In late April, the Washington Post printed an article titled "Key Initiative Of 'No Child' Under Federal Investigation: Officials Profited From Reading First Program." As you can imagine, that's not a good thing. Now lots of folks have been against NCLB for a long, long time and for a lot of reasons (Alfie Kohn, one of my progressive education super heroes, had a very biting article published in USA Today recently about the evils of NCLB if you would like to review some of the Act's downfalls.), but the focus of this investigation isjust another example our schools and our children being used for profit in the name of education. But perhaps the most frightening aspect of it all is that it is being carried out at the level of the federal government. The highest officials in the land are making decisions that put money before children's education.
As you can imagine, the response to all this hasn't exactly been a welcoming cheer. Just as a taste, some of the comments that came into the WaPo include:
This only confirms what has seemed apparent ever since government started micromanaging education. Here...do this...and to what seems irrelevant to educators as a help, becomes mandatory and all these relatives and friends of the government officials doing the mandating get hired and paid big bucks. Does this help children learn? No. In fact, all the rules insitituted by No Child Left Behind keeps teachers and administrators so busy filling out paperwork that less time on task is actually available. Once again, children are the ones neglected. But..hey! Stick an Ipod in their ear while the teacher fills out the paperwork and call it technical education.
By coolfuzzybreeze | Apr 21, 2007 3:08:13 AM
I cant believe that a program sponsered by this administration has been used to enrich loyal Bushies. This must be some kind of mistake. Its probably just some more liberal propoganda...If you are interested in reading the audit report of Reading First, which kinda got this whole ball rolling, it's available online in both pdf and Word document. And Education Week blogger Alexander Russo did a nice job of summarizing the big points of the hearings, concluding with a pretty telling statement. He said:
By vwallen1007 | Apr 21, 2007 7:25:30 AM
It's still hard to imagine this story breaking through to the political or massive media coverage level, given everything else that's going on. But the comparisons to Gonzalez-gate continue to emerge...It is an extremely valid point. This stuff isn't making the main stream news. And even though the ramifications are huge, we aren't hearing about it. The story istn't talked about, unless you're in the right circles. But it's happening. And the consequences are pretty dire. As quoted in Kathleen Kennedy Manzo's Education Week article,
In an interview after the hearing, Mr. [George] Miller [Rep. D-Calif. & commitee chairman] said: “This hearing made it pretty clear that there was a very incestuous relationship among a small group of people in the Education Department and among contractors. They were very clearly using this program … for profit.”
1 comment:
Hi Kelly - very nice work, so far. This issue is so important. Perhaps one point you may write about too can be how people aren't against alternative education settings for kids and parents to support, within public schooling, but that whether profit has any place whatsoever in educating our kids is what we need to examine. Turning a revenue is yet another dimension of making ends meets in public school education. Give a shout out if you're interested in more info from blogs or other resources on this issue. And good luck with your class!
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