Time to privatize public schools?

Gov. Scott Walker’s (R-Wisc.) dilemma is shared by numerous other states—how do you keep funding public education workers whose salaries and benefit costs are sure to rise even as revenue falls? Despite reasonable pay for teachers in Wisconsin, students aren’t excelling. CNS News said, “In the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests administered by the U.S. Department of Education in 2009—the latest year available—only 32 percent of Wisconsin public-school eighth graders earned a ‘proficient’ rating while another 2 percent earned an ‘advanced’ rating.”

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Tucson school district under fire for race-based approach to punishment

by Kay B. Day

Neal Boortz recommended John Taylor Gatto’s book ‘The Underground History of American Education.’ Gatto explores the evolution of US ‘government schools’ as Boortz calls them. Explaining that the school system was created by men like steel baron Andrew Carnegie and financier J. P. Morgan, Gatto writes, “Men like these, and the brilliant efficiency expert Frederick W. Taylor, who inspired the entire ‘social efficiency’ movement of the early twentieth century, along with providing the new Soviet Union its operating philosophy and doing the same job for Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany; men who dreamed bigger dreams than any had dreamed since Napoleon or Charlemagne, these were the makers of modern schooling.”The Tucson Unified School District is taking what amounts to an affirmative action approach to punishment, calling for a “two-tiered form of student discipline. One for Black and Hispanic students; one for everyone else.” The Arizona Republic broke the story, saying the school board is “insisting…schools reduce suspensions and/or expulsions of minority students to the point that the data reflect ‘no ethnic/racial disparities.’”

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Obama address to children: 'inartfully worded' plan or information operation?

Updated on Monday, September 7, 2009 at 3:45PM by Kay B. Day, Editor

by Chris Carter

School districts are feeling the backlash of a nationwide address to schools by President Barack Obama on Tuesday. Officials say the speech stresses the importance of “persisting and succeeding in school.” The address from the president, purportedly challenging students to “work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning,” sounds harmless, but events surrounding the address – whether intended or not – have turned a message to children into a means to further divide the country and weaken political opponents.

A controversy may have been avoided if the White House had released a transcript of the president's address so parents and school districts could have made an informed decision as to whether to allow children to hear the message. Parents have the right to determine what their children watch on television, and who their children can talk to. School districts have the right to determine for themselves – based in part on input from the parents – what material will be covered in the classroom. When it isn't known what the message is – president or not – parents and school districts are well within reason to oppose such a message until more is known.

Despite the growing controversy, however, The White House has determined not to release a transcript until Monday evening – the night before the address.

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