When I was playing 7th grade football, back in the Sputnick years, after practice, the coach would prowl the locker room in search of wayward property…socks, jocks, and the like. Prior to dismissing the troops, he would hold aloft each item he found lying about, inquiring “who belongs to this”! When the hapless lad stepped forward to claim his property, the coach would, in ceremonious fashion, pop the kid,on his six, with his paddle (all teachers/coaches had paddles). This small gesture served two purposes: 1) teach the kid to keep track of his stuff, more importantly 2) unify the team. Pretty soon, (I suspect) kids were mis-placing their stuff on purpose just so they could be “initiated”…COACHING SURE HAS CHANGED…thou must be pc at all times! Godspeed, Coach!

Simply put, you cannot expect the child with an 85 IQ to perform on the same level as the child with a 100 IQ. The current education model throws all children into the same class and teaches them in the same manner. A better solution would be to group by ability and teach them in a manner and pace that is appropriate for their ability level.

But, the politically correct will not allow this. The moment that blacks are disproportionately represented in the “slower” class, they will start with the usual cries of racism and there must be another reason besides IQ.

And the only thing they can come up with is the imaginary concept of white privilege.

LOL in that you expected a politician to keep his promises…..

It’s hard to understand how anyone seriously would argue that there is no white privilege in America. I remember how the German Jew Walter Benjamin wrote that every cultural artifact is an expression of oppression, and Americans are part of that, as any honest person knows.

The example you give of two children being given exactly the same treatment, with the white one succeeding and the black one dropping out actually proves a point that is a bit different from yours. The idea of absolutely equal treatment is, simply put, not enough to make up for the deleterious effects of white privilege. We should approach the example you provide from a perspective of equity, rather than absolute equality. As you point out, equality of treatment results in minority children failing in many cases, so we should, instead, look to equity, which, in education, means providing conditions for each child to be successful. Much to your disapproval (I imagine), that might well mean giving a black child or a poor child “more” in recognition of the ill effects of white privilege on the education of minority and poor children. Somehow, equity in education doesn’t seem superficially “fair,” but it really is much fairer than the sink or swim model we have embraced. Equity does not mean equality, as white privilege has made equality a chimerical idea for many children. Equity is not a race-based issue, however. White children from the lower classes also suffer from classism, so the same point applies to them.

Of course, a child may still drop out or fail or reject the opportunity to be educated, but at that point it is an individual responsibility. I would argue that conservatives want to place individual responsibility too early in the education process as a way of avoiding our collective responsibility to educate all children, which means actively implementing equity.

I’m feeling actively discouraged about the prospects for meaningful educational reform, and this time I have to criticize the Democrats. As an (ex) educator, I enthusiastically supported Obama and expected that one of his first acts would be to repeal NCLB, which, in my opinion, is destroying teachers and the art of teaching. However, Obama seems to have forgotten his mantra of change in this area, and Arne Duncan, Obama’s Secretary of Education, is pushing more and more testing and research-based practice, which means more and more control over what teachers do. Ironically, those who support privatization of public education have an ally now, and profits are just waiting to be made by the edupreneurs. I’ve always been quick to criticize republicans (especially the loathsome and despicable Ashley Widener), but honesty demands that the Dems take their licks as well.

Doesn’t anyone care about educating children? I mean really, truly educating them to the point of joy? We’re raising a generation that doesn’t have any sense of intellectual challenge or struggle or the euphoria of everything falling in place. I wish I could say that my decision to leave teaching was a mistake, and it almost drives me to despair to realize that it was not, even more so because both Dems and Repubs are equally at fault, including people I worked for and voted for and eagerly supported.

This is a painful time.

While, I do not teach, I work in a job where I go to many middle schools. I was amazed to see listed in the halls teacher’s names followed by the students in their classes and to find there were less than 15 students per class in most all classes. Being from a country school in Indiana, I grew up with two classes in each elementary classroom, i.e. 1st & 2nd together, 3d & 4th, 5th & 6th. These teachers each had about 30 students in their room and they seemed to have no difficultly in controlling them. If anyone misbehaved the teacher paddled them–I know, as I got a paddling the FIRST day of school! But, I only needed that one to keep me unpaddled through the rest of my school days. And I was not bruised, only a little embarrassed. It didn’t crush me for the rest of my life. My paddling also set a great example for the rest of my classmates–all of those who attended our 50th class reunion remembered the incident. WE NEED TO BRING BACK THE PADDLE–students can be punished with a provision that proper witnesses be present which would prevent abuse by a teacher or principal. One source says, “Spare the rod, spoil the child,” and we are definitely spoiling the lives of our children when we EXPELL them from school–rather than paddle them–because they are disruptive; and if we DON’T EXPELL them, we are spoiling the education of the only students who are trying hard to learn.