"A child's learning is the function more of the characteristics of his classmates than those of the teacher." James Coleman, 1972

Friday, May 08, 2009

The Three Stooges Go to Washington: No One Is Laughing

(AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
No, no, not Curly, Moe, and Larry--those guys were hilarious.

I am talking about the distinctly not-funny have-beens, Al, Mike, and Newt, who have been serving as front men for the Business Roundtable's hoax they call the Education Equality Project.

The Washington Post was so eager yesterday to print the story about the "post-partisan" pimping for the Gates/Broad urban apartheid education agenda that they posted the news before it even occurred--but then, when your corporate media empire is built on the backs of children bowed by the growing testing burden, you can't be too eager to make sure this effort to universalize urban reform schools across the nation succeeds.

Gingrich and Bloomberg we could have predicted to lead the charge on this U. S. Chamber of Commerce/Civil Rights cause of the 21st Century, but Sharpton?? Everyone knows he is an equal opportunity opportunist, but can a black man who has often spoken eloquently about Civil Rights really lead a march on May 16 that makes a mockery of Brown v Board of Education? When the Supreme Court declared 9-0 fifty-five years ago that separate schools are "inherently unequal." Sharpton yesterday, as reported in the NYTimes blog, The Caucus:
“Fifty-five years after Brown versus the Board of Education, there’s still a difference in how students get up in the morning and go to school,” Mr. Sharpton said. “Some are treated differently. Some are funded differently. Some face different principles [sic], different teachers. There is a difference in the quality of education.”
I would look worried, too, Al. Does Sharpton really believe that his peers and history, alike, will not harshly judge his complicity in the re-institutionalization of apartheid schools, where black children, this time around, are manhandled under a punishing and de-humanizing regimen of behavior control, intellectual sterilization, and cultural castration in cheap corporate charter schools that save the Bloombergs of the world 20% of their education tax bill? Will Sharpton feel the ground move under his feet as Dr. King and all those who died for an integrated and equal society roll en masse in their graves?

No comments:

Post a Comment