Here’s another must-do for Peter Gorman: read this blog. Everyday. Simply blows up one crazy idea about American education after another.
Here the myths about the No Child Left Behind act are cut into tiny, tiny pieces. To wit:
High Schools aren’t the problem so much as kids getting to high school without the skills necessary to succeed in high school. You can’t succeed in high school if you get there reading at a fifth grade level and unable to manipulate fractions.
And, it isn’t the “suburban moderates who already benefit from fine public schools” it’s the fine public schools benefiting from the suburban moderates who on average tend to have kids who are smarter and better prepared than the average bear, and, therefore, easier to educate. The one great thing about NCLB is that we have all this disaggregated data on the performance of poor and minority kids showing that they’re not performing any better in the “fine public schools” than they are in the decrepit inner city ones. It is the less visible rot that is the most harmful–the rot at the instructional level.
See? Scary stuff for your basic edu-twit. I really think Gorman is made of stronger stuff and can take this kind of frank language.
