“Failing Schools” Narrative a Tactic to Privatize Public Education and Destroy Unions
(photo: ChrisM70 / flickr) |
There’s one problem with this scenario – the premise is wrong. An excellent article at Mother Jones takes issue with the idea that American education is all about “failing schools” and lower standards and backsliding on teaching our young people. In fact, Kristina Rizga takes a look at one so-called failing school and finds that, actually, it’s doing pretty well:
At Mission High, the struggling school she’d chosen against the advice of her friends and relatives, Maria earned high grades in math and some days caught herself speaking English even with her Spanish-speaking teachers. By 11th grade, she wrote long papers on complex topics like desegregation and the war in Iraq. She became addicted to winning debates in class, despite her