Authoritarianism: 

• the enforcement or advocacy of strict obedience to authority at the cost of personal freedom,
• a form of government characterized by strong central power and limited political freedoms,
• principle of blind submission to authority, as opposed to personal freedom of thought and action,
• any political system that concentrates power in the hands of a leader or a small élite that is not constitutionally responsible to the body of the people,
• in raising children, authoritarian parents demand obedience, good manners, and good behavior and not independence, curiosity, and thinking for oneself.

The Nightmare. Since the presidential election of 2016, some people think that America is susceptible to creeping authoritarianism–a democratic nightmare (Staff, Pacific Standard. “How the Trump Campaign Exposed America’s Sleeping Authoritarianism.” Pacific Standard, 25 Oct. 2016, psmag.com/news/how-the-trump-campaign-exposed-americas-sleeping-authoritarianism).  According to research cited in this paper, authoritarianism “is fundamentally motivated by desire for order, support for authorities seen as best able to secure that order against a variety of threats to social cohesion.”

White anxiety seems to be at an all-time high, and Trump and his administration play to the fears that have festered in working-class whites for a long time.  Administrations in the past have played to the fears (remember Bush/Cheney), and other administrations have had to fight against the racism inherent in our society, as seen when Barack Obama was elected President in 2008.

And….

Authoritarian Spray. The authoritarianism of standardization has spread harm and inflicted damage to America’s public schools during the last two decades. The profits from standardized tests and teaching materials associated with the Common Core have overwhelmed the nature of learning in public school classrooms that one wonders if  this goliath, which has trampled on the very heart of education in a democratic society, can be brought down.

The conservative world-view is at the root of standardization, not only in the United States, but in most countries around the world.  This world-view has set in motion the reform of education based on a common set of standards, high-stakes tests, and accountability metrics that demoralize not only students and their families, but the educators who families regard as significant and positive others in the lives of their children.

I think of standards-based education reform as a kind of “spray” analogous to how we used DDT as an agricultural insecticide.  We sprayed it everywhere to stamp out disease carrying bugs.  For example, from 1940 – 1972, more than 1.3 billion pounds of DDT were released into U.S. communities indiscriminately.  This indiscriminate and relentless spray would eventually be shown to be harmful and a serious threat to the basics of ecosystems.

Antidotes. In 1962, Rachel Carson’s book, Silent Spring (Library Copy) explained how the release of DDT into the environment caused havoc and great harm to the affected ecosystems, as well as human health.  Even though the bio-chemical industry tried to subvert Carson’s work, she was eventually vindicated of the criticisms being leveled by this industry, and the US Congress went on to pass legislation banning DDT.   Later the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was established.

Carson had started the environmental movement, and many leading ecologists and environmentalists from around the world looked to her work as an inspiration.

Rachel Carson, in the word’s of Mark Hamilton, one of Carson’s biographers,  was a “gentle subversive.”

Vanguard. There is a vanguard of gentile (and not-so-gentile) subversives who are leading the way to uncover and expose the damage that is being done to educational ecosystems, as well as  student  health (social, emotional, intellectual) by standardized, test-centered and market-oriented reform spreading like a virus with global implications.  This vanguard is composed of educators who offer different accounts of what teaching and learning is about.  They are leading an effort to challenge the current standardized reform movement.

Please follow this link to read about some of the people identified as part of this vanguard.  There are many more, and most of them are teaching in classrooms around the world.

GERM. So, what is this vanguard voicing opposition to?  All are questioning the lack of wisdom, profound ignorance, and inexcusable ineptness of an educational reform movement that is rooted in a very narrow purpose of schooling: teaching to the test.  According to Sahlberg, the movement can be summarized in four words: Global Education Reform Movement GERM).

The Global Educational Reform Movement (GERM) promotes and spreads the “strategies and interests” of global agencies, billionaire donors, and private consultants as if it was a live virus (Sahlberg 2013).  According to Sahlberg, three primary sources led to the spread of the GERM virus including:

1. The need for proficiency in literacy and numeracy,
2. A guarantee that all students will learn the same set of standards in math and language arts and reading, and value placed on competition, and
3. Accountability by holding schools to a set of standards, and benchmarks using aligned assessments and tests.

None of the details of proficiency, standards or benchmarks are based on scientific or educational research.  They are opinions crafted by the groups mentioned before?

Protests

Since January 20, 2017, there have been millions of people protesting, marching and raising their voices against the creep of authoritarianism in this country and around the world.

Women’s March. One day after Trump was sworn in, millions of people around the world joined the Women’s March. Indeed, in Washington, DC, there were more people (~500,000) marching on January 21, 2017 than on the previous day.

Rejection by Courts of Executive Orders. When Trump’s 5th Executive order (written by S. Bannon) was signed on Friday, January 27, 2017, all hell broke loose. The order suspended the entry of immigrants from seven Muslin nations and stopped all refugees from entering the country for 120 days. Within hours of his signature, thousands of people joined waiting family members at airports around the country to protest this racist order.

On Saturday, January 28, US Judge Ann M. Donnelly issued an order that read:

“There is imminent danger that, absent the stay of removal, there will be real and irreparable injury to refugees, visa-holders, and other people from nations subject to the January 27, 2017, Executive Order.”

This was the first of many court decisions that essentially blocked Trump’s Muslim ban.

On February 3, U.S. District Judge James Robert blocked the entirety of Trump’s “de facto Muslim ban.” After the appellate court ruled 3-0 against Trump’s lawyers, Judge Robert’s ruled that all cases against any immigrant banned could go forward.  This was a striking blow to the White House.

March for Science. On April 22, Earth Day, more than 600 cities across the world held rallies and marches called the March for Science.  It initially was called, “scientists march on Washington.” The significance of the March for Science was a rebuttal to the Trump administration’s lies, Fake News obsession, and the “unimaginable impact on human health and the environment. ”

The People’s Climate March. On April 29th, the 100th day of Trump’s administration, people marched in Washington, D.C. and many locations in cities around the U.S.  This was a direct protest to the Trump administration’s disregard for climate science and its disregard for environmental policies designed to protect human health and the environment.

The People’s Climate March couldn’t be any more timely with regard to the EPA website.  If you follow the link, “climate change” on EPA’s list of Environmental Topics, its written, “This page is being updated.”  It then states that the page is being updated to fall in line with EPA priorities under Pruitt and Trump.  So, now, the climate change page is down, and they redirect you to a snapshot of the page taken on January 19, 2017, when Obama was still President.

Students Protests of Gun Violence.  Perhaps the most sober protests where those organized by American high school students after 17 people were killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL.  Immediately students organized and descended upon the state house in Tallahassee, FL and demanded that legislatures listen to them and consider changing laws to protect students from the gun violence that inflicts such harm in American schools.  A month after the killings in Parkland, tens of thousands of high school students walked out of school for 17 minutes.

Teacher Strikes.  Starting in West Virginia, in which all the state’s 55 counties closed schools for nine days, teacher strikes are spreading across the country.  Teachers in Oklahoma, Kentucky, and Arizona have organized with marches on the state capitols, and striking. In the “Red” states, the legislatures have cut taxes, and at the same time cut funding to schools.  In many of these Red states, there is unrest that is growing and is a direct affront to policies about the trend to privatize public schools.  In so doing, investments in public education (buildings, resources, and teacher pay) have waned, and instead, funds that should be used in public schools are being shifted into the hands of charter school corporations that look only at the bottom line, and the test scores of their clients.