That Public Education Thing

THE BLACKBOARD JUNGLE

Frontline on PBS last night had an interesting program called Separate and Unequal. It concerns a disturbing trend in public education. This particular program focuses on the East Baton Rouge Parish public school district. Briefly parents whose children go the these public schools want to create a new city called St. George and also create their own school district. The program only last about 28 minutes so I won't recap it. Suffice to say an overwhelming majority of potential citizens of the City of St. George are white and described as affluent.

GEORGIA ON MY MIND

Here is another disturbing educational topic. It's from The New Yorker magazine written by Rachel Aviv, entitled Wrong Answer [I can't guarantee the link]. The reporting concerns the well covered cheating conspiracy of a superintendent, sub-superintendents, principals and teachers in Atlanta. The disturbing part of this article is Rachel Aviv's interpretation of the conspiracy as a kind of the 'devil made me do it". The devil in this case being the No Child Left Behind initiative. I don't know much about these various tests that hold superintendents, principals and teachers accountable for the progress of their students. Yet many of these school officials accepted bonuses and awards. They gave up on students and rationalized an easy way out. Rather than looking at methods to assist high risk students they cheated them.