People opposed to the current school reform movement based on standardized testing and choice often refer to it as “corporate school reform.” What exactly does that mean?
Excerpts:
“Corporate education reform” refers to a specific set of policy proposals currently driving education policy at the state and federal level. These proposals include:
*increased test-based evaluation of students, teachers, and schools of education…
…Together these strategies use the testing regime that is the main engine of corporate reform to extend the narrow standardization of curricula and scripted classroom practice
…Standardized tests have been disguising class and race privilege as merit for decades. They’ve become the credit default swaps of the education world. Few people understand how either really works. Both encourage a focus on short-term gains over long-term goals. And both drive bad behavior on the part of those in charge.
…Corporate reform plans are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into data systems and tests designed to replace collaborative professional culture and experienced instructional leadership with a kind of psychometric astrology.
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This is the message we have been trying to get across for several years now.