On the blogs: Olson exposes Obama’s ed. myths
March 12, 2009 7:08 am
In response to President Obama’s misguided education policy speech to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Terry Olson debunks the mythology that Obama is pedaling in pursuit of more charter schools, merit pay for teachers, higher standards and more accountability.
Steve Rawley published PPS Equity from 2008 to 2010, when he moved his family out of the district.
filed under: Charter Schools, Media, National
March 16th, 2009 at 7:15 am
In urban districts half of minority students drop out and that nationally the average Black 12th grader achieves at the level of the average White 8th grader.
President Obama, liberal politicians such as George Miller and Ted Kennedy, as well as an overwhelming majority of America’s civil rights establishment and many liberal and progressive groups are in fundamental agreement on the need for addressing these problems through the schools.
The Mexican American Legal Defense Fund, for example,says federal education policy of the past eight years stands with America’s most important civil rights legislation.
Somehow the urgency for change gets lost in these endless quibbles over test scores, which might in fact be some people’s agenda.
March 16th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
This article by Terry was terrific! It gives a pretty good indication of what is wrong in Portland. Using national trends to solve Portland’s problems hasn’t worked and won’t work. (How are the small schools doing?) We need to attack the problems where they exist — not theorize about what things might work. There is too much of that and not enough rolling up the sleeves of teachers, parents, and administrators and going after what is getting in the way of a good education at each school. Less theory — more practical, common sense. But be careful, you might bring back recesses, music, art, PE, librarians, and a good general education. We wouldn’t want that now would we? What do the studies say?