The neoliberalism and the school…

[Updated later during the day and February 23]. From the article "Världen över trampar nyliberalismen med stora fötter över skolan. En skarp varning för följderna utfärdas i en internationell antologi" or ”The World Over the Neoliberalism is Treading With Big Feet Over the School. A Sharp Warning for the Consequences Issued In An International Anthology” on the anthology Global Assault on Teaching, Teachers and their unions" (Palgrave MacMillan) see page 84 in the Pedagogical Magazine no 1/2009.

In this anthology you can read what happens in the education sector when the neoliberal transformation is put into practice globally. The first part of the book gives an introduction to the neoliberal attack.

“The authors think that this attack is part of a political project with three aims, developed since the beginning of 1980.

Those are

(1) Transferring wealth upwards in the social hierarchy through creating new steering mechanisms – the rich shall become even richer.

(2) Remaking national school systems so that the production of workers for the market’s needs becomes the chief goal – educate for work and not [seeing school and education] as a human right.

(3) Breaking down the public sector’s sole right in the education sector for to create extended possibilities for private profit interests – making education a part of the market via what is called free choices.”

Concepts like charter schools, city academies, and language schools are used as descriptions for what we in Sweden call free schools, a concept that rhetorically has a positive ring and therefore fits into the neoliberal ambiguousness the reviewer writes.

The Bush regime in USA used the so called Texas-miracle in its campaign for the new conservative school politics passing under the name No Child Left Behind. You spontaneously come to think of the Swedish minister of education’s way of characterizing the Swedish school from what he calls scientific truths. I would want to blog about this later.

According to the review there is a mobilization over the whole world against those neoliberal currents in the school.

“In the book it is pointed out how important it is that the mobilization continues and becomes extended internationally.”

At the same time as the book was published the website “Teachersolidarity.com - the Global Assault on Teaching, Teachers and their Unions: Stories for Resistance” was created.

I searched on earlier postings with the label rethinking schools and found this about the school ni USA apropos the presumed lousy school in the USA according to Alan Greenspan, who accused it for being the reason for the immensely increased gaps in incomes between CEO s and workers.

Addition after lunch: Apropos our leading school politicians who are honoring knowledge: the chief editor for the Pedagogical Magazine wrote in his last leader about an investigation on a new teacher’s education in Sweden he had just read, by a Sigbrit Franke.

He started his reading with wondering what attitude Franke would adopt towards…

“…the nonchalant, yes, sometimes almost contemptuous, attitude her political employer has shown towards education-scientific research (it had been interesting to see the reactions if for instance Maud Olofsson or Göran Hägglund expressed themselves in a similar manner in their respective areas of responsibility in the government).”

The chief editor thinks Franke’s ambition has been high; wanting to present a suggestion that is “long term durable” and “that isn’t marked by the current prevailing winds in societal and pedagogical debate”.

“That’s not a bad ambition considering that it is exactly those ‘prevailing winds’ in the societal debate that has taken the discussion about education over – often in collision course with what research in the field has shown./…/

As an academic vocational education the teacher’s education shall, as you use to say, rest on scientific ground and well-tried experiences. But it shall not only, Franke maintains in her investigation, be linked up with science – it shall be based on research.”

The leader writer thinks this is a considerable accentuation.

Franke even enter into the discussion on the outer and inner motivation, which for a while has been under discussion. The school has of tradition used ‘grades, remarks (reprimands), detentions, blaming as tools steering the students. But the motivation psychology has, she notes, changed the outlook on the student, in favor of one seeing the students as ‘a basically constructive and curious individual.’

Education and ways of working building on inner motivation will most likely become more effective seen long-term than activities principally based on outer motivation – rewards and punishments.

Addition February 23: The presumed discipline problems in school is that part of the propaganda? See earlier posting.

Also see further from “Neoliberalism, Teachers, and Teaching: Understanding the Assault.”

“Over the last couple of decades a new global consensus about reshaping economies and schools has emerged among the politicians and the powerful of the world. Whereas in the past governments -- preferably democratically elected -- have assumed the responsibility to ensure that all children are educated, schools and universities are now regarded as a potential market. In these educational markets, entrepreneurs set up schools and determine what is taught and how it is taught in order to make a profit. The assumption that schooling is a ‘public good’ is under the most severe attack it has ever endured. Teacher trade unionists are grappling with the increasing privatization of education services, the introduction of business ‘quality control’ measures into education, and the requirement that education produce the kind of minimally-trained and flexible workforce that corporations require to maximize their profits. Among scholars and global justice activists, these reforms being made to the economy and education are often called ‘neoliberal.’ They are experienced almost universally by teachers, children, and parents.

While rich northern nations spend billions of dollars prosecuting wars and have bottomless resources for the exploiting of new gas and oil reserves, the most precious reserves of all -- the world's children -- stand at the back of the line. Nor is there an opportunity to develop education systems so that they can fulfill their true purpose -- to enable people to live a full and creative life, or as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights puts it, to ensure that education is directed ‘toward the full development of the human personality.’

There is an old saying that ‘a lie gets halfway round the world before the truth gets on its running shoes.’ The lie making the running in schooling is that private corporations and entrepreneurs are much more able to make education work for the poor than teachers, communities, and their elected representatives in government. And when one listens to politicians and reads in the media about the benefits of bringing the private market and business methodologies into education, one can often feel as if teachers have hardly begun to tie the laces on their running shoes. The voices for privatization and neoliberalism have virtually the whole of the world's media at their disposal to speed them on their way.

Rebutting the ‘private good, public bad’ propaganda is complicated by neoliberalism's hijacking of ideals and terms borrowed from those who have spent their lives campaigning for education for all and opportunities for the poor and oppressed. Hearing news reports and politicians' statements of lofty goals, one might think there is nothing closer to the hearts of the international financiers, accountants, and politicians than the needs of the poor. It is only when you look at the actual effects of the policies of world financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank on ‘developing’ countries and their education systems that you realize that nothing could be further from the truth. The World Bank's structural adjustment programs have destroyed perfectly adequate education systems in countries like Zambia and are threatening to do the same in many others. Neoliberal reports, websites, and corporate financial bulletins with titles like ‘Why school fees are good for the poor,’ show that when it serves their purpose, neoliberal gurus are quite willing to ditch the rhetoric of social justice and equality and lay bare the true face of their education policy.”

Written by LOIS WEINER is a Professor at New Jersey City University and a member of the New Politics editorial board. MARY COMPTON is Past President of the UK National Union of Teachers, the largest teacher union in Europe.

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"Modern education is competitive, nationalistic and separative. It has trained the child to regard material values as of major importance, to believe that his nation is also of major importance and superior to other nations and peoples. The general level of world information is high but usually biased, influenced by national prejudices, serving to make us citizens of our nation but not of the world."

“This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career.

I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.

In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child. The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society.”

(Albert Einstein)