Pauline Lipman and Tonya Payne: Making The Case For Democracy
Here's the great Pauline Lipman from UIC, who has been deconstructing the fallacies of the urban ed reform movement here in Chicago for a very long time. Pauline is the epitome of the public intellectual--- she's a scholar of the first order and yet you also see her out there marching with the people impacted by the policies she studies. She's making the case for an elected school board here.
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God forbid Penny Pritzker consider these matters for five minutes. Here are Pauline's remarks, if you want to quote:
Rev. Paul Jakes and Jill Wohl: Chicago Needs An Elected School Board
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God forbid Penny Pritzker consider these matters for five minutes. Here are Pauline's remarks, if you want to quote:
Rev. Paul Jakes and Jill Wohl: Chicago Needs An Elected School Board
Here's the Rev. Paul Jakes talking about the need to for an elected school board here in Chicago. If you listen, you'll hear a theme that runs through a lot of what pro-democracy advocates say: human nature is a thing we're supposed to nourish, encourage and empower. Jakes talks about "elevating young people to be what they innately have been possessed to be." That's a view of human nature and education that is directly in line with the beliefs of the founder of the very school where our mayor sends his own children.
By the way, I agree. We're supposed to be about guiding these young people we serve--we're not supposed to be about measuring, testing, labeling, dividing, dispersing, and disrespecting them--- which is what we currently do, as a result of policy.
In this world we're about to head into, with massively increased testing connected to the Common Core Standards, there's simply no way to cling to any vestige of Jakes' (and Dewey's) optimistic view of human nature--- we're heading into a bureaucratic, data-driven meat grinder for young people. Here's Rev. Jakes.
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Pastor Jakes spoke earlier at the CODE rally inside the church; what he had to say was brutally honest about
Jitu Brown: Tired of Kissing The Ring
By the way, I agree. We're supposed to be about guiding these young people we serve--we're not supposed to be about measuring, testing, labeling, dividing, dispersing, and disrespecting them--- which is what we currently do, as a result of policy.
In this world we're about to head into, with massively increased testing connected to the Common Core Standards, there's simply no way to cling to any vestige of Jakes' (and Dewey's) optimistic view of human nature--- we're heading into a bureaucratic, data-driven meat grinder for young people. Here's Rev. Jakes.
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Pastor Jakes spoke earlier at the CODE rally inside the church; what he had to say was brutally honest about
Jitu Brown: Tired of Kissing The Ring
"We're tired of going and kissing the ring of people who feel no accountability to us and who in many cases look down on us, as if we we're peasants." --Jitu Brown
I have nothing to add to the words of the great Jitu Brown, who explains the situation to an inaudible WGN reporter who seems new to the beat. Mr. Brown would make a heck of a school board president, if we ever get to vote.
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You'll note that a pesky blogger raised the issue of people buying elections there at the end--- it's the great urban argument against democratically elected school boards. One of the big disappointments in my activist life was Miguel del Valle's weak position on this very issue--- he wasn't in favor of letting go of mayoral control, and he talked about how he was worried about the influence of money in school board races. I've often wondered what it would have cost him to take a more democratic stance on the issue-- to advocate for an elected school board