If the article is, as you say, only about math education, then it cannot conclude "any parent who opposes adoption of the CCSS is, in effect, saying, “I do not want my child prepared for life in the Twenty-First Century.”" At best it can say that a parent who opposes adoption of the CCSS for mathematics, etc.

Since it makes a broad statement regarding CCSS, it cannot be, as you say, restricted to math education standards. (There's also the technical observation that CCSS is not the only way to achieve those underlying aspirational goals. I see that Minnesota has decided to not use CCSS, and assume a Minnesota parent may oppose CCSS for the honest belief that the Minnesota standards are better for a 21st century life than CCSS.)

I brought up "classical educated citizen" precisely because it is a different mythos. The essay only concerns itself with one specific goal - train the workers of the top 500 companies of the 21st century. There are dozens of often opposing goals for the education system[1], and to focus on only one is a disservice. You suggest I should read some education theory, but omit that the essay author is equally lacking; which was my point.

But since you bring up education theory, and elites, I feel it's useful to point out your own strawmen. We've long had multiple education methods in American schools. See http://cuip.uchicago.edu/~cac/nlu/fnd504/anyon.htm from the 1980s, on "Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work". It points out that:

- "In the two working-class schools, work is following the steps of a procedure. The procedure is usually mechanical, involving rote behavior and very little decision making or choice"

- "In the middle-class school, work is getting the right answer. If one accumulates enough right answers, one gets a good grade. One must follow the directions in order to get the right answers, but the directions often call for some figuring, some choice, some decision making."

- "In the affluent professional school, work is creative activity carried out independently. The students are continually asked to express and apply ideas and concepts. Work involves individual thought and expressiveness, expansion and illustration of ideas, and choice of appropriate method and material."

- "In the executive elite school, work is developing one's analytical intellectual powers. Children are continually asked to reason through a problem, to produce intellectual products that are both logically sound and of top academic quality. A primary goal of thought is to conceptualize rules by which elements may fit together in systems and then to apply these rules in solving a problem. Schoolwork helps one to achieve, to excel, to prepare for life."

To simply say that the options are "inquiry based learning" as compared to some sort of "info-dump lectures and memorizing algorithms without context" is ahistorical. It's like saying that before agile there was only waterfall.

You say my argument is "that all children should be part of a liberal elite. Which is not a bad argument, but is not one, at its core, of education."

I find that odd because, sociologically speaking, your statement is that all children should be part of the middle class or the professional class. Consider this quote from http://www.academia.edu/2976656/Social_class_and_social_acti... :

> collaboration and teamwork have become increasingly central characteristics of middle-class life over the 20th century. Group success often requires managers and professionals to work closely with people they have no long-term relationship with. Each individual in these contexts is expected to independently contribute his or her own particular knowledge and skills to an often weakly defined common project. Collaboration in these groups is facilitated by the relatively abstract, elaborated discourse predominant in middle-class settings (Bernstein, 1971; Brown, 1995; Gee et al., 1996; von Trotha & Brown, 1982). For the rest of the article, I refer to this particularly middle-class form of joint action as discursive collaboration

Collaboration ("teamwork") is a middle-class value and has been for decades. Why is promoting a middle-class value "at its core" part of education, where so-called "liberal elite" goals are not?

Fussell back in 1983 in "Class: A Guide Through the American Status System" also pointed out that teamwork was part of the middle class. I can't find a direct reference online, though I found this summary: "Corporations hire [the middle class] from second-tier colleges and teach them that being a team player is the most important thing they can be." - https://danielmiessler.com/study/class/

A push for teamwork was solidly part of middle class consciousness already by the 1980s, and likely much earlier. Part of my 'baloney' is to reject as propaganda that idea that it's some new 21st century ideal.

[1] I would love a school system which educates more about the Participatory Citizen and
Justice-oriented Citizen described in http://www.mills.edu/academics/faculty/educ/jkahne/ps_educat... . Otherwise, "Personal responsibility, voluntarism, and character education must be considered in a broader social context or they
risk advancing civility or docility instead of democracy." You'll note that Fortune 500 companies are not run as a democracy, and would prefer docile employees over justice-oriented employees.