Business-Managed Democracy

“Business-managed democracies are those in which the political and cultural arrangements are managed in the interests of business.”
Sharon Beder, 2009.

 

 

 

For more on this subject see
This Little Kiddy Went to Market:
The Corporate Capture of Childhood, Pluto Press, London, 2009.

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pointer Business-Managed Democracy » Education » Standardised Curricula » Impact » Teacher Autonomy

Business-Managed Education

Reduced Teacher Autonomy

reference
Reference: Henry D.R. Miller and Mark B. Ginsburg, ‘Restructuring Education and the State in England’, in Mark B. Ginsburg (ed) Understanding Educational Reform in Global Context, New York, Garland Publishing, 1991, p. 54; Richard Hatcher and Bill Anderson, Bill, ‘Labour's Transformation of the School System in England’, Our Schools, Our Selves, vol 15, no 3, 2006, p. 164.

In England during the 1960s and 70s teachers had a great deal of autonomy with respect to the curriculum, methods of teaching and evaluation of students. However the school reforms of the 1980s changed all that. Now the central government specifies not only the syllabus for English and maths but the methods for teaching them in primary schools “down to the level of sections of each hour-long daily lesson”. For example the National Numeracy Strategy, which was implemented in all primary school classes in 1999/2000, included:

  • reference
    Reference: Margaret Brown, et al., ‘The Key Role of Educational Research in the Development and Evaluation of the National Numeracy Strategy’, British Educational Research Journal, vol 29, no 5, 2003, p. 656.
    an increased emphasis on number and on calculation…
  • a three-part template for daily mathematics lesson, starting with 10-15 minutes of whole class oral/mental arithmetic practice,
  • detailed planning using a suggested week-by-week framework of detailed objectives, specified for each year group,…
  • a systematic and standardised national training programme [for teachers]
reference
Reference: Jonathan Kozol, The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America, New York, Crown Publishers, 2005, pp. 111-2.

In the US, the imperatives of high stakes testing are leading to increased use of learning drills and scripted lessons that train students to be able to answer test questions. Learning drills and scripted lessons involve direct teacher command and controlled student responses. They punish student spontaneity, eliminate humour, laughter and fun, and formalise student interactions.

reference
Reference: George Wood, ‘A View from the Field: NCLB's Effects on Classrooms and Schools’, in Deborah Meier and George Wood (eds) Many Children Left Behind: How the No Child Left Behind Act Is Damaging Our Children and Our Schools, Boston, Mass., Beacon Press, 2004, p. 39.

Teachers across the map complain that the joy is being drained from teaching as their work is reduced to passing out worksheets and drilling children as if they were in dog obedience school. Elementary “test prep” classroom methods involve teachers snapping their fingers at children to get responses, following scripted lessons where they simply recite prompts for students…

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See also: Impact of Testing | Teaching to the Test | Scripted Teaching | Understanding

© 2011 Sharon Beder
http://www.herinst.org/BusinessManagedDemocracy/education/curricula/autonomy.html