I’m not much of a conspiracy guy. I’m confident that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in killing JFK, and that the ‘magic bullet’ behaved unpredictably because that’s what bullets do. I don’t think 9/11 was an inside job, and I’m 99.3% certain Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong landed on the moon in 1969 no matter what the shadows prove or how wavy the flag might be. Ronald Reagan did not invent AIDS to kill black people, and Obama is not a sleeper cell Muslim from Kenya with a nefarious plan he just keeps… not unfolding.

I always wince when Fox Mulder or Buffy Summers or any Marvel character enters the ginormous underground facility where thousands of people work in TOP SECRET. In a world where Kim Kardashian can’t fart without a week of coverage over the implications and 24/7 news is desperate for breaking scandal in every political stumble, I just find most large-scale paranoia implausible.

But if I WERE a conspiracy theorist… here are a few things I’d wonder about in relation to our public schools and the current buzz surrounding ‘reform’ and ‘higher standards’ and whatever other rhetoric we’re throwing around at the moment. And I wouldn’t just wonder about these – I’d worry about them with a very serious, concerned look on my face.
 
(1) Are we actually trying to break the current cycle of poverty, failure, crime, and dysfunction plaguing large segments of our pre-adult population? Are those in political power both locally and nationally – and those who vote for them – genuinely interested in what happens to a bunch of poor kids who look, you know, black? Or Mexican? Or dirty? Or otherwise unpleasant? 

A paranoid, unreasonable person might think our current approach looks very much like what we’re really wanting is political and moral cover – some sound and fury about raising standards, a supposed focus on teacher quality, and a pretty good rhetorical dog’n’pony show, but without substantive institutional change or funded application of stuff that might actually work. Yeah, communities tend to resist change, but so do teachers. And governors. And legislatures. And white people.

Not judging, just speaking in general historical terms.

(2) Do we really believe the root problems are systemic? Socio-economic? Maybe some lingering form of institutional racism? If I were a conspiracy guy I’d suspect instead that there’s a subliminal thread running through many current ‘reform’ debates that includes terms like ‘those people’ and suspicions that – while we’re not really allowed to come out and say it – a lot of it’s kinda “their” own fault. If they’d just X, Y, or Z… it’s not like the opportunity isn’t there. It’s not like I haven’t had a few struggles myself. Have they tried, you know… trying?

A cynical person might think we’re actually fine with failure as long as we can keep assigning blame to those most deeply mired in the cycle. 

(3) Is most of what we do in the name of “higher standards” and “reform” just a cynical ploy to channel public funds and more power to a handful of textbook companies and corporate entities? This one, sadly, isn’t even all that conspiratorial anymore. It’s been addressed by so many people so much better than I could that it would be redundant to elaborate on that part of the equation here. There’s a second layer to it, though, that I don’t see discussed often, and which to me is just as horrifying.

(4) Public education needs major changes. Systemic changes. Dramatic changes. We’re trapped in a 19th century factory model that we know to be dysfunctional and doomed, but can’t seem to find the solution using current resources, or apply it in some homogenously massive scale if we could. Real innovation is required – risk and radicalism, minus the Damoclesian testing and fatuous evals so joyfully legislated over every teacher’s comfy chair.

If I were a conspiracy guy, I’d think the very concepts of ‘charters’ or ‘choice’ or even ‘reform’ itself has been consciously co-opted by moneyed interests who use their powers for short-term evil rather than long-term good. How brilliantly profitable – exploit the status quo by laying claim to vast portions of limited public resources in the name of change. It’s like mobsters selling ‘insurance’ to local merchants to protect them from ‘accidents’ – complete and total betrayal, while none dare call it treason. Forget Marzano – we should have been reading Crane Brinton.

If something like this were remotely plausible, those of us most interested in improvement might have found ourselves expending our energies resisting the ‘worse’ at the expense of  all potential ‘betters’. We could have lost the ‘forward’ path altogether as we burned ourselves out holding ground we don’t even want – the current model. I’m particularly glad THIS vile scenario is just TOO CRAZY to consider.

(5) Finally, as long as we’re talking crazy talk, do those in power have any real interest in an educated populace? What, exactly, would be their motivation for such? Allotting time, energy, and resources to public education of any quality is generally a short-term loser politically. It’s expensive, and the results are long-deferred if they happen at all. There’s little consensus, and great political cost. Plus, there’s a very real danger that committed focus and resources and leadership on this subject could lead to… a much more educated, enlightened voting pool.

I realize this sounds particularly cynical, and I’m thus super extra thankful I’m not, you know… paranoid. If I were, though, I’d push the issue of what political leadership gains from a population which is harder to persuade with platitudes or emotionalism, or which demands a higher level of discussion in the decision-making process.

Why would the oligarchy want to sacrifice their power, their purses, and their children’s hegemony when it’s so very easy to simply maintain the facade of vigorous debate and struggle with one another? The major players are already quite gifted at maintaining the illusion they’re locked in passionate battles of principle, reality-TV levels of emotionalism, quality demagoguery, and rhetoric that sounds very founding-documentsy.

But what if they’re like the shampoo aisle at the drugstore – packed with dozens of brands, each of which is broken into a half-dozen hair-types, fragrances, sizes, etc.? It’s almost overwhelming, all the different products available; what a miracle of American capitalism – too damn many shampoos.

Except that entire aisle represents maybe two actual corporations making every one of those shampoos – most of which aren’t all that different. The varieties are there to make you feel better, and to push aside real competitors. If there must be competition, compete with yourself – it works for fast food, bottled beverages, media outlets, and education movements. If you were a conspiracy theorist, you might start to feel a bit manipulated – like you’re being played, and not actually making informed choices at all.

You might even consider that perhaps those in power economically and politically would actually benefit from an even less-enlightened populace. Educated enough for the demands of the economy, of course, but not so much they question the nature of that economy – or its corresponding social and political structures. Educated enough to enjoy the circus – not so much they start wanting different bread.

That would be silly, of course. Probably a bit over-the-top. It’s at least completely unrealistic, and SO easy to rebut. I’m not sure why I even brought all of this up – I’m not a big conspiracy guy or anything.