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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (43598)	11/21/2007 1:17:49 AM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 540735

John, re: "Whether we like it or not most public school education is already homogenized. The combination of professional standards, the impact of the national media on local cultures, the desire for upward mobility, etc., makes the local versus national conflict pretty moot. At least at core levels. For most of the country." Yes, I agree. "My concern is the level of funding. Some states do a terrible job of it, particularly with population elements that lack political clout. I would like to see more mandates in terms of the role of education as a bastion of equalizing, however slightly, the opportunity structure." I suspect that the problem with disparate educational opportunities will not be cured with equal funding, even slightly. It certainly won't hurt but most of the urban public schools that are struggling could receive the same level, or even a higher level, of funding and years later I expect they'd remain substantially under performing. I'd guess that many of us suspect that the problems lie much deeper, we just don't want to talk about the potential reasons for those problems because a long history of political correctness has prevented, and still prevents, an objective discussion of the many factors involved. I'm convinced that one of the major obstacles to a more successful outcome rests on the failure of our left-brained educational system to address the needs of those students, many of them minority students, who are right-brained. In our pressing need to see everyone...male/female/black/latino/white/asian/native American... as primarily cookie-cutter kids I believe we do them a great disservice. When dealing with something as important as giving young men and women a leg up on life we should open up our minds and break down any tendencies objectively. When we've done that we should prioritize and search for effective techniques to teach to those whose brains tend to learn a little differently. Until we do that we'll simply be sending ineffective money at a problem that requires new thinking. Or maybe we'll stumble on a key sometime, without really thinking it through. Ed