[speechlesstx]

Well there you have it.

Amazing how no matter the issue Tal has the same rant.

[tomder55]

Two recent events — one on the east coast and one on the west coast — raise painful questions about whether we are really serious when we say that we want better education for minority children.

One of these events was an announcement by Dunbar High School in Washington, D.C. that it plans on August 19th to begin "an entire week of activities to celebrate the grand opening of our new $160 million state-of-the-art school building."

The painful irony in all this is that the original Dunbar High School building, which opened in 1916, housed a school with a record of high academic achievements for generations of black students, despite the inadequacies of the building and the inadequacies of the financial support that the school received.

By contrast, today's Dunbar High School is just another ghetto school with abysmal standards, despite Washington's record of having some of the country's highest levels of money spent per pupil — and some of the lowest test score results.

Housing an educational disaster in an expensive new building is all too typical of what political incentives produce.

We pay a lot of lip service to educational excellence. But too many institutions and individuals that have produced good educational results for minority students have not only failed to get support, but have even been undermined.

A recent example on the west coast is a charter school operation in Oakland called the American Indian Model Schools. The high school part of this operation has been ranked among the best high schools in the nation. Its students' test scores rank first in its district and fourth in the state of California.

But the California State Board of Education announced plans to shut down this charter school — immediately. Its students would have had to attend inferior public schools this September, except that a challenge in court stopped this sudden shutdown.

Why such a hurry to take drastic action? Because of a claim of financial improprieties against the charter schools' founder and former head, Ben Chavis.

Ben Chavis has not been found guilty of anything in a court of law. Nor has he even been brought to trial, though that would seem to be the normal thing to do if the charges were serious.

More important, the children have not been accused of anything. Nor is there any reason for urgency in immediately depriving them of an excellent education they are not likely to get in their local public schools.

What Ben Chavis and the American Indian Model Schools are really guilty of is creating academic excellence that shows up the public school system, both by this school's achievements and by the methods used to create those achievements, which go against the educational dogmas prevailing in the failing public schools.

If it seems strange that there would be a vendetta against an educator who has defied the education establishment and thereby improved the education of minority students, the fact is that Ben Chavis is only the latest in a long line of educators who have done just that — and aroused animosity, and even vindictiveness, as a result.

Washington's former public school head, Michelle Rhee, raised test scores in that city's school system and was demonized by the education establishment and politicians. She has left.

Years ago, high school math teacher Jaime Escalante, whose success in teaching Mexican American students was celebrated in the movie "Stand and Deliver," was eventually hounded out of Garfield High School in Los Angeles. Yet, while he was there, about one-fourth of all Mexican American students — in the entire country — who passed Advanced Placement Calculus came from that one school.

Marva Collins, who established a very successful private school for black children in Chicago, doing so on a shoestring, was likewise the target of hostility when she was a dedicated teacher in the public schools.

Other examples could be cited of educators who produced outstanding results for minority students — in New York, Houston and other places — and faced the wrath of the education establishment, which sees schools as places to provide jobs for teachers, rather than education for students, and which will not tolerate challenges to its politically correct dogmas.

http://www.creators.com/print/conser...education.html

[talaniman]

Well there you have it.

Amazing how no matter the issue Tal has the exact same rant.

No matter the issue its always the liberals fault.

[speechlesstx]

No matter the issue its always the liberals fault.

No, conservatives have been wrong once or twice.

[speechlesstx]

Here is another example of the ideological cesspool that is public education... instead of teaching math they're teaching the "Art of Zinn."

In Zinn's telling, America is synonymous with brute domination that goes back to Christopher Columbus. "The American system," he writes in "A People's History," is "the most ingenious system of control in world history." The founding fathers were self-serving elitists defined by "guns and greed."

For Americans stuck in impoverished communities and failing schools, Zinn's devotion to history as a "political act" can seem appealing. He names villains (capitalists), condemns their misdeeds, and calls for action to redistribute wealth so that, eventually, all of the following material goods will be "free—to everyone: food, housing, health care, education, transportation." The study of history, Zinn taught, demands this sort of social justice.

Schools with social-justice instruction that draw explicitly on Zinn are becoming more common. From the Social Justice Academy outside of San Francisco to the four campuses of the Cesar Chavez Public Charter Schools for Public Policy, in Washington, D.C. social-justice academies relate their mission mainly in terms of ideological activism. At UCLA's Social Justice Academy, a program for high-school juniors, the goal is that students will "develop skills to take action that disrupts social justice injustices."

While social-justice instruction may sound to some like it might be suited to conflict resolution, in practice it can end up creating more discord than it resolves. Several years ago, the Ann Arbor, Mich., public schools faced complaints from the parents of minority students that the American history curriculum was alienating their children. At a meeting of the district's social-studies department chairs, the superintendent thought that he had discovered the cure for the divisions plaguing the school system. Holding up a copy of "A People's History," he asked, "How many of you have heard of Howard Zinn?" The chairwoman of the social studies department at the district's largest school responded, "Oh, we're already using that."

Zinn's arguments tend to divide, not unite, embitter rather than heal. The patron saint of Occupy Wall Street, Zinn left behind a legacy of prepackaged answers for every problem—a methodology that progressive historian Michael Kazin characterized as "better suited to a conspiracy-monger's website than to a work of scholarship."

Yet despite the lack of hard evidence in three-plus decades that using "A People's History" produces positive classroom results, a number of well-coordinated groups recently have been set up to train teachers in the art of Zinn. Founded five years ago out of a partnership between Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change, the Zinn Education Project offers more than 100 lesson plans and teachers' guides to Zinn's books, among a variety of other materials, including "Beyond Heroes and Holidays: A Practice Guide to K-12 Anti-Racist, Multicultural Education and Staff Development." Already, the project claims to have enlisted 20,000 teachers in its efforts.

I know this goes against all the "your children don't belong to you because it takes a village" logic, but it is not the role of teachers to indoctrinate your children.

[NeedKarma]

Where does it say that that course replaces math?

Also they teach courses in all types of subjects, even those you disagree with. Sorry that doesn't fit your worldview.

[speechlesstx]

Where does it say that that course replaces math?

It's a figure of speech, get over it.

Also they teach courses in all types of subjects, even those you disagree with. Sorry that doesn't fit your worldview.

Really? They teach different subjects in school? Wow, who knew?

[NeedKarma]

They teach different subjects in school? Wow, who knew?

Not you.

[speechlesstx]

Not you.

As usual you have nothing to offer. You're like a gnat.

[NeedKarma]

Standard conservative response.
So much for 'honest discussions' when a 'figure of speech' misrepresents the actual facts.

[speechlesstx]

If I were allowed the latitude you have to flout the rules the insult would have been much less conservative.

[NeedKarma]

Which rules do I flout?

[Tuttyd]

Here is another example of the ideological cesspool that is public education...instead of teaching math they're teaching the "Art of Zinn."



I know this goes against all the "your children don't belong to you because it takes a village" logic, but it is not the role of teachers to indoctrinate your children.

A good example of educational relativism at work. But that is fine, just keep ignoring my posts whenever I mention standards.

[speechlesstx]

A good example of educational relativism at work. But that is fine, just keep ignoring my posts when ever I mention standards.

I don't recall having ignored you. There are others who deserve to be ignored, but I believe I offered my opinion and this example fits right in.

[Tuttyd]

I don't recall having ignored you. There are others who deserve to be ignored, but I believe I offered my opinion and this example fits right in.

Sorry, must have been someone else. Yes, I agree there is no place in public education for this type of history. In exactly the same way there is no place for pseudo science in biology classes.

If it were possible to have an education system that reflects the opposite to liberal values then you still end up with educational relativism. There seems to be a general reluctance to addresses the actual problem. I think this reluctance is related to many other areas as well.

I think ideology gets in the way of both sides.

[speechlesstx]

Sorry, must have been someone else. Yes, I agree there is no place in public education for this type of history. In exactly the same way there is no place for pseudo science in biology classes.

If it were possible to have an education system that reflects the opposite to liberal values then you still end up with educational relativism. There seems to be a general reluctance to addresses the actual problem. I think this reluctance is related to many other areas as well.

I think ideology gets in the way of both sides.

Absolutely ideology gets in the way on both sides. I don't know how to get rid of it all but I think we can agree there are certain absolutes like 2+2 and stick to those as standards. One doesn't need to eliminate private schools to have such requirements but public schools should at all times leave the ideology to the home. Parents should not have their values and rights undermined by the public system, we deserve the choice to raise our children our way responsibly free from government meddling.

[cdad]

Nah they wouldn't do that to innocent children. Opps. Yeah they would.

California's Transgender Student Bill Signed By Gov. Jerry Brown

[Tuttyd]

Nah they wouldnt do that to innocent children. Opps. Yeah they would.

California's Transgender Student Bill Signed By Gov. Jerry Brown

This is what I mean by a reluctance to address the actual problem. Most people prefer to talk around the problem. Some type of transgender student legislation is nonsense. It is just one more example that comes out of educational relativism.

[cdad]

This is what I mean by a reluctance to address the actual problem. Most people prefer to talk around the problem. Some type of transgender student legislation is nonsense. It is just one more example that comes out of educational relativism.

I agree. But what is sad about this is that it has now become law. Young students risk exposure at a level unheard of in the past and are expected to deal with it. Under any other circumstance arrests would have been made. It is way out of hand.

[Tuttyd]

I agree. But what is sad about this is that it has now become law. Young students risk exposure at a level unheard of in the past and are expected to deal with it. Under any other circumstance arrests would have been made. It is way out of hand.

I think we are in a no win situation when in comes to education. Going by the example you posted some states are creating an educational agenda that is getting out of hand. The irony is that we want the states to exercise their independence in educational decisions. This is why the problem tends to be talked around.