The Manifesto

PREAMBLE:

 

The disintegration of the American family is being exploited as an opportunity to cheapen the learning process under the guise of “redefining American education”. This cheapening involves the imposing of an easily-managed, minimal-competency standard of performance, which will attempt to numerically tabulate comprehension and cognition in the classroom; this value is referred to as ‘data’.  The use of this numerical data will facilitate the integration of technology into the classroom, as well as facilitate the inclination to rely on technology.  This reliance on technology will eventually lead to the utter removal of human educators from the classroom to be replaced with facilitators whose sole purpose will be to manage computers.

 

I. As the households of America have progressed from functional to dysfunctional, so have American classrooms progressed from functional to dysfunctional.

II. Schools are simply not equipped to take the places of homes in the lives of children.

 III. Before concerning itself with the state of its students, America needs to concern itself with the state of its children. America is sitting on a time bomb; if left unaddressed/unchecked, the work force of the future will be a work force of unreliable, underdeveloped, psychologically dysfunctional adults who lack relationship skills, reasoning skills, and a sense of accountability.

IV. The current perception of the education crisis--- promoted by mass media to the public--- places teachers, pedagogy, administrators, and inadequate, ill-equipped classrooms primarily at fault. In short, according to mass media and those outside of the field, all blame for the lack in student performance goes to the schools.

V. The perceived solution to the education crisis--- which of course is based on the perceived crisis in education--- is to “upgrade” the schools. This is being done by adapting the classroom experience to the principles of scientific management.

VI. The critical flaw in how the public sees the education crisis, as well as in how the public it seeks to resolve said crisis, is that it places the blame for residual problems on the faculties/facilities of the moment; it pounces upon what is only an after-image of the true dysfunction. And, in a gross mockery of accountability, it leaves the initial and most vital part of the process--- the home--- completely devoid of liability.

VII. More than any other threat, teachers should be concerned because of the potential for the extermination of the position of ‘educator’ altogether.

VIII. Educators should take initiative without invitation. But they should proceed with caution.

IX. It is dangerous for educators to risk pleading with an educational system that views them as interchangeable and disposable, and that has been redesigned solely to exploit them.

X. Cutting the education budget lowers the overall opportunity provided to students, which RAISES expenses in other areas such as social welfare programs.