List members: Thursday evening was "Parent Information Night" at Barton School, where my children go to school. It was a very good evening over all. One highlight was the short address from our school's principal, Steve DeLapp, who addressed this topic very directly.
If I can get a transcript of his talk -- perhaps it will be posted to Barton's website -- I'll get the url. Meanwhile, it would be a terrific op-ed for SWJ or even the Star and Tribune to pick up: very thoughtful, well-illustrated, and to the point. (Not to mention well-informed about the specifics and probably more "fair and balanced" than I am about the topic!) I think that NCLB seriously underfunds our schools, then asks why they are not doing well. NCLB is not about developing curriculum and learning environments which are responsive to the great variety of needs of learners, but is designed to be a club with which to beat public education into oblivion. Just as the neo-con agenda has been stated loud and clear: to "shrink government to be small enough to drown in the bathtub." NCLB is the neo-con agenda for public education. Pawlenty provides good cover for the neo-con agenda in Minnesota, and students -- especially those in Minneapolis Public Schools -- will pay for it for the rest of their lives. Education is a "common good" and a "public good" -- we all need to wake up to the real, rather obvious agenda behind NCLB. The people who fund the administrations (national, state, and local) behind NCLB are very clear about this agenda. Don't many of the people behind NCLB want exclusive private schools and most especially exclusive religious schools for those who can afford them, without the burden of dealing with the needs of the children of those who are poor? What is the political context of NCLB? Having grown up in the "religious right" and having been educated in "religious right" colleges, I'm very familiar with at least one significant group behind the political movement which has given birth to NCLB. We would be disingenuous to discuss NCLB without reference to at least one agenda behind the policy, which is to ultimately dismantle public education and to replace it with religious indoctrination. It seems to me that many people are afraid of the racial, religious, ethnic, and cultural diversity of "public education" and so hope to strangle it -- or at least to "drown it in the bathtub." The "religious right" I grew up in is often in league with a "privatize everything" capitalist heresy. This concentrates power in the hands of a few, encourages conformity and an authoritarian (usually patriarchical) culture. Is that true in the case of NCLB as well? Doesn't NCLB label schools as "losers" while pulling funding for programs for students in these same schools who need specific and real help over a period of years in order to achieve at grade level? Is that not what is being done here in Minneapolis? There are no examples that I know of that NCLB has done any good in the Minneapolis Public Schools -- or anywhere else, for that matter. So far it has been about two things: turning people away from public schools, and about cutting funding to public schools. Perhaps having grown up in the "religious right" has made me too sensitive to the power of the religious right in shaping current policies, but NCLB sure fits the pattern. Isn't this short-sighted and narrow? Why are so many people so compliant? Have we been poorly educated.....? Hmmmmmm........ -- still pedaling for peace and ecojustice in Kingfield -- Gary Hoover REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
