Joseph P. Farrell, well known for his widely-discussed investigations on
contemporary banks and ruling structures, co-writes this fascinating
book regarding contemporary schooling with long-time New York state
instructor Gary Lawrence.
Say Farrell and Lawrence:
Standardized Testing in America has a troubled history. Its agenda has
long remained veiled behind expert opinions and latest studies. The
future of American education stands in a tradition of social
engineering, data mining, pseudo-psychology, and dumbing down classroom
strategies.
Common Core promises great advances though its true benefits are
monetary ones for software companies and partner politicians.
It it is our contention that the goal of Common Core, or rather, of its
assessment process, is nothing less than a massive addition to the power
of the surveillance state, to the privileged corporations destined to
manage it, to the further drastic curtailment of our civil liberties,
and to the eventual inhibition of any individual creativity, genius,
responsibility, and any general or popular intellectual culture
resulting from them.
Our argument is different than that leveled by many critics against the
Common Core standards, for our focus is thus not upon pedagogy, or
content but rather upon its assessment process and its implicit
consequences for parents, students, and the teaching profession.
Our goal is to stimulate not only discussion of Common Core's radical
agenda for the consolidation of the surveillance state, but for its
ultimate rejection.
