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Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

And indeed, there’s nothing new about education professionals drinking the Jonestown kool-aid. But it does seem that there has been more kool-aid recently, as the lumbering circus elephant destroys everything in the room, and education folks all pretend the elephant isn’t there.

Our first example comes to us thanks to Casting Out Nines. The author of this article dances around the central issue of education schools, trying to ignore the central problem:

• Teachers are not well-versed in their subject matter and waste time in courses on theory, pedogogy, and methodology.
• Teachers are stupid; most of the time, education majors are at the bottom in terms of SAT scores. They also score poorly on other assessments designed to measure intelligence or competence. [Even folklore majors sneer at education majors. Ed.]
• Restrictions, such as teacher certification and licensure, keep out good candidates.
• Even poor teachers get tenure and sit back, coasting on their mediocrity until they retire with fat pensions. There isn’t much that can be done about mediocre teaching under our current systems

None of these points is central; all are relatively trivial. The central problem with education schools is that they have nothing to do with education, and spend their time indoctrinating their students in PC, anti-American, political tripe and touchy-feely self-esteem nonsense (don’t believe me? See for yourself.). This all by itself makes them academically non-rigorous (and that’s the nice way to put it). Even when education schools attempt to apply actual academic research (and that’s a rare thing, given that education folks are post-modernists, and post-modernism is the antithesis of research and intellect), they misapply it — because they don’t understand it. Consider the failure of applying constructivism to math, and using connectionist research to justify it; the one thing, of course, that neural nets do quite poorly is crunch numbers. Connectionism does anything but support the application of constructivism to math education. Our author dances around the room as the elephant destroys everything in sight, trying as hard as she can to defend the status quo. 

And is it any wonder these educrats live in a fantasy world, given that they will happily eat their own when they don’t follow the PC party line?

Thanks to EdWonk, we have this example of drinking the grape kool-aid:

More than 500 high-poverty Florida schools could be forced under the federal No Child Left Behind law to privatize, become charters, replace most of their staffs or make other major changes — even though some have repeatedly received A or B grades from the state.

A handful of low-performing schools have already faced that choice under Florida’s own education accountability laws. But it could become far more widespread next year unless those schools make unprecedented gains on the state’s high-stakes standardized test.

”This calls for a drastic change of culture, an entirely new environment,” said Rod Paige, the former U.S. secretary of education who oversaw the creation of No Child Left Behind in 2001.

But Florida’s education commissioner suggested in an interview Friday that he may defy the federal law — and risk losing millions in funding — if he cannot convince Congress or federal education officials to take a more moderate stance.

I realize educrats and academics don’t understand basic common sense, but let’s translate this into basic English. Florida’s schools are failing, and the educators are not doing their jobs. Therefore, they either want the federal government to back off and not tell them they have to do their jobs, or they’ll just tell the federal government to go to hell and they will contine not doing their jobs.

Now, I’m a Jeffersonian Federalist. NCLB irks me. However, all NCLB does is force schools to do their jobs. I’m really sick of teachers’ whining about how it’s not their fault their students can’t add two and two by the time they graduate, then scream for more money. More money? Any governmental institution that receives money should be treated like a twelve year-old asking for money. And what, exactly, do you need money for? Exactly how will you spend every single penny of that money?

Sure, teachers are going to come back about salaries, and they’re drinking that kool-aid again. When was the last time an increase in educational funding — and that would be just about every fiscal year — translated into a raise for you, eh?

Step away from the kool-aid now, sir!

The worthless NEA  — which should be disbanded as PATCO was disbanded — exemplifies everything that is wrong about education, and makes my point (hat tip to Darren for this). Let’s see what this “educational” organization is concerned with:

• Delegates approved NBI 11, which states that NEA “will identify and release the names of financial firms with which NEA and NEA Member Benefits do business that support converting defined benefit plans into defined contribution plans, and firms that support Social Security privatization.”
• NBI 39 calls on NEA to publish an open letter to President Bush and the U.S. Congress under the headline “Support our Troops and Their Families – Bring the Troops Home Now.”
• Legislative Amendment 6 would put NEA on record in opposition to voter identification at polling places.

Note how the NEA concernes itself with everything but education. The war is none of the NEA‘s business. Social Security is none of the NEA‘s business. Voter identification is none of the NEA‘s business. Education, and only education, is the NEA‘s business — and it seems to be the only issue the NEA isn’t concerned with.

So when are all you teachers going to start teaching instead of “facilitating” and again take responsibility for yourselves?

“Right Wing Prof”, the blogger behind Right Wing Nation, has taught at one of the premier business schools in the United States, and also works in the private sector as a consultant.