It tolls for the death of learning. This is no surprise to anyone paying attention but the eradication of learning, and teaching, from the education industry is all but complete. Systems like DeKalb have long focused on "wrap around services" emphasizing what goes on outside the classroom using this as a cover for ignoring what goes on inside the classroom. At the college level the transformation to a customer-focused service industry has been deliberate and tragic. Turning the keys to the asylum over to the inmates began with end-of-course teacher evaluations--that these often ask students who may have barely scraped thru the material "does the professor know the material?" and that these evals are a significant portion of tenure criteria pretty much tells you that academia have decided that happy students are more important than knowledgeable ones. Even knowing the depth of ignorance of these transient, self-entitled students, academia has placed their fate at the mercy of whatever incites their whiny indignation. One need look no further than Oberlin College to appreciate the existential threat academia has created for itself.
More pervasive is the societal tragedy know as the 504 Plan as this sits at the confluence of over-labeling ("diagnosing" as a disease or disorder that which cannot be shown to have a physiological basis), celebration of those so labelled and accommodations for those with "psychological impairments." The 504 scheme affords special concessions to those "students" who stress over tests and since qualifying for this program is based on wholly subjective evaluations parents are doc-shopping to get their kids in. And the "subjectivity only" evaluation model mimics what goes on in our public schools. Simpatico. At least one knowledgeable observer contends that by 2020 almost every child will have a diagnosis at which point there will really be no point. At least not where schooling is concerned.
Where will we be when our entire workforce requires time-and-a-half because they are just so stressed out? How will we compete in a global market of products, services and ideas? Maybe it just doesn't matter. That seems the message coming from the education industry.
More pervasive is the societal tragedy know as the 504 Plan as this sits at the confluence of over-labeling ("diagnosing" as a disease or disorder that which cannot be shown to have a physiological basis), celebration of those so labelled and accommodations for those with "psychological impairments." The 504 scheme affords special concessions to those "students" who stress over tests and since qualifying for this program is based on wholly subjective evaluations parents are doc-shopping to get their kids in. And the "subjectivity only" evaluation model mimics what goes on in our public schools. Simpatico. At least one knowledgeable observer contends that by 2020 almost every child will have a diagnosis at which point there will really be no point. At least not where schooling is concerned.
Where will we be when our entire workforce requires time-and-a-half because they are just so stressed out? How will we compete in a global market of products, services and ideas? Maybe it just doesn't matter. That seems the message coming from the education industry.
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