Re: [arn-l Digest] Vol. 4 No. 658 Messages: 12

[aburke5054@aol.com]

 Your claim that civil rights groups support NCLB only in so far as it requires disaggregated reporting and oppose its wider mandate is contradicted by their statements around the event I described, not to mention that these groups were among the original prime movers of NCLB's wider mandate. Lots of luck trying to convince them and the rest of us that you know what's really going on, and that you're only trying to protect us from our mistaken beliefs about reforming schools. How has that worked out for you so far?

Art



-----Original Message-----
From: Scott Hays <shays@ccwebster.net>
To: arn-l <arn-l@interversity.org>
Sent: Wed, Dec 15, 2010 6:26 am
Subject: Re: [arn-l] [arn-l Digest] Vol. 4 No. 658 Messages: 12




On Dec 15, 2010, at 3:20 AM, aburke5054@aol.com wrote:



> Like I said, the forces of counter-revolution mobilize quickly when  

> the status quo is threatened. We saw that when the financial  

> industry mobilized itself to resist financial reform and the health  

> care industry mobilized itself to fight health care reform. Big  

> surprise that the education industry mobilizes itself to fight  

> educational reform.

>

> The malarkey that education reform a la NCLB promotes the interests  

> of corporations and not public education was exploded a few summers  

> ago when the nation's civil rights establishment rose up to oppose  

> legislation that would have weakened NCLB's accountability  

> requirements, the very same requirements that you claim are part of  

> the nefarious corporate agenda. That line of bull has lost teachers'  

> unions a huge amount of respect, so much so that teachers' unions  

> are now openly criticized by liberal and progressive politicians and  

> by civil rights leaders as a prime roadblock to improving schools.  

> Why you continue with the same misinformation, disinformation, and  

> bare-faced deceit is beyond me.



Art, you are a fairly intelligent being, so I again call you on your  

loose use of words and sloppy recollection of fact.  When civil rights  

groups "rose up" to defend NCLB's accountability requirements "a few  

summers ago", they were defending but a small part of the overall  

legislation, particularly requirements that districts not hide  

reporting data on selected socio-economic groups and/or classes of  

students.  You know as well as the next guy that most people on this  

list concur with that sentiment.  What you continuously refuse to  

recognize, and apparently purposefully blur (because so many have  

grown weary of pointing it out to you), that those same civil rights  

groups oppose the broader mandates of NCLB.  Because you so carelessly  

blur these realities, it is no wonder that you have an equally hard  

time distinguishing between "liberal" and "progressive" politicians,  

and can lump them altogether in one non-discriminated mass.  But  

labels always work better than facts, and may help to explain why you  

seem to have such a hard time with the concept of "revolution" and  

"status quo".  I don't know what Alice-in-Wonderland world you live  

in, but it used to be that when a mayor or a corporate entity or even  

a centralized "unified" school district tried to muscle governance  

from a local, democratically elected school board, the citizens and  

employees of the school about to be swallowed rose up to protect it  

from the "establishment".  I will concede that often it was "liberals"  

who led the effort to centralize school management for the sake of  

"efficiency" and "maximization", but that's just another example of  

how the use of labels makes it so easy to blur distinctions about  

what's really going on.



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