Fwd: Regarding "Expectations" by Katherine Boo

[Rich Gibson <rgibson@pipeline.com>]

> Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 00:55:03 -0800
> To: themail@newyorker.com
> From: Rich Gibson <rgibson@pipeline.com>
> Subject: Regarding "Expectations" by Katherine Boo
>
> Phooey on Boo. Doing school reform without doing social and economic 
> reform in communities is like washing the air on one side of a screen 
> door. It won't work. Boo's article applied the gossip style of reality tv 
> to educational research. Laden with the imperious standpoint of a 
> millionaire school boss, uncritical of the project to regiment what kids 
> know, and how they come to know it, in schools via racist and anti-working 
> class standards and high stakes tests (NCLB), and propelled by the hubris 
> that poor kids need to be repaired more than an educational system which 
> succeeds when it teaches them not to like to learn (how else is the 
> pipeline of humanity to Iraq to be kept open?), we learn nothing at all 
> about why things are as they are, in schools or out, and most surely 
> nothing about what to do about it. Only real solidarity can overcome the 
> alienation that wrecks all of  economically and racially segregated 
> schooling today, and that solidarity is not going to come from the 
> corporations that drive the Denver Superintendent and apparently jockey 
> Boo's mind.
>
> Dr Rich Gibson
> San Diego State University
> College of Education
> 6256 Camino Corto
> San Diego CA 92120
> 619 287 2322