Takeover

I have to say that my laziness is the only thing preventing me from posting. Lately I've been worried about "leaving no trace" and hurting myself professionally by keeping a blog.

Nonetheless, for now I am pushing on.

Neil McCluskey raises the interesting Republican paradox of No Child Left Behind - reaching into the local domain normally controlled by schools and pretending they're not. Check out this line from the State of the Union:

" Now the task is to build on the success, without watering down standards, without taking control from local communities, and without backsliding and calling it reform. We can lift student achievement even higher by giving local leaders flexibility to turn around failing schools, and by giving families with children stuck in failing schools the right to choose someplace better. (Applause.) We must increase funds for students who struggle -- and make sure these children get the special help they need." (from whitehouse.gov)

So somehow we're both supposed to set high standards and let localities control their schools. We're going to dictate that school districts set their own high standards, but not tell them what the standards are? Or let them do whatever they want and just have a rhetoric of high standards? Not sure. Basically, what he's really saying is that we're going to demonstrate how crappy our public schools really are and let the whole thing be run privately.

"First We Take Your Money, Then We Take Your Schools." (N. McClusky. Newark Star-Ledger. Oct. 23, 2006.)