Tuesday, January 27, 2009

The Impossible Dream

In the Washington Times via Richard Kessler, I see that Diane Ravitch, historian of education at New York University and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, tells secretary of education Arne Duncan to abolish No Child Left Behind.

She has her reasons:

The law's remedies don't work. The law's sanctions don't work. The goal of 100 percent proficiency by 2014 is ludicrous; no nation or state has ever reached it.

Achievement gains have been meager. Test scores improved more on federal tests in the five years preceding NCLB than in the years since it was implemented.

I agree wholeheartedly with Ms. Ravitch, but I have to say the fact that she found all that free time to write her book The Language Police makes me a reluctant fan. It's not that she's unrighteous. I just think there are other things to stress about. Like the fact that there are usually about 20 actual police holding down the metal detectors in many New York City High Schools where we go to teach.

I mean real police who, after I sign in and show my ID, say things like, "Ok, you're free to go now." Which is the same thing they say to you at Rikers.

You think poorly written textbooks strangle young minds?

I think treating our children like they are in training to go to prison is more of an impediment to their learning. I think the panopticon is the problem.

Anyway, I'm probably one of those "ethnic activists" she mentions in the opinion piece she penned for the Wall Street Journal.

Words, words, words.

Zip a dee doo dah!

No comments: