Time for new strategies to create a sustainable vision for American education
Enough debating No Child Left Behind and charter schools, writes guest columnist Rudy Crew. He argues politicians should put forth a sustainable vision that stimulates business, arts, philanthropic and university communities to influence math and literacy skills improvement
Special to The Times
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MORE than 40 years ago, President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society aimed to eliminate the inequities created by poverty and racial injustice. Martin Luther King Jr. and countless others advanced the cause of quality education as the basis for economic prosperity and individual freedom.
Yet today, one-quarter of American eighth-graders cannot perform basic math. Nor can they read at grade level. A poor black or Hispanic boy growing up in Seattle or most any other large American city is more likely to go to jail than college, and many students will be unprepared for the work force.
This time bomb explodes slowly. It produces functionally illiterate people in communities already