FSRN and NCLB

[Peter Farruggio <pfarr@cal.berkeley.edu>]

Hey, what's up with the good folks at Free Speech Radio News?  Do 
they not get it about NCLB and the total corruption of education 
reform by the corporate standardistas?

I just heard their news show on KPFA this afternoon.  They did a spot 
on NCLB and Special Education students.  The reporter started off 
with an introduction of "education expert" Dan Soifer of the 
Lexington Institute, and then played a ten second segment of his 
speech about how "critics of NCLB are not correct when they claim 
that Special Ed students' test scores are preventing schools from 
meeting their annual growth targets."  In other words, this spin 
doctor got free rein to spew his propaganda with no explanation from 
the reporter that he represents a right wing think tank.  The whole 
point of the report concerned the congressional hearings about NCLB 
and special needs students and English Learners (didn't hear anything 
about the ELs, though).  It seems that the reporter got snookered by 
the standardista  phony-populist snowjob that we need "equity" for 
Special Ed students and so they shouldn't be separated out from the 
high stakes tests (the bias of low expectations).  Right after 
Soifer, she did a segment on some woman who had been a Special Ed 
student and who had had to fight for her right to be mainstreamed, 
and who eventually earned a PhD and is now advocating for 
"non-segregation" of Special Ed students (I smell the old argument 
for cutting services and "allowing" them to pull themselves up by 
their own bootstraps).  Then for "balance," they heard from US Rep 
Lynn Woolsey, who gave a brief and wimpy statement about the need for 
special services.
At no point was a real education expert presented to explain the 
overall picture of NCLB and special needs kids, and to explain the 
nature of Lexington Institute and their political motivation for 
supporting NCLB.

Sounded to me like FSRN fell for the hype, hook, line, and sinker.

Can somebody enlighten them about NCLB, its phony populist rhetoric 
and its attack on public education?  And don't they know enough about 
Lexington Institute to at least be suspicious???!!!!!

Pete Farruggio