The Quick and the Ed has a brilliant post criticizing a recent Brookings paper on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), an international scholastic performance test. Apparently Tom Loveless, the author of the paper, has a problem with the test’s bias in favor of environmental protection:
…[the statements in the test] embrace a superficial view of responsibility. None of the prompts asks students whether they are willing to take personal responsibility for sustainability. They ask whether someone else should—industries, car owners, factories, and society as a whole.
It’s wrongheaded to define seriousness about environmentalism in this manner. In what conceivable way could a student “take personal responsibility” for protecting the habitats of endangered species, regulating factory emissions, or disposing of toxic waste? It’s the equivalent of taunting someone who’s concerned about the national debt by asking if they’d be willing to tithe an extra 10 percent of their paycheck to the federal government. If you’re concerned about budget deficits, the best way to “take personal responsibility” for that is to vote for politicians who will promote policies that combine economic growth with spending restraint and sufficient levels of taxation. Just like if you’re concerned about carbon emissions, the best thing you can do is elect someone who supports CAFE standards and a real cap-and-trade plan. Or if you’re concerned about toxic waste, someone who will regulate toxic waste. The idea that your committment to the public policies that actually matter is ”superficial” unless you’ve also got a compost heap in your back yard is just a way to deflect attention from the real issues at hand.
The Quick and the Ed is a blog about the educational sector. It is a sigh of relief to see that people across sectors are getting increasingly vocal in shutting up climate deniers, delayers and nay-sayers. Most of the world knows (PISA is an international test) that the time to take action on the climate crisis is right now. Let’s make sure our elected officials are on-board.
Tomasso, I’d have to disagree. You ask, “In what conceivable way could a student “take personal responsibility” for protecting the habitats of endangered species, regulating factory emissions, or disposing of toxic waste?” I think it’s important to remember that before any of us were lobbying our elected officials or debating clean coal technology, we got excited about recycling. Recycling was my kick as an elementary student and it got me started on a long journey of environmental work. Asking young kids what they are willing to do on a small scale in their own communities is a great way to get the ball rolling for bigger and better things down the road. If young kids can’t make the connection between leaving the lights on and pollution, they’ll never make the connection between carbon trading and indigenous rights.