Re: Fw: hickok

[Peter Campbell <campbellp@mail.montclair.edu>]

Burke: "If Connecticut wants to shortchange its parents and children,  
people, in
say, Vermont should pick up the bill? . . . This is precisely the  
argument that the NAACP
rejected so scathingly in arguing in federal court that Connecticut  
should quit
its whining and evasions and take responsibility for improving its  
schools."

---

Connecticut's NAACP is concerned that the "unfunded mandate" argument  
used by the state of Connecticut in its lawsuit against the federal  
government might undermine other "unfunded mandates," particularly  
the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Dennis C. Hayes, the general counsel at  
the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s  
Baltimore headquarters said in a 2/8/06 Education Week story that  
allowing Connecticut to opt out of such a critical part of the  
federal law would set a dangerous precedent by encouraging  
policymakers elsewhere to do the same. “If we view No Child Left  
Behind in terms of civil rights, then we are concerned about a state  
begging to be excused from participating or complying with an act  
intended to help disadvantaged people,” he said. (http:// 
www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2006/02/08/22conn.h25.html? 
querystring=Connecticut&levelId=1000&levelId=1000)

However, this is no way suggests that the Connecticut NAACP supports  
NCLB. Like the national NAACP, which signed the Joint Organizational  
Statement on No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act (http://www.fairtest.org/ 
joint%20statement%20civil%20rights%20grps%2010-21-04.html) in  
opposition to NCLB, the Connecticut NAACP is critical of NCLB. "This  
unusual alignment for the civil rights organization . . . does not  
represent full support of the No Child Left Behind Act." (http:// 
www.cccr.org/images/NCLB_PressRelease.pdf) “If you want to get at the  
table, you have to choose a side,” Connecticut NAACP State Conference  
President Scot X. Esdaile said. “On this particular issue—not on all  
the intricacies of the law—we choose to stand on the side of the  
federal government.” (http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/ 
2006/02/08/22conn.h25.html? 
querystring=Connecticut&levelId=1000&levelId=1000)

According to its press release (http://www.cccr.org/images/ 
NCLB_PressRelease.pdf), the Connecticut NAACP feels that "the richest  
state in the nation should be working to help the poorest children  
have the maximum capacity to succeed with qualified teachers and  
other resources." Esdaile said, “The bottom line is, the concerns  
with No Child Left Behind shouldn’t be used as an excuse to not  
provide equity in education to these children, and they deserve a  
seat at the table.”

In supporting the federal government in this case, the Connecticut  
NAACP compromises the civil right of minority children to a free,  
high-quality education in order to forestall any possibility of the  
"unfunded mandate" argument encroaching on other civil rights laws.  
So a civil rights organization, the parent of which is vocally  
opposed to the law, sides with the law in an effort to preserve civil  
rights. But in so doing, violates the civil rights of the children it  
ostensibly serves.

What more evidence could you ask for of the corrosive, caustic  
effects of this perverse law, a law that turns parents against  
teachers, teachers against administrators, administrators against  
state officials, and state officials against the federal government.  
In this case, a civil rights organization ends up compromising its  
own mission and purpose to defend its mission and purpose.

The Connecticut NAACP is justifiably and understandably upset with  
the educational achievement gap and the extent to which minority  
children have been ignored. But how much sense does it make to side  
with the Bush administration, a group of people who willfully neglect  
the relationship between poverty and educational outcomes and who  
concentrate exclusively on school reform in an effort to close the  
gap? As Rothstein, Berliner, et al, have argued, poor children go to  
school poor and come home poor. Nothing that happens at school  
changes this. Yes, these kids can learn. But why not do everything in  
our power to level the playing field so that what happens at school  
is complemented, not offset by, what happens at home? The Connecticut  
NAACP supporting the Bush administration in this lawsuit guarantees  
one thing: the educational achievement gap will remain just as wide  
and will get wider.

In its lawsuit, the state of Connecticut is not whining and evading  
its responsibility. It is simply recognizing that accountability  
applies to everyone, not just teachers and schools.

---
Peter Campbell