tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14707730.post8098842399201432148..comments2024-02-24T19:49:45.687-05:00Comments on Schools Matter: Parent Trigger charlatan Ben Austin booted off The State Bar of CaliforniaJames Hornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04462754705431590571noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14707730.post-27009185387914078762012-09-27T12:43:59.893-04:002012-09-27T12:43:59.893-04:00"Never mind that NCLB's false forms of ac..."Never mind that NCLB's false forms of accountability were never intended to do anything other than make it easy for the neoliberal consensus in Washington to push the corporate agenda."<br /><br />As a parent, I want accountability from the public schools. The NCLB mandated that the standardized tests that students were already taking be disaggregated by ethnicity and learning disability and made public. Making these public verified what many parents of color and parents of learning disabled students already knew intuitively -- that their children were receiving inferior educations, despite patronizing assurances from the school administrators and teachers. This discovery was as validating as when the mandated statistics on driving stops revealed that anecdotes about Driving While Black or Brown were more than just folklore.<br /><br />Our children deserve more than the fingerpointing and guilt-by-association that substitutes for analysis of the education reform political landscape. While it is true that public education is indeed under attack and there are concerted efforts to permanently downsize public infrastructure by right-wing corporate interests, there are also students who cannot wait for public school administrators and teachers unions to fight it out and substantively address the issues that prevent their access to a good, quality education.<br /><br />It's possible that public schools and teachers feel so under attack that they cannot do anything other than attack back. That's a bummer because not addressing the real problems that parents of color and students with learning disabilities face with the public schools is handing a victory to those who want to destroy public education.parent of color, student with LDnoreply@blogger.com