Meeks brings attention to “national sore”

Hermene Hartman, posting on Huff’s new Chicago blog, offers support to Rev. Meeks call for a 1-day school boycott. Savoy Magazine publisher, Obama supporter, and former deputy-chancellor of Chicago's City Colleges, Hartman writes:

I support Reverend Meeks wholeheartedly. He is moving with the spirit of protest to dramatize the situation. His traditional legislative means have not worked. His coalition politics style of organizing has not worked. His preaching has not even worked to push the envelope. His premise is basic, pure, correct and hard to argue: How do you bring about change if you don't change?

What will Stern think about this?

I wonder how all those conservatives who are delirious over their grand “choice” experiment in post-Katrina New Orleans, will respond to Channa Cook’s new charter school, the Sojourner Truth Academy. It’s theme, Social-Justice, complete with programs to help incarcerated teens and a strong community-service component. Isn’t this the kind of “Little Red Schoolhouse” Investor’s Business Daily, Sol Stern, and the boys at the right-wing think tanks have been railing against? Listen to NPR story here

The trouble with heroes...Eduwonkette digs a little deeper to get a more balanced and realistic view of a New York small school. Teachers do good work, but the school selects its students making comparisons with neighborhood schools, invalid.

This is American education's favorite past-time - find inspirational principal/teacher and tell an uplifting/touching story about how kids from tough backgrounds beat the odds. Preferably, someone easy on the eyes like Hilary Swank or Morgan Freeman plays the lead…We do teachers and schools a great disservice by clinging to the teachers/principals as heroic, self-effacing figures storyline.