Poverty, health care “gooey” ideas for these gadflies

You can almost feel the froth coming out of the mouths of right-wing think-tankers Checker Finn and Stafford Palmieri and they rage against the “community schools con and schools' “coddling” of the poor.

…we've found this idea gooey and emotional, focusing on the externalities of daily life that drip into America's classrooms—poor healthcare, single parent families, unemployment—rather than on what schools can do with the kids who actually turn up there.

The very idea that poverty, racism, lack of health care or decent housing can impact the way schools work (or don’t) is anathema to the boys from the Fordham think tank, who attack all such talk as part of the Bolder, Broader Coalition’s “defeatist attitude.”

Instead, Finn and Palmieri prefer vouchers, privately-run charters, and “paternalistic schools” like KIPP which push out 60% of their kids rather than “coddle” them. Great way to get test scores up.