Stupid White Men-- and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation! - Michael Moore [47]
The ultimate irony in all of this is that the very politicians who refuse to fund education in America adequately are the same ones who go ballistic over how our kids have fallen behind the Germans, the Japanese, and just about every other country with running water and an economy not based on the sale of Chiclets. Suddenly they want “accountability.” They want the teachers held responsible and to be tested. And they want the kids to be tested—over and over and over.
There’s nothing terribly wrong with the concept of using standardized testing to determine whether kids are learning to read and write and do math. But too many politicians and education bureaucrats have created a national obsession with testing, as if everything that’s wrong with the educational system in this country would be magically fixed if we could just raise those scores.
The people who really should be tested (besides the yammering pundits) are the so-called political leaders. Next time you see your state representative or congressman, give him this pop quiz—and remind him that any future pay raises will be based on how well he scores:
1. What is the annual pay of your average constituent?
2. What percent of welfare recipients are children?
3. How many known species of plants and animals are on the brink of extinction?
4. How big is the hole in the ozone layer?
5. Which African countries have a lower infant mortality rate than Detroit?
6. How many American cities still have two competing newspapers?
7. How many ounces in a gallon?
8. Which do I stand a greater chance of being killed by: a gun shot in school or a bolt of lightning?
9. What’s the only state capital without a McDonald’s?
10. Describe the story of either The Iliad or The Odyssey.
ANSWERS
1. $28,548
2. 67 percent
3. 11,046
4. 10.5 million square miles
5. Libya, Mauritius, Seychelles
6. 34
7. 128 ounces
8. You’re twice as likely to be killed by lightning as by a gunshot in school.
9. Montpelier, Vermont
10. The Iliad is an ancient Greek epic poem by Homer about the Trojan War. The Odyssey is another epic poem by Homer recounting the ten-year journey home from the Trojan War made by Odysseus, the king of Ithaca.
Chances are, the genius representing you in the legislature won’t score 50 percent on the above test. The good news is that you get to flunk him within a year or two.
There is one group in the country that isn’t just sitting around carping about all them lamebrain teachers—a group that cares deeply about what kinds of students will enter the adult world. You could say they have a vested interest in this captive audience of millions of young people... or in the billions of dollars they spend each year. (Teenagers alone spent more than $150 billion last year.) Yes, it’s Corporate America, whose generosity to our nation’s schools is just one more example of their continuing patriotic service.
Just how committed are these companies to our children’s schools?
According to numbers collected by the Center for the Analysis of Commercialism in Education (CACE), their selfless charity has seen a tremendous boom since 1990. Over the past ten years, school programs and activities have seen corporate sponsorship increase by 248 percent. In exchange for this sponsorship, schools allow the corporation to associate its name with the events.
For example, Eddie Bauer sponsors the final round of the National Geography Bee. Book covers featuring Calvin Klein and Nike ads are distributed to students. Nike and other shoemakers,