> Within our society, there is next to no evaluation wihtout
> grading. Why pretend that the academic institution is so rarified that it
> can move above the epistemology within which it is grounded?
Jeff, good point. In studying the history of educational reform, the
thing that stood out for me was that problems and solutions keep recurring
because they are repeadedly framed as educational problems rather than as
education + social problems. In other words, the repeating is less a
matter of rhetorical style than simple elision of concrete social factors
(such as those that Marcy outlined) and, beyond that, elision of social
theory itself!
Many educational theorists have been influenced by the work of Antonio
Gramsci in this regard. He talks about the model of "hegemony" to
describe the complex interweaving of school and society, and also promotes
a concept of "public intellectual" to re-place the notion of "academic."
Both of these concepts provide frames in which grading and society, for
example, can be talked about in a single context.
Bob King