Another disappointing Times editorial which shows that Brent Staples lives in a fantasy world, one concocted by Bloomberg and Co. Perhaps instead of saying “Parents Need to Know” he should figure out that he needs to know the truth.
Leonie Haimson
Editorial: Parents Need to Know Published: August 18, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/19/opinion/19thu3.html
Did Brent Staples read the front-page story in the New York Times on August 16, with the headline: "Triumph Fades On Racial Gap in City Schools".."A Blow to Bloomberg"..."After Testing Threshold Is Reset, Latinos and Blacks Fall Back." Did he not read the statement by the statistician in the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics, who said that there had been no narrowing of the racial achievement gap? Guess not.
Diane Ravitch
I spoke to Brent Staples of the Times editorial the day after the meeting. He sought me out. I explained that people just wanted to speak on the issue that there were already five public comment sessions, one each for every other item, that the bylaws allowed us to ask for a vote to open the floor, that waiting until the end of the meeting would have meant 2-3 hours, that the accountability office presentation was never on the agenda in the first place and should have been itself approved by a member vote and that even a vote on my motion was illegally denied. We needed to hear from parents who had been told for years their kids were doing well but now weren't and hear what they thought we should do to meet the needs of their kids. I never thought the PEP chair would act so deliberately to suppress the public voice.
Staples said the parents there "did children no favor". Well, I told my sons the next day that the moms who picked up a bullhorn struck a blow for freedom and for the right of every public school family to be heard and that I was grateful to them for their support.
Perhaps we should just get used to the fact that the wealthy publishers of old media are inextricably bound to the mayor and chancellor and will support him regardless of what law or rules he violates.
No comments:
Post a Comment