On Thursday, September 9, 2004, at 12:35 PM, Anderson & Turpin wrote:
As I said before, it's the Left who has the greater
concern of closing the "gap" (versus simply increasing academic achievement
of those "left behind"). If we could get consensus among the Left that
closing the "gap" should be the second step in the NCLB program, instead of
the immediate focus on that problem, I would think the Right would agree.
Both sides do want to improve the results of the schools. Why can't we use
the NCLB to get there?
Except this is bringing the canister of Anthrax to the biochemical treaty table. Do or die solutions are not the answer either. There are a lot of "ifs" in the Anderson proposal. Education should not be the result of a left and right agreement. Definitely I am on the left, but my work over the last two decades has been to increase academic achievement in the American Indian population. And it is far from simple, as suggested by the writer.
Policy change, district change, school building change, parent change, societal change and private sector change are all in the mix. In the end, though, we have to ask, "how does this help the student?" That is the real test that counts.
Best,
Laura Southeast
Laura Waterman Wittstock MIGIZI Communications, Inc. 3123 East Lake Street Minneapolis, MN 55406 612.721.6631 ext 219 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.migizi.org http://laurawatermanwittstock.blogspot.com/
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