The NYT is famous for quoting from the opposition when writing an article on a subject they don't like. And not telling the reader about it.
Prof. Apple .. is well known for ideological hostility to home schooling.
Black children as cannon fodder
Atlantic Blog
The New York Times carries a piece on the increase in home schooling by blacks.
To help guide black families though home schooling, Joyce Burges and her husband, Eric, started the National Black Home Educators Resource Association in 2000.
Ms. Burges said many black families were unaware that home schooling was a legal option. But she said that she and other blacks who school their children at home had been considered turncoats by people who think they have turned their backs on the struggle by blacks to gain equal access to public education.
Still, she said, when schools are not teaching children to read, or are failing to provide a safe place to learn, the children should come first.
"You do what you have to do that your children get an excellent education," she said. "Don't leave it up to the system."
Professor Apple said improvements in public education depended on the mobilization of parents.
By home schooling, parents are "trying as hard as they possibly can to protect their children," he said.
"For that," he added, "they must be applauded. But, in the long run, protecting their own children may even lead to worse conditions for the vast majority of students who stay in public schools, and that's a horrible dilemma."
Rosa Parks became famous demanding equal access to buses for blacks. Does this mean that blacks can't buy cars, when government supplied bus service is wretched? Blacks fought to end segregation in employment. Are they banned from starting their own businesses?
And it might have been a better article if it mentioned that the Prof. Apple it quotes extensively, Michael Apple of the University of Wisconsin - Madison, is well known for ideological hostility to home schooling. And it might have helped if the reporter had the guts to ask Apple, who is white, why black children should be cannon fodder for his ideological wars.
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