President Obama had voucher and charter school boosters to the White House the other day for advice on educational policy. The nation was treated to the incredible spectacle former Speaker Newt Gingrich posing as an enemy of racism and a proponent of civil rights for his concern over the “achievement gap”. There was no mention of the infant mortality gap, or the life expectancy gap, or the household assets gap, or the employment gap, or the incarceration gap, or the quality of healthcare gap, or any of the other gaps that might shatter the illusion that Newt Gingrich gives a damn about people of color.
Turning around 5,000 schools
Well, at least Edweek didn't run with the bogus headline saying Obama wants to "close 5,000 schools." But this "turnaround" business is bad enough, with Duncan extolling the so-called Chicago miracle as his model. The two comments here were right on target.
How are you going to get supposedly good teachers to come work at a failing school, especially if you start basing teacher's ability to feed their families on kids test scores?
Good question, Mike. Actually it doesn't sound like a "turnaround" idea, but a closing and then re-opening in some new form strategy. I'm not even always opposed to that, assuming all parties can come up with a good plan (Julia Richman, e.g.) In fact, closing and reopening (gradually, so that the school keeps its current students until they graduate) is probably a good long-range strategy if done carefully and slowly enough to insure the success of the new schools, etc, etc.
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