Am I grossly underinformed or has he missed the point entirely? He fails to link his support of NCLB to his support of vouchers---NCLB does not take a direct route to vouchers. He also fails to mention that the funds that paid for the radio spots also brought former Secretary of Education Rod Paige onto his radio party machine.
Aren't these both big deal issues?
I am hereby adding David Berliner's The Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Fraud, and the Attack on America's Public Schools to my reading list. From what I understand, it outlines how when elected in 1980, Reagan was given the charge to dismantle the US Department of Education. I have not wanted to believe conspiracy theories in the past, but now I wonder.
I am very much pro accountability for our schools, but it seems that NCLB is creating an unwinnable war for my friends and I. Do I think the federal govt is the most effective body to control education? Would I like to see more state control over education? Yes, but must we do so by creating public opinion that we have failed?
I have referenced Jamie Vollmer here before. He is an advocate of public education that has hit all the educrat hotspots in the last few years. He gives some real insight on the way the job of public education has changed and how well we actually do that changing job. I wanted to send you directly to some of his best stuff, but his site does not allow deep linking. Check out the tab on his homepage that outlines "The Burden" and you will see the meat of his argument.
So now this seems to be two entries, Armstrong Williams (which, by the way, has the same number of syllables and therefore the same rhythm as Hong Kong Phooey and makes me want to give him the surname of "Number one super guy") didn't apologize for anything more than having two jobs and he advertised a piece of legislation aimed to slowly cut away at public schools.
I hereby invite Armstrong to my classroom any day he chooses.
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