Standardized tests, i.e., Common Core, are not "settled established norms." Testing teachers is also relatively new. If Goodwin's thesis was true, Noam Chomsky would be on network news every day. He is still marginalized, while Kennedy family celebrities get national recognition for misguided policies. Does Goodwin mistake opposition for radicalism? Has conformity become the default position on all matters?
[From article]
Ideas that only recently were relegated to the fringes are now going mainstream. And policies that were settled, established norms are under vicious assault. Here’s the real shocker: The radicals are not limited to Occupy Wall Street and other anarchists demonstrating against cops, capitalism and all authority. Instead, respected public figures and government officials who would normally defend the establishment are leading the charge against it. [. . .] The San Jose Mercury News found that 87 percent of kindergartners at the wealthy Berkeley Rose School had vaccine exemptions because the parents believed in “more alternative health care,” according to a school spokesman. The school, where half-day kindergarten costs nearly $12,000 a year, says it offers “judgment-free” education. Children handwrite their own textbooks, learn to knit in first grade and, despite its proximity to Silicon Valley, the school features an anti-tech culture that emphasizes experience over facts. No kidding.
http://nypost.com/2015/04/18/radicalism-is-going-mainstream/
Radicalism is going mainstream
By Michael Goodwin
New York Post
April 18, 2015 | 11:04pm
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