It's a mad, mad, world out there and everyone is fighting for a
piece of the pie. Education is no exception. David Hursh's book High-Stakes
Testing and the Decline of Teaching and Learning poses a strong argument
for how education is becoming more complicated and political than previously
imagined. Specifically, "we decreasingly think about democracy and our
commitment to one another in terms of community and the common good, and
instead conceptualize democracy as the individual rationally choosing within a
competitive marketplace" (pg. 7).
Hursh is passionate about supporting the clarity of thought on
how neoliberalism in education is doing more harm than good to our school
systems. His "goal is to describe what is possible, to critique the increasing
emphasis on markets, accountability, and high-stakes standardized testing, and
to describe what we might do to reclaim education as a profession" (pg.
7). He uses in own experiences as a student and as a teacher in both public and
private school to argue how schools should work and what students should be
doing. He uses examples of what it looks like using schools in New York and
Texas, and what it should not look like with reference to Chicago's inner city
schools. Hursh continues to reference how our educational system is creating a
society in our country that has now shifted to support a competitive global
economy rather than collaborative supportive society.
Hursh revisits the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, which he
believes contributed to our neoliberalism educational system by created
mandated state standards, testing requirements, and school accountability
measures. Specifically, "Standardized testing is promoted as a means of
assessing the quality of students, teachers, and schools, thus ensuring that
all children are treated fairly" (pg. 85). "Furthermore, NCLB
promotes the view that like other neoliberal reforms, we have no choice but to
submit to the discipline of the market, rather than relying on process of
deliberative democracy" (pg. 95). We all get to have the pie, but not
select the flavor.
Although I don't agree with many of Hursh's views I applaud his
unwavering efforts over the lifetime of his career. He states in the last
chapter, "I want to reassert the possibility of a society and schools that
support community welfare and the public good over corporate profit, and
propose how we might work towards those goals" (pg. 122). He suggest
alternatives to neoliberalism in education including, refusing to buy into
adopting neoliberal reforms due to globalization and by allowing individual
choice of where and how we receive our education. Hursh also address the
importance of actively collaborating together when developing educational
policies. This way all of our children receive an equitable piece of the pie.
