Can We Say “Socialism?”

It’s almost a decade old but Joe Esposito’s report, Tangled Web: The Mastery Learning/OBE/STW-TQM Connection, sheds a good bit of light on the current Common Core movement to nationalize public education. (1)

Esposito was an Oklahoma businessman appointed to the state’s executive council for School-To-Work in the mid 1990s. In that capacity, a number of documents from SCANS – the US Secretary’s Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills – came to his attention and disturbed him greatly. Because he was vocal about his concerns, he was removed from the council.

Esposito opposed efforts to prepare American children for the global marketplace by subsuming local educational systems into a single entity with the country’s workforce: “[T]he vision [is] to create a ‘seamless web of human resource development’ (NCEE’s Marc Tucker, et. al.). The culmination is federally supported systemic education reform—or ‘School-to-Work’ (STW) workforce training from preschool through higher education, and beyond—in compliance with United Nation’s lifelong learning plans. More accurately, this is lifelong indoctrination for servitude—an important part of ’world-class standards.’ Targeting all schooling—public and private—STW reforms link all levels of what was a vehicle for educating and learning. Fully implemented, all schools will be vocational, all children will have a career path no later than 7th grade, and all children/adults will be credentialed through a national/international job certification system.”  (more...)

Can We Say “Socialism?”