Dear Cho Jeon-hyeock

UPDATE: Cho is a member of LMB's transition committee. Of course.

Christ, professor, you need a lot of words to say nothing at all. A complex issue requires a return to “basics”? How insightful.

First: Korean students continue to score at or near the top in OECD achievement rankings in reading, writing, and mathematics. The patient is anything but terminal. You should know this.

Second: Many countries have centralized, bureaucratic, top-down public education systems. South Korea is hardly aberrant in this regard. You should know this.

Third: Name one country that allows entirely independent, unregulated schools to operate. I mean countries with functioning states, not Somalia.

Fourth: Most OECD countries allow for some local and democratic oversight of schools, e.g. “school boards” with members elected from and by the public. You should know this, but your elitist worldview blinds you to its significance.

Fifth: You’re an education professor, obviously able to write in english. I challenge you to publish something in a peer-reviewed journal to justify your refreshing neoliberal approach to education reform in Korea.

I’m kidding with this last, of course. Serious academics would shred your “arguments." Best stick with The Korea Times - and keep those transfers from the Center for Free Enterprise’s stipend account coming!

Fucking weasel

"I will make a society in which poverty is not passed from generation to generation by ... creating two education systems. Specifically, wealthy families will have 100 more schools to choose from. To ensure that these systems are firmly divided, I will encourage universities to rank high schools. Teachers who resist will be evaluated into early retirement." So saith Lee Myung-bak.

And in the newsrooms of the nation, there was much rejoicing.