Fighting for the dream continues
This was my very first blog post, written in 2011, in response to my growing frustrations and fears over NCLB. I had met and spoken with Stephen Krashen, who encouraged me to start blogging, to get my voice of experience out there for others to hear. Although our ongoing battles in education may not compare to the historic (and ongoing) struggles for civil rights, we do know that inequality in the schools contributes a great deal to inequality in opportunities: opportunities for higher education, income, job security, health care, etc. While NCLB may be on its way out, the Common Core and its Smarter Balanced Assessments are on their way in. And so the struggle continues…
Ten years ago [now 13], President George W. Bush, in whose symbolic shadow our children now shiver, signed the No Child Left Behind legislation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of children who had been seared in the flames of educational injustice. It promised a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their inferior education.
But ten years later, many children have indeed been left behind. Ten years later, many children’s minds are still sadly crippled by the manacles of under-funded schools and the chains of standardized tests. Ten years later, many children still live on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. Ten years later, many children still languish in the corners of American schools and find themselves an exile in their own land. And so we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.When the architects of our education system wrote the magnificent words of every state standard and