Cobb

The most complex and deep-seated objections to No Child Left Behind are clearly emanating from teachers and school administrators, who have come under increasing pressure to improve student performance.

OK, that's a false premise only because those on the right who would normally object to federal intervention in local schools, indeed the need for federal interjection in local schools, aren't saying a thing. They aren't praising NCLB and they aren't condemning NCLB. That is damning in and of itself. Isn't it strange that Rush Limbaugh hasn't said much about it? Or, at least, I haven't heard him say much AFTER his complaints that it was enacted with the help of Teddy Kennedy.

Know that I'm with the engineers and scientists and a cadre of professionals which are the largest in the history of African America. We are new to the ranks of the leadership of black Americans.

For those who don't know, so am I.

What works - even at the simplistic black-white level of analysis is to get black kids into white schools.

OK, that just totally discounts the Catholic and other religious schools in urban areas that are mostly Black and are doing a good job in educating Black and minority kids.

Thanks for that one.

As a parent who has put one child through white suburban schools and who is struggling to get a second one through, I have to disagree with you. What works is what Du Bois said many years ago -- sympathetic touch between teacher and student. In modern jargon, that means culturally responsive teaching -- teaching that is based on an understanding of the multiple cultural contexts and learning styles at work in a particular classroom. Here is a good background link on CRT:http://www.intime.uni.edu/multiculture/curriculum/culture/Teaching.htm and here are links to a the work of a teacher-educator/entrepreneur who has been working with school districts across the country to implement and assess CRT programs: http://www.southwestern.edu/~neall and http://ptl-online.com.

Too often, difference is interpreted as a deficit, and that leads to self-fulfilling prophecies in the classroom. Too many schools and teachers lack the flexibility to teach students with the range of experiences and learning styles that today's students bring to the contemporary public school classroom -- even in the burbs. They end up teaching to the bureaucracy's mind-numbing standardized tests, instead of being able to focus on the needs of their children.

I have had to be as much of an advocate for my children as my parents had to be for me and my brother in Philly back in the day. One of the things that was helpful in a school district that I used to live in was that we had an African American parents support group. I no longer have access to that resource where I live now and I miss it tremendously. (Yes, I am working on developing those resources.) But I digress.

My point, quite simply, is that the problems in our schools go beyond the assumptions in your post. The achievement gap exists in suburban schools too, and charter schools and many private schools are failing our kids as well. I left industry to pursue a career in academe because I thought that my business experience would afford me a useful vantage point from which to address some of the problems in my own field in particular. While that experience has been of value, I have learned that the problems are more complex. Of the proposed solutions that I have encountered and experimented with, I find that CRT holds the greatest promise for achieving real progress.

It's ironic that Ed mentions Catholic school because I too attended parochial school, and there is nothing further from CRT than Catholic school. Nothing about anybody's ethnic background is given any sensitivity or respect. The only way you can get any respect is through obedience and by learning the material placed in front of you. In those days, it was certainly permissible for school teachers to issue corporal punishment, and in two years at Holy Name of Jesus School I got something like 70 swats.

It didn't beat the independence or spirit out of me, it made me stronger. It helped me to understand that every freedom has a cost. But it didn't help me learn anything academic whatsoever.

I have been a longtime supporter of Paolo Friere's concepts of education, but I don't think much of what he says applies to children. I think too many primary school teachers are vibing off kids and more of them need to focus on the material to be taught. There are a lot of good reasons for this, and I'll bring them to the top in a discussion about what I believe is an appropriate pedagogy for American kids. But that's not what this particular post was about, rather the extent to which those claiming responsibility for education of the emergent ethnicities and classes are using their influence to be intransigent based on the faulty assumptions that our kids are little versions of us when it comes to what we think about culture and race.

My daughter went to a Catholic school for pre-k thru 8th grade. She had a white nun tell her and her friends that some white people are going to look at their behavior, when it's bad, and slap the "They all act like that" label on them, even if white kids are acting the same way. She had a Black nun take that point and really go to the next level.

I. Was. Floored.

But to bring it back to Cobb's last sentence in his comment, it's not about assuming that kids are like their parents, it's the "wisdom" of their parents and doing what they believe is right to protect their children.

Or so I like to think.

Wisdom comes when you are old enough to have made quite a few mistakes and have learned from those mistakes so that you don't make them again. You know that if you see situation A, last time you reacted by doing B, but you learned that C was better. So next time, situation A comes along and you go for C, instead of B.

Given that the youth aren't joining the NAACP, and the membership is getting older, they are reacting from what they recalled and making the appropriate choices based on that.

Or so I like to think.

OH, I feel a post coming on.