“California’s public school system lags behind most of the nation on almost every objective measurement of student achievement, funding, teacher qualifications and school facilities…The study issued today chronicles how the state’s K-12 school system has fallen from a national leader 30 years ago to its current ranking near the bottom in nearly every objective category.”

So said the Rand Corporation’s press release of January 3, 2005, but don’t you worry: in 2008 California is addressing its education failures through further cuts in per pupil spending. As a businessperson I’m the first to admit that one cannot solve problems by throwing money at them, but one does not solve problems through bankruptcy either.

Conservatives used to abhor centralized authority, but a certain type of conservative technocrat (known satirically as measure-bators and anal-izers) have found in standardized testing an idol that confirms all their prejudices against public education. The children aren’t learning, they deduce, so we must tear down the schools.

Between the national government’s centralization of authority and local government’s abdication of responsibility, we apparently expect children to learn the alphabet in the womb or face further cuts in education spending.

California’s students lag the national average in writing skills.  How exactly do budget cuts fix this?  California’s students need more English language instruction than others. How do budget cuts help them get it? Our students are nutritionally and financially illiterate. How do budget cuts solve this?

Young children should be developing social and communication skills by playing at recess and enjoying leisurely lunches with their peers. But the test-obsessed anal-izers ignore the whole person and focus on what they can easily measure. That’s why lunch periods in many schools have been reduced to twenty minutes – administrators and legislators are only interested in teachable hours, not human beings. I would remind them of the sign in Albert Einstein’s office: "Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts."

Motivated only by money and terrorized by the federal government’s No Child Left Behind blackmail, states have apparently decided they must destroy our schools to save them; giving up arts education, putting science and social studies on the back burner, curtailing recess and physical education. I find it ironic that a generation that got a great public education in the 60s and 70s now seems to believe that the schools which provided our great education were a waste of taxpayer money.

As the baby boomers start retiring, one wonders who will lead America in the future. If, after pondering this, you think public education is not worthy of increased investment, Congress still has a bridge in Alaska they’d like to sell you.

Here’s an amusing – and depressing – song about standardized testing:

Not On The Test

by John Forster & Tom Chapin

© 2007 Limousine Music Co. & The Last Music Co. (ASCAP)

Go on to sleep now, third grader of mine.

The test is tomorrow but you'll do just fine.

It's reading and math. Forget all the rest.

You don't need to know what is not on the test.

 Each box that you mark on each test that you take,

Remember your teachers. Their jobs are at stake.

Your score is their score, but don't get all stressed.

They'd never teach anything not on the test.

 The School Board is faced with no child left behind

With rules but no funding, they're caught in a bind.

So music and art and the things you love best

Are not in your school 'cause they're not on the test.

 Sleep, sleep, and as you progress

You'll learn there's a lot that is not on the test.

 Debate is a skill that is useful to know,

Unless you're in Congress or talk radio,

Where shouting and spouting and spewing are blessed

'Cause rational discourse was not on the test.

 Thinking's important. It's good to know how.

And someday you'll learn to, but someday's not now.

Go on to sleep, now. You need your rest.

Don't think about thinking. It's not on the test.

 http://www.tomchapin.com/