Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES:

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

by Mike Klonsky

"Throw out the [public school] system."

Ann Romney

I've been a First Lady of the State. I have seen what happens to people's lives if they don't get a proper education. And we know the answers to that. The charter schools have provided the answers. The teachers' unions are preventing those things from happening, from bringing real change to our educational system. We need to throw out the system. -- Good Housekeeping

Ben Joravsky

The board members are like the two characters in Waiting for Godot. Only the Godot they're waiting for is Mayor Emanuel to tell them what to do on school closings, high-stakes testing, 

The disease of testing madness revealed in latest Calif. cheating scandal

by Mike Klonsky

The disease that is high-stakes, standardized testing is laid bare in Sunday's L.A. Times article by ed writer,Howard Blume, "State strips 23 schools of API rankings for cheating."

Blume reports that State officials have stripped the schools of a key state ranking for "cheating, other misconduct or mistakes" that in other times or in the eyes of artful, progressive educators might have been taken for -- well, just good teaching. For example, these misdemeanors included  failing to cover bulletin boards and