Saving public education: the 'Dolly Solution'
This was written by Richard Slettvet, a special education teacher in Washington State. Prior to entering the teaching profession he worked as a U.S. Navy officer and for two Fortune 500 companies. He believes that many school reform advocates in government and industry would have a tough time surviving a single year as a classroom teacher in a public school. By Richard Slettvet I am proposing the Dolly Solution as an alternative to Charter Schools Secretary Arne Duncan’s “Race to the Top” (AKA, Grovel for Lucre) reform initiative, which, if other federal education programs are any guide, is destined to end in a muddle of red tape, unfunded mandates, and unintended consequences. The Dolly Solution refers to Dolly the Sheep, country-music superstar Dolly Parton’s namesake, not to Ms. Parton’s 2002 cover of Led Zepplin’s “Stairway to Heaven.” Dolly the Sheep, you may recall, emerged in 1996 from a surrogate ewe