Soundbite ideology?

Jeff Picca, my former colleague at Brandeis, called my attention to the following article in Dissent magazine: http://dissentmagazine.org/online.php?id=504#

The title is "Firing Line: the Grand Coalition against teachers". It really is curious that both Democrats and Republicans are agreed that TEACHERS MUST BE MADE ACCOUNTABLE. ACCOUNTABILITY WILL SOLVE ALL PROBLEMS. Accountability is measured by standardized test scores. Period. That is the sound bite to mobilize public opinion to privatize at least half a trillion dollars going into public education.

It sounds so similar to another soundbite idea found in RECKLESS ENDANGERMENT. Jim Johnson made home ownership for all the pathway to great wealth for himself and his colleagues at Countrywide and Goldman Sachs. Along the way all the warning signs about the dangerous bubble built on sub-prime loans was ignored by the FED, the SEC, all the way down. And now our economy is shattered, and people's lives ruined. And by the way, let's throw experienced teachers under the bus to make politicians feel like we are solving the education "problem".

There is no education problem. There is an economic problem. Our suburban kids score as well as the Shanghai kids, and better than the rest of the world, as the article in DISSENT documents.