An Educational Contrarian

Tyranny only becomes possible when power coalesces into the hands of the few. The few will justify and adopt tyranny when they presume their wealth, inheritance, or power, is at risk. Tyranny works to preserve an existing status quo favorable to the few. Tyranny is always a temptation among those who have wealth, inheritance, or power—the founding fathers knew this. Self-governance of all citizens is the greatest tool for stemming the possibility of tyranny and the ravages that come with it. The public school system was created to assist each citizen, regardless of wealth, inheritance, or power, with the goal of self-governance. No wonder the tyrannical hates public schools.

Texas Aspires distributed the comments below and to the right this week. They are fraught with error and misunderstanding and therefore worthy of being dismissed, but what the heck. FIRST, any fear mongering by educators is around a system that research has shown is in fact harmful to students and schools and fails to meet any of the actual policy goals. SECOND, eerie is a word for something that inspires inexplicable fear or dread. What is in fact eerie is that every A-F implementation has been done absent evidence that A-F actually works: the fact that it appears on the surface to be rational does not automatically render it so. What should be eerie is the lack of critical thinking in major educational policy decisions, and among those who blindly support such things, absent at the minimum a cursory investigation. THIRD, regarding the point that: “A-F grades for campuses won’t hurt the students who attend them,” I reference, as just one of many sources, the e...