ABSTRACT
Whether derived from a conservative or liberal discourse, the rhetoric of public education in the United States has, historically, claimed to be a democratizing force, committed to justice, freedom and excellence. As illustrated in a variety of ways in the previous chapters, upon closer examination what is revealed is an educational system that has systematically reproduced, reinforced, and sustained practices of social control and regulation. In turn, this has guaranteed the perpetuation of inequalities tied to class, gender, sexuality, and physical ability, along with the overarching racialization of populations. The chapter provides a close look at the manner in which the myth of meritocracy, the power and privilege of the elite, and the hegemony of state consensus have converged into a dominant logic that overwhelmingly supports the over-testing of racialized children in public schools today (Au, 2008; Lipman, 2004). Moreover, this persistent and incessant culture of testing and assessment, which begins very early in the life of bicultural children, has now become so normalized that, for the most part, the practice is simply accepted as commonplace. Even more disturbing is the manner in which student “learning [is reduced] to a test score, [as] policy makers seek to make the knowledge of disparate individuals commensurable” (De Lissovoy & McLaren, 2003, p. 133).
