The Educational Industrial Complex

Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th President of the United States and supreme allied commander, introduced the term "Military Industrial Complex," in his 1961 farewell speech before leaving office. He had wanted to call it the "Military Industrial Congressional Complex," but decided it was too confrontational. Ike worried that "this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience." He went on to state that "we must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes." Hello Hallibuton and Blackwater.

Okay, back to the topic at hand. There's a must read piece in the September edition of Harper's Magazine: "Tyranny of the Test, One Year as a Kaplan Coach in the Public Schools, a first hand account by a former school teacher of his work in schools providing test prep for Kaplan K-12. Unfortunately, you have to buy or subscribe to read the entire article. It's well worth it. (Did you know that Harpers is owned by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation?)

The matter of test prep is of paramount importance to access to arts education for public school students. You see, it's not just an issue of the time necessary to take the tests. It's also the accompanying preparation. You not only have teachers "teaching to the test," considered by many to be "kill and drill,"  but all sorts of extended interventions, such as teaching how to take tests, etc.

This doesn't leave much time for subjects like art, music, dance, theater, etc. Not to mention physical education, foreign languages, geography, etc.

While Paul Peterson believe the Educational Industrial Complex began once teacher unions were given the right to collective bargaining, there are others who see the significant rise of for-profit companies providing test prep, assessment, and other "supplemental education services," as the new Educational Industrial Complex.

What would Ike think? Would he worry about this new intersection of the schools with an education industry, amped up by Federal legislation?

You can't get around testing. It's never going away, nor should it. The larger question is whether we've reached diminishing returns with the current culture and business of testing, and what the negative implications are for subjects like arts education, which don't live in that culture.