What about us? : standards-based education and the dilemma of student subjectivity / Edgar D. Johnson, III.

Includes bibliographical references.

Print version record.

Machine generated contents note: 1. Rise of Standards-Based Reform in Education -- Reporting Crisis: A Nation at Risk -- Manufactured Crisis -- 1989: The Governors' Summit -- 1996 National Education Summit -- Antifederalism at the 1996 National Education Summit -- Business and Government in Education Reform -- 1999 National Education Summit -- Challenges and Consensus -- Meeting the Key Challenges -- 2001 and 2005 National Education Summits -- 2. Standards-Based Education and the Problem of Human Subjectivity -- Ideology, Subjectivity, and Educational Policy -- Symbols, Meaning, and Ideology -- Self, Discourse, and Subject Position -- Discourse, Materiality, and Public Policy -- Student Subject-Position in Policy Statements -- Student as Object of Policy -- Student as Agent of Policy -- Student as Policy Obstacle or Dilemma -- Student as Adjective -- ^ Significance of Audience as a Critical Concept for Educational Policy -- Student as Silent Subject -- 3. War for the Body and an Army in the Mind -- Marine Corps Boot Camp -- Brief Overview of the Training Schedule -- Rhetorics and Practices of Recruit Training -- Rhetorics of Recruit Training -- Rhetoric of Becoming -- Progression in Training and Structured Time -- Rootedness in the Now -- Materiality and Training -- Structuring Space -- Limiting Effective Agency -- Liquidation of the Subject and the Birth of The Marine -- Limits of Indoctrination -- Rhetoric, Pedagogy, and Subjectivity -- 4. Education Without Accountability -- What is Kung Fu? -- Ving Tsun Kung Fu Pedagogy -- Basic Ving Tsun Kung Fu Curriculum -- Diffusion Versus Transmission in Learning -- Dialectical Learning: Meta-principles and Micro-details -- There Is No Kung Fu Without a System -- 5. Youth, Difference, and School Survival -- ^ My Education -- Vignette #1 Reading and Power -- Vignette #2 "All he does is piddle!" --

Over the past three decades, the standards-based reform movement has transformed K-12 education in the United States, culminating with passage of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002. Beyond making reasonable accommodations for special needs students, standards-based education pays little attention to other areas of student difference, relying instead on a "rational actor" model of student experience, and ignoring how differences in students' backgrounds and orientations impact their particular experiences of schooling. --

This book examines the development of standards-based education, with particular scrutiny of the roles of the National Governors' Association and its National Education Summit events. Examination of important documents emerging from those events provides an illustration of the conceptually impoverished understanding of student subjectivity, motivation, and agency inherent in standards-based education. In order to understand both problems with and alternatives to standards-based education, the author examines the roles of ideology, rhetoric, and audience in school policy. --

In three case studies, the author analyzes several non-school models of education, including Marine Corps bootcamp, Ving Tsun kung fu training, and an online, school resistance community. Johnson argues that examination of these learning contexts provides a better understanding of the shortcomings and dangers of the standards-based model of student subjectivity, and suggests a set of fourteen principles to inform the development of more student-centered alternatives. --Book Jacket.

eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - Worldwide