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March 13, 2008

Whose Funeral?

Maureen Downey fancies herself a great observer of politics in Georgia. If only she'd looked at successful action beyond her state's borders before making ridiculous statements about how legislative efforts to give children more quality schools is somehow killing public education.

"A mausoleum for public education" is what she calls the move in the heretofore backwards state of Georgia to create scholarship opportunities for children who are stuck in failing schools. How about the mausoleum that these under-educated kids-turned-grown-ups really go to, especially those who drop out? Has she seen the statistics on the positive correlation between poor education and poverty, unemployment and incarceration?

Ms Downey clearly hasn't read the statistics about how many at-risk, low-income and minority children are being served better by charters in her own state than in traditional public school systems. Instead, she offers a knee-jerk objection to the new commission created to expedite the expansion of such opportunities, and would rather wait for school boards - who squander resources daily on bureaucracy rather than results to - to do something more about education.

She thinks it's all about money, not system change. Maybe she should ask one of the kids stuck in a system barely that graduates 50% of its students, whether they think the system needs to be changed - and if they want to continue to be stuck in it while the local school boards further contemplates rearranging the deck chairs?

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