[quote=livinincali]I think the problem is we’re paying a room full of education experts to come up with with new reading assignment that are more politically correct every year. Why can’t we use the reading assignments from last year or 5 years ago. The basics of reading comprehension and math haven’t changed in centuries.[/quote]
Because the PRIVATE publishing and education companies make billions of dollars every year from changes to the curriculum. You didn’t actually think the almost yearly curriculum/textbook changes were “for the children,” did you?
Those “education experts” you’re talking about? They work for PRIVATE CORPORATIONS. It’s a very lucrative business.
Of course, the uninformed yokels will try to blame these changes and the agenda-driven curriculum on the teachers and those “evil unions,” as they always do whenever something goes wrong in the public sector (and they are wrong almost 100% of the time).
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“The large publishing companies, including Pearson and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, balked. Pearson spokesperson Kate Miller says the London-based company has been moving rapidly to create digital products, which she said last year were responsible for more than 50 percent of the company’s revenues. “We don’t even want to be called a textbook company anymore,” she said. (The company’s North American education revenues were $2.6 billion in 2012.)“
[Note: That is the revenue for just ONE company. -CAR]
….
“Emails Show Bush-Led Organization’s ALEC-Like Role in State Policymaking
Emails between the Foundation for Excellence in Education (FEE), founded and chaired by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, and state education officials show that the foundation is writing state education laws and regulations in ways that could benefit its corporate funders. The emails, obtained through public records requests, reveal that the organization, sometimes working through its Chiefs For Change affiliate, wrote and edited laws, regulations and executive orders, often in ways that improved profit opportunities for the organization’s financial backers.
“Testing companies and for-profit online schools see education as big business,” said In the Public Interest Chair Donald Cohen. “For-profit companies are hiding behind FEE and other business lobby organizations they fund to write laws and promote policies that enrich the companies.”
The emails conclusively reveal that FEE staff acted to promote their corporate funders’ priorities, and demonstrate the dangerous role that corporate money plays in shaping our education policy. Correspondence in Florida, New Mexico, Maine, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, and Louisiana paint a graphic picture of corporate money distorting democracy.”
