Maquiavel Pedagogo

• Publisher: VIDE Editorial
• Year: 2013
• Tongue: pt-BR
• Weight: 119 KB
• Category: Fiction
• ISBN: 8567394104

✦ Synopsis

The primary issues raised inEducating for the New World Orderare:

A large number of standardized tests, administered annually to millions of
school children throughout the United States and Canada, have been found to
contain a substantial number of "affective" questions which have nothing to do
with evaluating those students' academic accomplishment or potential.

The "correct" answers to these questions, according to the test
developers,
have a common theme running through them . . . that of subordination of
self to
group. This is clearly contrary to the principles we are trying to convey to
our children -- such as in anti-drug programs -- that theyshouldn't
feel they must do something just because their friends do.

In some areas, such as Pennsylvania, schools which administered such tests
have later received "supplementary" instructional materials to be used in
short-term programs. Although Pennsylvania Department of Education officials
maintained that the tests did not contain affective questions, the
"supplementary" materials made no pretense of the fact that their purpose was
to*"remediate student attitudes."*Pennsylvania mother-become-activist
Anita Hoge discovered references which tied the version of these supplementary
materials to the way students in a school or district responded to the
affective questions on those tests. Moreover, because these supplementary
materials were delivered to schools through the Intermediate Education
Districts, they were not necessarily put through any review at the local level
as to their appropriateness.

Recently, tests began requiring students to supply their social security
number, in direct contravention to the federal Pupil Privacy Act (which
President Clinton is rumored to be considering eliminating). Why should the
SSN be necessary? The tests are primarily intended to assess the academic
progress ofgroupsof students, not individuals. The results of those
tests, however, are often stored in non-secure computerized databases.
Even if
no abuse of those data isintended,thepotentialexists for
Johnny's daddy to run for public office and be faced with questions about
personal or family beliefs based on how a 10-year-old answered vague questions
on a test 15 years before!

When challenged, state education officials deny that affective questions
appear on the tests, but when claims are proven, tests have been withdrawn.
Similar tests reappear months or years later under a new name.

Finally, it should also be noted that, for the most part, local educators
are just as ignorant of the issue as parents. Standardized tests are prepared
at the behest of state or even federal educational agencies. The actual
contracted authors of those tests are often restricted to a small group of
individuals or organizations which specialize in that task. Tests are sent to
schools, which are instructed not to read the tests, and often not to even
open
the box until test day. Completed tests are to be immediately sealed and
returned for grading. These steps are quite reasonable, as they minimize the
potential for cheating or "teaching for the test." But they also assure that
local teachers and administrators -- unaware of the contents of the tests --
are often in the unenviable position of defending such tests merely on the
assurance of others that the tests are completely benign.

Nobody seriously doubts that values are implicitly transmitted during
normal
everyday instruction in school. But there is a huge moral gulf between that
andexplicitlyteaching values or attitudes. There is heated debate
over how to teach relatively straightforward subjects such as reading and
mathematics; do authors and promoters of these tests realistically expect
there
to be genuine consensus about whosebeliefsare to be taught in
preference to others? Unlikely, at best.

The continued abuse of the standardized testing process documented in
Educating for the New World Orderand its sequel,Microchipped,
threatens the reliance and faith placed in those tests to help assess the
effectiveness of our school systems. And as long as politicians and
educational bureaucrats continue to try to "reform" or redefine education as a
series of fuzzy, amorphous "Outcomes" that defy any reasonable effort to
quantify, our schools are in danger of losing an already tenuous focus on
their
purpose.

The fundamental question surrounding the issue must be: In whose vision of
the future is a new world order to be structured? In that of the government
and the myriad special interests that wield influence there? We hope not.