Thanksgiving Leftovers: Julian Vasquez Heilig is a Jive Turkey
Recently I was accused of whitewashing because I gave a lecture at the University of Minnesota. The top down, private-control and privatization reformers are getting more creative (or less creative). Here is a blog written by Kenneth Eban at the Citizen Ed (top down, private-control and privatization) website.
Today I was inspired to create a new verb: “Alllivesmattering.”I define it as the act of ignoring a real issue or social problem by critiquing the very movement addressing and solving the issue.For example, the critique of #BlackLivesMatter, a national movement to address the government sanctioned police killings of African Americans across the country, produced the counterproductive #AllLivesMatter.So why did I feel this was important to write about today?It’s because I went to a weird education conversation led by guest speaker Dr. Julian Hellig Vasquez and hosted by my alma mater, the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. It was supposed to be about community-based approaches to reforming schools. I was intrigued. As an education advocate and as someone looking work with local communities to find solutions to close our opportunity gap, these conversations are everything.Now, I’ll cut to the chase: I was sorely disappointed.The entire talk discussion was centered on what is wrong with the education reform movement, not the schools. So instead of illuminating and educating people on the issues that face public education, Vasquez spent his time sharing endless criticisms of education reform. He focused only on analyzing the reform movement instead of addressing the problem that drives the movement in the first place (these schools that aren’t educating kids).In essence, he alllivesmattered education.Listening to Vasquez you would get the idea that public education is under attack, but the system itself is fine. You would think that what needs to be addressed is the education reform movement, not the achievement gap.He talked a lot about how bad standardized testing is, and how Teach For America needs to be fought, but there was no focus on how we Thanksgiving Leftovers: Julian Vasquez Heilig is a Jive Turkey | Cloaking Inequity: