Nothing about Common Core infuriates parents more than how politicians and pundits dehumanize our children with their rhetoric. Human capital, worker pipeline, and talent pool are frequently used phrases to justify reforms and increased spending so that the state or business receives a maximum “return on their investment.”
It’s all about economic success and our young people are simply a commodity to help them achieve it. Phil Powers plunged to a new low when he referred to young people as “infrastructure” similar to roads in a recent Bridge article. He wrote,
“Remember the oil filter ad from the 1970s, where the gruff, grease-stained car mechanic scowls at the camera and says, “You can pay me now, or you can pay me later?”
That’s exactly what we are facing in Michigan. Only it’s been that way for a decade when it comes to dealing with the stuff – the fancy word is “infrastructure” – that will define much of our future: The condition of our roads and the quality of our young people’s minds….
…And, according to the Lumina Foundation, which is designed to increase the number of Americans with degrees, we’ll need an additional 900,000 workers with an associate’s degree or higher to meet the workforce demands of the next decade.”
Sorry Mr. Powers, the “quality” of a child’s mind diminishes when it is preyed upon by meddling politicians and profiteers who view them as infrastructure for economic success. Infrastructure is not a “fancy word” it is a dehumanizing word. Our children’s minds are not potholes to be filled to meet workforce demands.
Mr. Powers would do well to watch Hillsdale College Professor Daniel Coupland’s lecture on education. Coupland said,
“If education has become –as Common Core openly declares– preparation for work in a global economy, then this situation is far worse than Common Core critics ever anticipated. And the concerns about cost, and quality, and yes, even the constitutionality of Common Core, pale in comparison to the concerns for the hearts, minds, and souls of American children.”