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Saturday, January 2, 2016

CURMUDGUCATION: Resolutions for USED

CURMUDGUCATION: Resolutions for USED:
Resolutions for USED


After I earlier took a swipe at Acting Pretend Secretary of Education John King's resolutions for the new year, blogger, author, activist and fellow trombonist Jose Luis Vilson asked me what my resolutions would be, were I the Secretary of Education. It's a fun question, so here we go-- if hell froze over and I were writing the resolutions for the Ed Secretary's office, here's what I would resolve:

That we will do everything possible to see that each community in America has the tools and support it needed to create and maintain the great local school system that it dreamed of.

That means local control, local decision-making, local vision of what the schools should be. Every single community in America is different, and that means that every school is different, with different needs, goals, resources and aspirations. And nobody knows all of those factors better than the people in that community. But not all communities have the resources and support needed to make their dreams real. We will make sure that the USED is there to get them those resources-- and that does not mean giving some corporation a contract to provide what we decide the community needs. We will not tell the community what they need; they will tell us. If that means a lot of corporate interests go hungry, so be it.

We will not be there to tell them what "great" must look like or what goals they must embrace, or else. We will be there to make sure that no school's vision denies basic principles of democracy or 
CURMUDGUCATION: Resolutions for USED: