importance of education to the
challenges of global capitalism?
So how do you run the schools? You know. Like businesses. The tests are
used as much to evaluate the teachers and the schools themselves as they are
to evaluate the students.
About 5 years ago I went to a conference where the idea of the national
tests and how funding would be tied to them was being promoted The
presenter kept using the term "ratchet up" as the operant metaphor for how
the process would improve the educational outcomes.
In this sense, I think the pressures for the commodification of the
educational process (of which testing is an example) can be pretty strongly
linked to the systemic requirements of the global capitalist system as
mediated through national educational policy.
campaign finance reform anyone?
Paul H. Dillon
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