Crackpot schools - NYPOST.com:
"As long as Mayor Bloomberg is rolling up his sleeves for a brawl over the new teach ers-union contract, it's time for him to take a swing at another problem that's festered too long: the radicalization of New York's public schools.
A growing number of city schools aim to foster resentment and rage among the most uneducated students. Under the guise of 'social justice,' the fomenting of racial and socio-economic grievances has supplanted the teaching of basic skills. The result is an even wider gap in learning between the poorest minorities and other students."
The corruption of the curriculum is getting harder to conceal. In the wake of the ACORN scandals, it's more obviously problematic that ACORN is affiliated with three city schools -- including two in Brooklyn bearing the group's name: ACORN Community HS and the ACORN HS for Social Justice.
Karen Watts, the principal of the ACORN HS for Social Justice in Bushwick, seems sensitive to the group's bad publicity: She says ACORN no longer has any involvement with the school. But that's news to Debra Burgess, the school's parent coordinator -- who told me the school's "philosophy" is based around ACORN: "We do have to follow their philosophy, and their philosophy is 'reform and change.' "
Watts says she's aware of no political advocacy in the classroom. Latasha Farmer, an English teacher who lectures her students about the dangers of standardized testing and gentrification, is more candid. "Politics has always been part of the education system, period," says Farmer, whose school Web page shows a student decorating her classroom door with anti-war slogans.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/crackpot_schools_CiMhuJFndHG6dcsNDfH1ZK#ixzz0YRYG3PP2
"As long as Mayor Bloomberg is rolling up his sleeves for a brawl over the new teach ers-union contract, it's time for him to take a swing at another problem that's festered too long: the radicalization of New York's public schools.
A growing number of city schools aim to foster resentment and rage among the most uneducated students. Under the guise of 'social justice,' the fomenting of racial and socio-economic grievances has supplanted the teaching of basic skills. The result is an even wider gap in learning between the poorest minorities and other students."
The corruption of the curriculum is getting harder to conceal. In the wake of the ACORN scandals, it's more obviously problematic that ACORN is affiliated with three city schools -- including two in Brooklyn bearing the group's name: ACORN Community HS and the ACORN HS for Social Justice.
Karen Watts, the principal of the ACORN HS for Social Justice in Bushwick, seems sensitive to the group's bad publicity: She says ACORN no longer has any involvement with the school. But that's news to Debra Burgess, the school's parent coordinator -- who told me the school's "philosophy" is based around ACORN: "We do have to follow their philosophy, and their philosophy is 'reform and change.' "
Watts says she's aware of no political advocacy in the classroom. Latasha Farmer, an English teacher who lectures her students about the dangers of standardized testing and gentrification, is more candid. "Politics has always been part of the education system, period," says Farmer, whose school Web page shows a student decorating her classroom door with anti-war slogans.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/crackpot_schools_CiMhuJFndHG6dcsNDfH1ZK#ixzz0YRYG3PP2