Education and Poverty Commentaries
"Diane Ravitch, perhaps America's most influential scholar on education, has reversed her stance on issues such as standardized testing, school choice and the No Child Left Behind Act."
"Obviously, business interests have a stake in an educated workforce, and it is going to take everyone pulling together to put a dent in problems of chronically low-achieving schools that tend to serve high-poverty and minority students"
"Schools in wealthier communities have resources... While urban school parents are shunned and judged, community factors like poverty and its attendant problems are ignored or discounted as irrelevant."
"We are not arguing that this reform should be expected to overcome the harm caused by insufficient school resources or the ravages of poverty. But we... believe that high-quality schooling opportunities, coupled with the effort of the student, can... affect student success."
"Why is this voucher program not needed? Because we have free public schools. Are low-income children discriminated against in our schools? No. Certainly not on the basis of low income. Then how did such a program with no sensible rationale get started?"
"Florida is all about school choice. We have 389 charter schools and a state-run virtual school. We have private-school scholarships for low-income students and private-school scholarships for students with disabilities."
"But most of that money will be gone by the end of the school year, leaving them as vulnerable as ever to the antiquated system of tying school budgets to property taxes, which automatically puts low-income urban or rural children in a hole."
What Will it Take? Posted February 8th, 2010
All Children Can Achieve, Even if They're Poor