Re: NYTimes Magazine on "What it Takes to Make a Student"

[aburke5054@aol.com]

 The article says, " ... the schools (referring to the crop of innovating schools, such as KIPP schools, that has sprung up) provide evidence that the president is, in his most basic understanding of the problem, entirely right: the achievement gap can be overcome, in a convincing way, for large numbers of poor and minority students, not in generations but in years." This is anything but a "hollow promise" that anti-NCLB ideologues such as Schaeffer.
 
 
 
 Art   
 -----Original Message-----
 From: bobschaeffer@earthlink.net
 To: arn-l@interversity.org; arn2-strategy@yahoogroups.com; ARN-state@yahoogroups.com
 Sent: Mon, 27 Nov 2006 8:57 AM
 Subject: [arn-l] NYTimes Magazine on "What it Takes to Make a Student"
 
 
 The cover story in the Sunday, November 26 New York Times Magazine is a lengthy article about what it would really take to fulfill the hollow promise of "No Child Left Behind." While ideologues of both extremes are sure to find fault with some parts of the analysis, it does provide ample data and food for thought about what is necessary to close achievement gaps. 
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 The article says, " ... the schools (referring to the crop of innovating schools, such as KIPP schools, that has sprung up) provide evidence that the president is, in his most basic understanding of the problem, entirely right: the achievement gap can be overcome, in a convincing way, for large numbers of poor and minority students, not in generations but in years." This is anything but a "hollow promise," no matter how anti-NCLB ideologues such as Schaeffer try to spin it. The article goes on to say that massive investiment is needed. Instead of trying to blindside NCLB with outlandish arguments that is it an "unfunded mandate," or that it is a plot to privatize public education, or that it is a stealth tool by business leaders to create a drone workforce, educators should be pushing their states to make the necessary investments and, equally if not more important, to make the necessary changes. After all, public education is all about kids, right?
 
 Art
 
   
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